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7.07.2009

screw business casual.

In an earlier post I mentioned that you need to find out what you want to do in the big bad real world based on your passions. Going further than that, for lack of a better phrase, you need to embrace YOU. Rainbows and butterflies mentality aside, this corny thought is truer than I ever realized. When you're marketing yourself in your cover letter and resume, make your personality ooze from the words on the page...or show your 12-inch voice nature.

Either way, you don't want to pretend you're something else just to fit into a company for the interview process because you want a job so badly, the market sucks, and you're so desperate. News flash: once you've fake-charmed your way into that cubicle you like to call quaint but is really just made for a midget (sorry, little person), your real self will have to pretend to be your on-paper-just-to-get-a-job-self. Gross.

In season two of FRIENDS, Monica is out of work (she's a chef) and stoops so low as to apply for/test out a job making "mocolate," a completely synthetic chocolate substitute, the official dessert of Thanksgiving. Joey also asks if she would cook naked because if she would cook naked, maybe she would dance naked. The second example is a little more far fetched, but the moral of the story is that no self-respecting chef would actually thrive in an environment that promoted the anti-food category. For me, naked anything is a no-go also...but hey, if you're into that... whatever. BOTTOM LINE: No one should sacrifice what they value when looking for a job no matter how desperate they are. Again, gross.

Here's my self-indulgent personal example for you. I love creativity, I'm not a huge fan of business casual, and I don't see myself co-mingling for 55 year old men in a stuffy corporate office on a daily basis. I'm a very blunt person. I don't believe in not speaking up just because I'm at the bottom of the totem poll. I looked for jobs that would accept all of this about me. I was lucky enough to find a craigslist post for a company that fit the environment and personality types that I was looking for. I decided to go all out in my cover letter because honestly, what did I have to lose? I'm now proud to say that I'm the newest member of the Gawker Media team as a marketing assistant. And you're not.

Major perks - suits and stockings are not mandatory to avoid awkward glares for inappropriate work attire and Facebook stalking for a few minutes to give your brain a break won't get you fired. Creative thinking, collaboration, and never-been-done-before ideas are valued and are integral to success. Everyone is genuinely happy to be at work each day because they we enjoy the work and each other's company.

My slightly easier to execute tip is to make yourself shine in your cover letter by making the company sound like it can be that much better (than it already is, of course) with your skills working to benefit it. Avoid me-me-me-I-I-I in every single sentence. If you have to use it, pair it with a "to improve you/your" type of phrase. And as the Newhouse career center always says, "show don't tell."

My self-portrait in cover letter form:

Dear Gawkers,

You had me at “intrepid soul.” Attackers of Gawker’s media, gossip and pop culture coverage deem it unscrupulous, but I like to call it delectable deets of celebrity dish (apologies for such extreme alliteration and Gossip Girl vernacular). As a creative advertising major, recently graduated from the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University, I thrive on twisting words into clever combinations for the art of promotional persuasion. My education, internship, and sorority experiences have given me opportunities to convert my snarky mental and verbal commentary into lyrical copywriting, drawing a striking resemblance to the appealing attitude embodied by Gawker Media.

At Newhouse my passion for all things media was supported and proved useful in writing print advertising copy for a variety of commercial products and in a paper where I referred to VH1’s The Fabulous Life show without receiving a failing grade. With the NBC Agency, I wrote print advertising copy that matched the exciting pop culture content it was promoting. As PR Director for the Syracuse University Panhellenic Council, which governs the feisty group of gossiping sorority girls that resembles a microcosm of famous personalities covered by Gawker, I observed and helped control the Kim Kardashians and Lindsay Lohans of Syracuse Greek life.

I follow media, gossip and pop culture happenings on many news websites, but the style of writing Gawker uses to market that information has most profoundly affected my own writing style on those topics. Being a part of the Gawker Media machine to pump out the aforementioned news to the evolving digital media universe on the “full-steam-ahead advertising sales ship” would be quite the experience. I look forward to hearing from you about whether I can hop on that ship.

Thank you for your time and attention.

Intrepidly,
Samantha Ortega

Check out the Gawker Media sites and experience the often saucy tone that inspired my cover letter voice.
Gawker
Jezebel
Gizmodo
Lifehacker
Deadspin
Jalopnik
Kotaku
io9

6.03.2009

great personalities...i like the font choice too.



