First things first, are you wearing a cute “Casual Friday” outfit today? Take a picture and send it to me for an upcoming Workplace Fashion post!

Details here.

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I meant to get this post up yesterday but never got time! How people manage to blog multiple times a day, I’ll never know.

Anyways, before I move onto the main topic of this post, I want to share the amazing salad I had on Wednesday night. It had cherry tomatoes on it that I grew myself!

This summer I managed to successfully keep alive a strawberry plant and a tomato plant. This is a HUGE feat for me. I think that next summer I will attempt a full garden! OK, 1/2 a garden…

I didn’t get a ton of tomatoes off my little plant, but it was enough to complete my salad for dinner!

OK, moving onto todays topics.

Wednesdays

I’ve briefly mentioned before that I work a semi-full-time schedule. I work 30 hours a week, and four days a week, in the office. I’ve chosen to take Wednesdays as my day off because it breaks up the week nicely but occasionally I will take Monday or Friday off instead so I can have a long weekend.

Contrary to popular belief, I do not sleep-in and have restful relaxing days lying around reading and napping and blogging. But boy, that would be nice! I am always up by 5 or 6 am to get my medium-long run in and then I usually spend anywhere from 5-10 hours working on freelance articles and projects. This is what my Saturdays look like as well, minus the running.

I need the extra income that comes from freelance projects, so doing extra work on those days is not an option for me, it’s necessary.

The other day I posted about having trouble relaxing at night because I tend to spend most of the evening on my computer. Even though I don’t consider blogging and everything that goes along with it – social networking/emailing/reading and commenting on blogs – to be work, it tends to tie in so closely with my freelance projects that it can be difficult to distinguish the two. For example, I took a break from writing a freelance article to write this blog post. See what I mean?

To be honest, I do some kind of “work” 6-7 days per week most weeks. Whether it’s for 1/2 hour or 8 hours.

Good thing I enjoy what I do!

Any other freelancers out there? How do you find a balance between “days off” and “work-at-home days”? And anyone else grow veggies (or attempt to) in your backyard or on your patio summer?

How many of you have already Tweeted and/or checked Facebook today? I know I have! Between Facebook, Twitter, Blogging – and now the Dailymile, which I just joined this weekend (friend me) – I spend a huge chunk of my free time on social media sites and I love every minute of it!

Well, for today’s featured career let me introduce Jess from Run Girl Run who works with social media for a living. How cool is that!?!

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1. What exactly is your job and job title?

My official job title is Consumer Information Specialist, which doesn’t say much about what I actually do. I tell people that my job is actually Social Media Specialist. Basically what I do is develop and manage social media strategies for my organization and then maintain and update whatever channels we use (could be Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.). The main purpose of my job is to fill a marketing/public relations role. It’s creating ways to raise awareness about the services we offer and then executing the strategies and determining our return on investment.

2. Working with social media seems pretty fun, is it?

Yes it’s so much fun, but it’s also work. A lot of my friends think I just play on Facebook all day long, but what I do isn’t really playing. I do a lot of community building on the various social sites. I post content that I hope will spark discussion and interaction with our followers. It’s really fun seeing what information people rallying around and share their opinion about.

3. Most people use social media as a hobby (or an obsession) but it’s a major part of your job! Does that make it less fun for you to use on your own time?

Surprisingly, no. I come home from work and update my own social profiles all the time. When Facebook first came out when I was in college, my friends used to jokingly call me a “Facebook stalker” because I was on Facebook constantly, looking at pictures, seeing what my friends were up to, etc. I have found it really important to keep a clear divide between my personal social channels and my work social channels. Because where I work doesn’t deal with crisis communication, it’s easy for me to unplug when I get home, so I rarely update my work profiles on the weekends.

(P.S. If you’re interested, feel free to follow me on Twitter @run_girl_run or connect with me on LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/jessicamilcetich )

4. What is your favourite part about your job? Least favourite?

My favorite part of the job other than “playing” on social media sites all day is my schedule. My office offers an alternate work plan, so I work longer hours most days and then have every other Monday off. I also have the ability to telework once a week. My least favorite part about my job is the commute. I take the Metro to work and sometimes it can be really fickle. On a good day, it only takes me about 35 minutes or so to into the office. On a bad day it can take me an hour and a half.

