A recent graduate finds hope in Social Signal’s social media career advice

October 20, 2009

We were delighted to see that Tamsyn Burgmann’s article on social media career opportunities — featuring Alex, Channing and TheBigWild.org‘s Theo Lamb —  ran in the Toronto Star yesterday. And we were even more delighted to get this lovely message from a Toronto Star reader Rhea Claus:

After coming across an article mentioning your company on the Toronto Star website this morning, after my own mother called me regarding said article and after finding an actual tangible copy of it on my streetcar I just had to google.

Much of my social circle, myself included, are finding ourselves in a rather frustrating position. We are recent or imminent graduates with degrees in communications, marketing, poli sci business etc. entering the ‘real world’ with high hopes of landing a job, dare I say a reasonable expectation. Unfortunately we find that lack of experience leads to little respect, little opportunity and little faith among potential future employers. Here we are shouting ‘mold me to your will, tell me how you want the job done, let me work for 30 grand a year’ and, nothing. After a good friend of mine was offered the job of a woman she had previously interned for, at a 40,000$/yr decrease in pay, naturally, optimism reached an all time low.

That is until I came across the aforementioned article. Having already texted, facebooked and emailed it around I’ve received responses ranging from ‘win’ to ‘there is hope’ to ‘i totally though of this at the bar last week’. I begin to find myself more optimistic that there is a niche for us and perusing your website has confirmed this. So thank you Social Signal, for instilling hope in facebook addicted generation y’ers.

To Rhea and friends, yes, there is hope! You have knowledge, skils and relationships that many organizations are dying for. And the fact that you recognize it’s not just about what you bring to the table, but what you need to learn (that’s the part where you get molded to someone else’s will — though gosh, that makes it sound painful) makes you all the more valuable.

And to all you folks waiting for someone in your organization to “get” social media so that they can make the magic happen: stop waiting. For $30k, scoop Rhea or one of her buddies up today!