Health and Human Services Professional Development

Successfully Using Online Networking by   Jill Bowers   on   July 6, 2013   Online networks, such as   Linked In   may be great resources for connecting with potential employers or mentors. You can use online networking as a means of making yourself visible, highlighting your accomplishments and skills. You could also use online networks to do your own research on companies you are interested in working for (e.g., what they are about, what their employers do or say). At the same time, many employers use these online profiles to do their research on you. Thus, you should make sure your profile or information about you is updated, free of typos or grammatical errors, and accurately depicts your interests, goals, and strengths. You should make sure the information on your resume and social networking profile are consistent; if it is not, potential employers may assume you are lying or stretching the truth on your resume. Further, you may want to edit you...

Find a Mentor: Think Out of the Box by   Kimi Crossman   on   July 31, 2013 Still feeling hesitant about identifying a mentor, despite Dr. Sherwood’s encouragement (see  What is a Mentor, and How Do I Find One )? Chew on this statistic: “Professionals who have mentors make between $5,610 and $22, 450 more annually than those on their own.” Thus, having a mentor will not only help you develop your professional identity, but it can also improve your chances of landing that higher-salary job. An advantage of our technological era is that your potential mentor doesn’t have to be within your immediate circle of friends, colleagues, professors, or employers. You don’t even have to limit yourself to creating one mentoring relationship. You can connect with multiple mentors from all around the world through social networking (see  Successfully Using Online Networking ). Read more tips from Aaron Pitman on how to use social media:  How Social Media ...

Are Your Digital Habits Influencing Your Productivity? by   Jill Bowers   on   August 29, 2013   Although modern technology tools can help us to achieve our goals and in an efficient manner, we also need to be cognizant of how much time we are spending on email, Facebook, or site surfing at large. You may want to consider logging the amount of hours you spend online or texting on an average day. It may be surprising to learn how friends’ status updates or text messages are prohibiting you from completing important and even urgent tasks. In his book,   The 4-Hour Work Week ,  Tim Ferris recommended setting aside certain times of day to respond to emails. Following this model, on days or weeks where you need to complete urgent and important tasks to meet your goals, you may want to consider checking in online once in the morning or last thing in the evening and disconnecting from email, Facebook, Twitter, or other online communication tools the rest of ...

Employer-Proofing Your Social Media Profiles by   Jill Bowers   on   November 23, 2013   The number of online articles about personal social media accounts and the research your potential employers are likely doing continues to grow. It seems inevitable that a potential employer is going to attempt to gather information about what you are NOT telling them, so what kind of impression are you making with your online profiles or tweets? True or false? You are generally safe with venting via Twitter because less than half of your followers actually read your tweets, and the chances that your hashtags will go viral are slim.   FALSE  – at least the first part. If you doubt this, ask the high school senior who attended a campus information day in Brunswick, Maine and proceeded to post negative or derogatory comments about others while she was there (see  They Loved Your G.P.A. Then They saw Your Tweets. – NY Times ). Remember that employers can...

Expectations vs Reality of Social Media Experiences By   Jill Bowers   on   March 23, 2014   I saw this YouTube video last year, and I thought it was brilliantly done and wanted to share. The video depicts the expectations and realities of meeting, or rather, reconnecting with a romantic interest via Facebook. Social networking use has been associated with lower levels of social well-being; for example, more social media and smart phone usage has been linked to higher levels of loneliness, social anxiety, and other areas of social-emotional wellness (see examples of research in this area below).Perhaps, having realistic expectations about your social media experiences could prevent feelings of loneliness or s ocial anxiety?! https://youtu.be/UYI1_gPGu7w?list=PL3A3DB46FC00337E6 A few examples of research findings surrounding social media, psychology, and human behavior include: Appelbaum, P., & Kopelman, A. (2014). Social media’s challenges for ...

Expectations vs Reality of Social Media Experiences by   Jill Bowers   on   March 23, 2014   I saw this YouTube video last year, and I thought it was brilliantly done and wanted to share. The video depicts the expectations and realities of meeting, or rather, reconnecting with a romantic interest via Facebook. Social networking use has been associated with lower levels of social well-being; for example, more social media and smart phone usage has been linked to higher levels of loneliness, social anxiety, and other areas of social-emotional wellness (see examples of research in this area below).Perhaps, having realistic expectations about your social media experiences could prevent feelings of loneliness or social anxiety?! https://youtu.be/UYI1_gPGu7w?list=PL3A3DB46FC00337E6 A few examples of research findings surrounding social media, psychology, and human behavior include: Appelbaum, P., & Kopelman, A. (2014). Social media’s challenges for ps...