Some examples of word marks I designed for friends' resumes at Syracuse. I gave them the same mini questionnaire from the post below and this is what we came up with. I'm pretty sure Alexis, Ally and Jaime are still using these. The one with the green "O" is my old one and the swirly purple "g" is my new one. Another point - fun with color is allowed!

font choice defining personality.




Clearly I'm a fan of welovetypography.com (wlt) as established by the random insertion of images with type throughout this blog, not to mention showing that I actually find fonts for fun.

Love of fonts is a curse and a gift.

Writing surrounds us and therefore different font choices made by someone who thinks they know what looks good. Sometimes they do and its a great joy to recognize that font on that random billboard as being Helvetica Neue, but the spotting of a font used from the standard Microsoft Office set can be pure torture.

Being skilled with font knowledge is a gift because it helps me define myself, other people, companies by their logo design, etc. For examples, I'm a sans serif, all lowercase kind of girl. The occasional pairing of all caps sans serif with all lowercase slab or regular serif can be fun to. In colloquial terms, it means i'm contemporary/modern, sometimes more casual, and (I like to think) sleek.

What are you? Gut impulses here only, please.
Sans serif? (without the little tails on the letters, i.e. Helvetica)
Serif? (with the little tails, i.e. Times New Roman)
Slab Serif? (I really can't think of a common slab in the Microsoft Office font library)

Lowercase?
Uppercase?
Combo lower/upper?
Sentence case?

One of my favorite fonts - Filosofia Unicase. It's on my resume, mmm.

6.01.2009

praise in the form of criticism.

NY Times article - "The 31-Year-Old in Charge of Dismantling G.M."

In summary, this article is about Brian Deese, the man appointed to restructuring G.M. following its unavoidable bankruptcy status. The content of the article actually does give some props to Deese's for his political resume once you get past the headline and opening paragraph. But that's the problem - so many people don't get past the intro to articles. They just want to gist of the story before they move onto the next title in the overabundant list of news they're challenged to sift through on a daily basis.

People need to realize that sometimes age really doesn't matter. If this guy has the chops to do the job, give his Ivy league brain some room to spin its wheels before you criticize. I enjoy the NYT, but I hate when news media forces a mindset in their presentation of information... of course I'm all for mindset manipulation in the world of advertising! But back to Deese...

One last point: People criticized Obama in the beginning of his administration for preaching about "change" and then having oldies but goodies re-enter the White House as part of his team. Where's the praise now critics?? This is change for a White House administration - a young guy with a whole lot of responsibility. Ok, so he's still a white male with power in the United States, but at least he's not balding.

So in my criticism of the New York Times, I'm really saying GOOD LUCK MR. DEESE!

what do you want to do? i...well...um...

College is supposed to prepare you for your career. There are two problems with this: most people have no idea what they want their career to be in college and knowing what you want to do involves knowing who you are. As a recent college graduate (again, self-indulgent shout out: creative ad major, Newhouse School, Syracuse University) I can say that the aforementioned expectation is a little backwards. My perception is that college helps you define who you are in order to figure out your career. Those cherished four years are the ultimate opportunity to explore all your interests through classes and extracurricular activities. College should be every student's experimental arena to screw up or succeed as much as possible, as long as they discover something about themselves.

My dad always told me that you have to have a passion in life. As I got older, he explained that it would be a logical move (and he knows how much I love logic) to find a career that incorporates that passion. Even though my dad never said anything remotely alluding to this, I thought a person's passion had to be something morally admirable, skillfully substantial...or something along those lines.

It took going through college to come to terms with my passion: entertainment & pop culture. Of course this is a fancy way to say that I love TV, celebrity gossip, and glossy magazines. What's wrong with that? NOTHING. Newhouse helped me realize that I could apply a universally praised skill - writing - to pursue that passion.

I thought I wanted to be an art director in an ad agency when I went into college, so I majored in creative advertising. I kept telling myself that I was following in my mom's footsteps of being a graphic designer (ruzowgraphics.com) because I so thoroughly enjoyed looking at graphic design websites and discussing captivating visuals with her. Newhouse classes got me to write and think creatively, constantly challenging me to come up with the next best thing. I became obsessed with individual words and typography, brand identity and strategic planning. My friends have heard me say that word choice is SO paramount to a person's ability to communicate. I'll say it again and put emphasis on MY word choice: I was and am obsessed with words.