5. What’s a typical day in your work life like?

In a very general sense, a typical day starts with monitoring any chatter about our organization that happened overnight and when necessary responding or supplying additional information. Then I usually try to see what new information we have available and how I could best share that. Some information is better suited for our Facebook page, other information lends itself more to a blog post.

I’m constantly trying to work on new ways to reach a larger audience so I do a lot of research on the newest tools and the newest ways of thinking about using social media. I also work as a consultant for other people in my organization who want to branch into social media. Right now I’m helping some coworkers develop a strategy to market one of their products and I’m also managing a YouTube video contest with a prize of $2,500 for the winner.
6. Lot’s of people are trying to get into working with social media these days. Any advice for them?

My biggest piece of advice is to put together a plan and present it to your supervisor. Show them how social media will benefit them. Maybe it’s something they haven’t considered or maybe they just aren’t sure where to start. By taking that little bit of initiative, you might be able to convince your boss it’s worth a try.

Tell them you’ll run it as a pilot program, something that can be canceled if it doesn’t work. And make sure they know you won’t neglect your other duties to work on social media. The more low risk you make it for them, the better chance they’ll agree to let you give it a shot.

If you have more specific questions or need some other social media advice, I’d be happy to do my best to help. Shoot me an e-mail anytime: jessica@jessicamilcetich.com

Thanks again, Jess!

I for one found her answers fascinating! Isn’t it crazy how our world has changed so quickly, five or ten years ago jobs like Jess’ literally did not exist. The other day my friend said to me, “Amber, did you see the link I shared on your wall?” and someone else said, “You know, a few years ago that sentence would have made absolutely no sense!” Hahaha, so true!

Anyone else out there have a job in social media? If the opportunity arose is it something you’d be interested in (I know I would be!)?

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It’s the digital age; cell phones, computers, social media and email are ruling the world. Everything is going online; including the traditional way of finding a job.

Picture looking for a job 20 – even 10 – years ago. You go around to businesses in town and drop off your PAPER resume. But is that the way of the past now?

Today, “modern” job seekers are using the advantages of social networking to find kick-ass jobs. And it seems to be working for them.

I found this post on Ms. Career Girl really interesting. It’s about Yifei Shang, a college dropout who is using a website to try and land a career at HubSpot; HeyHubSpot is a marketing blog where Shang attempts to get HubSpot’s attention and – ultimately – land a job there.

Obviously, not everyone is that extreme in their job search; especially if they don’t have a particular company that they want to work for nailed down. But, people are using other means more often now. Twitter, LinkedIn, Brazen Careerist (all those link to my profiles on those sites if you want to follow, connect or friend me) are all becoming popular sites to find jobs on. You can follow job boards on twitter, you can connect with potential employers on Brazen Careerist and LinkedIn. They are great networking tools.

Then there’s the infamous Jamie Varon’s website; Twitter should hire me, which she ended in April 2009 after landing a lunch meeting at Twitter and being featured in CNN. Talk about getting a lot of exposure, right?

For example, I’ve recently created a professional website for myself (which isn’t nearly as fancy as either of the other two that I just linked you to) and I’m experimenting with it. So far, when applying for freelance contracts, it’s way easier to just point people to the portfolio page of the website rather than attach all my clippings to the email. It seems to be working well so far for my needs. But it’s certainly not as “modern” or as “ballsy” as creating a website directed at the specific company that I want to hire me.

So, for those of you who are interested in using modern ways to find a job, but aren’t quite ready to go as far as the previous two examples. Here are some tips found in these two articles:

• If using LinkedIn, make sure you have an up-to-date and professional looking profile
• Use Tweetdeck to search specific topics and when someone tweets on that topic, you will get a notification
• Create a resume that can be sent by email, posted and searched online

So, what do you guys think of these “modern” ways of finding a job? Good or bad? And tell me, what’s the most ballsy thing you’ve ever done to land a job? Discuss.