I'll be honest - I still can't perfectly define my career path in terms of a job title. What I can do is tell anyone the elements of my dream job and cross my fingers that they know what the hell I'm talking about.

• writing in a promotional capacity - whether it's articles, ad headlines, tweeting, or packaging copy.
• involvement in event coordination and/or promotion - creative organization of some capacity.
• in or about the entertainment industry, with necessary knowledge of pop culture.

The bottom line is that I think I am prepared to be an effective wordsmith in the art of promotional persuasion.

Now that you know what I want to do, think about yourself. What is something you enjoy doing on an everyday basis? What are the topics of articles that pique your interest? What can you talk about for hours on end? What was the class that induced a bored drool in most students but that kept you on your toes during every lecture? WHAT DO YOU LOVE?

Ok, now take that love and apply a skill to it. Writing/speaking/math/analyis/organization/whatever. There are so many jobs out there that you would never think exist. You'll be surprised at what you can find within your passion. I have a friend whose curiosity is one of the things I admire about her because she raises so many questions on a daily basis. She constantly asks things like "who do you think is responsible for doing THAT?" when she finds something that is new and interesting. Maybe next time, you can be the answer to her question.

I wish I had some links to help you find your passion, but unfortunately this one is on YOU. (no pressure.)

P.S. I include images at the end of each post because of another passion - design - that I learned in college that I wanted to save for my personal satisfaction. Today I'll include a video ABOUT design and a fun font find.

Graphic Design: The Forgotten Web Standard - Slides in 3 Minutes from Carsonified on Vimeo.



fun font find - whitney.

5.30.2009

links as promised - about tweeting & twitter

list similar to mine by paulgillin.com

adage's 25 media people you should follow on twitter

ogilvy entertainment blog

new york times

cnet news

adweek

get over your confusion and get on twitter.

It's pretty amusing that Twitter has actually been around for a few (I think two?) years now but in the past three months, its popularity and notoriety has skyrocketed - and surprisingly Oprah was LATE in the game to endorse this social media craze. Now a regular tweeter, I really don't understand why people are so against using Twitter. No one my age was skeptical to sign up for Facebook, but now I have friends hesitant about posting their daily activities, thoughts and whatnot on a list. News flash: People can stalk you a million times better on Facebook than on Twitter unless you're stupid enough to say...

@idiot starbucks in 30 Rock at 4:17pm reading a book on self help.

There are no incriminating pictures, extended bios, birthdays, email addresses, or anything like that on Twitter. Sure, people post pictures with apps like TwitPic, but they're not being tagged with your name for companies to find you taking a tequila shot before your 21st birthday. You can even set your account so that people have to request to "follow" you, kind of like friending.

Ok, hopefully the safe-factor has been established. If you're on Twitter, before beneficial functionality is addressed, you might have some questions about general functionality. Like what the hell does RT mean? Here is some Twitter etiquette...

• If you want to reply to or reference a Twitter user, write @username
• RT means retweet, aka copying and pasting someone else's post and giving them credit. Example:

• Twitter trend topics are on the right bar and these are the most referenced words, phrases, etc. If you click them, you can see the list of all Twitter users posts including that word or phrase. To be perfectly honest, I haven't explored the topic of Twitter trends... save that for another post.

But why use it if you're not a business? How can Twitter benefit you personally? Below is a brief list of the benefits I see. In another post I'll include some helpful, entertaining and interesting articles for you to peruse (the links I was inserting weren't showing up). Before I get my list started, here is a blurb from the Ogilvy Entertainment blog (www.ogilvyentertainmentblog.com, @OE_TWEED) article illustrating the spectrum of tweetable uses.

"...Twitter is a marketing opportunity not to be easily overlooked. You can follow our president (“Barack Obama”), stay in tune with your favorite artists or simply tell your friends what you ate for breakfast. But Twitter is bigger and encroaching into unforeseen territory. It is headlining our news and beating out traditional reporters through its nimbleness – The Victorian Brushfires, Hudson River plane crash and the Mumbai attacks were all reported on Twitter. Doctors are using Twitter to share information about major medical procedures and companies are tapping into this source to do better business. (Check out the latest article from the NYT.)"


TWITTER'S GREATNESS IN A NUTSHELL:

1. EFFICIENCY - Unfortunately there are only 24 hours in the day to squeeze in eating, sleeping, work, maintaining friendships, following news, running errands, etc. Twitter consolidates your news headlines and friend updates (without stupid quiz results like Facebook's news feed). More on that later in the list. The short-form blog format allows you to follow the thoughts, happenings and news of a lot more people and sources than following 25 blogs (like this one). Who has the time to read this??

2. REESTABLISHING WRITING SKILLS - Some fear that my generation, and those younger than us, are losing the ability to write in a smart, effective, and grammatically correct way. I can't say that Twitter helps grammar, but the 140 character limit of each tweet makes you think about how to most concisely and accurately convey your intended message. This requires more creative thinking than one might expect.

3. NEWS SOURCE - Forget picking up a copy of the NYTimes and Wall Street Journal to stay on top of everything. Ignore the links to those same websites in your favorites bar in Safari or Firefox. Browse the headlines of the publications you depend on in a consolidated list and save time. I used to be awful about following current events, but if my eye catches a CNN post while I'm checking up on what my friends are doing, I am much more likely to click and read.

4. PROMOTION TOOL - Businesses aren't the only ones using Twitter for promotional purposes. Post websites that your family and friends have been working on. This has been especially useful as a recent grad. I post links to my friends' portfolio websites all the time because you never know who is following someone who is following someone on Twitter that could land you a job...did that make sense? (knows someone who knows somoeone...) Also in the promotional sense, it's a reference tool. Yesterday Twitter users everywhere would post #followfriday followed by a list of people they suggest you follow. It's a personal endorsement.

5. ARCHIVE GOOD INFO - Use the favorites tool to maintain a list of Tweets that interested you. That's how I collected the links I'm about to share with you.

That's a wrap on my opinion.

FOLLOW @TWEETREPORT FOR TWITTER ADVICE, NEWS, ETC.

And just to end things on a less serious note...here's my fun find from welovetypography.com today!

compliments of welovetypography.com



Preview for today's post: how to use Twitter Part One - just a general synopsis with some helpful links.
Later on (I'll separate them so I don't bore you about Twitter too much) I'll post Twitter Part Deux - how to use Twitter to find a job. You'd think I should switch them, but basic knowledge might be more important than specific use.

5.29.2009

an analogy to start things off.

Welcome.

People initially reading this blog are most likely my friends and family who I bombarded with the link and interrogated about the content, so the following information might not be necessary... but you'll read it anyway.

I graduated in May from the Newhouse School at Syracuse University (completely irrelevant to my analogy) where I was heavily involved with Greek life. Sorority girls are often mocked and essentially looked at as an enormous joke of a bimbo crowd. If you ever say anything like this to me about sororities, a full on debate will ensue so I suggest you lay off that topic. Anyway, being a sorority girl was actually very beneficial to me in college. As a member of Alpha Xi Delta, I served two terms on the Panhellenic Council which, to quote myself, "governs the feisty group of gossiping sorority girls that resembles a microcosm of famous personalities covered by Gawker."

In my second term on Panhel I helped organize recruitment (aka "rush" to anyone who watches Greek on ABC Family) where I repeated the same shtick (below) to the majority of the 750 anxious freshmen girls who went through the process:
Each sorority knows themselves better than you know them. If they think you will or won't belong in their house, they probably know best. You have to trust the system that you'll end up in the right sorority if you're realistic and act like yourself. Don't base your decision on campus stereotypes.

Now I apply that to the job hunting process. Some friends laugh, some friends roll their eyes because they think I really need to get over sorority stuff already. Here it is for you:
Each company knows their culture and dynamic better than you, regardless of how much research you've done on them. If they think you'll mesh well with the current employees and that you have the necessary capabilities to fulfill the required responsibilities, they're probably right. Instill a certain amount of trust in their confidence of your abilities. If you're honest with every company and show your personality in interviews, the job hunting system should work out eventually. Don't base your decision on only the brand image of the company. If it's tiny and you didn't know about it before, that's ok! It may be a better fit for you then a Fortune 500 company.

Alright, I'm done ranting for now. I really just came up with that analogy to make myself feel better about the whole graduating without a job thing. Hopefully it will make you feel better too... or else you'll just laugh and roll your eyes.