Week #14- Article #2

This week I read another article that my professor wrote, this one was also about Artificial Intelligence. In this article he says his goal was to find evidence that AI wasn't going to be a big thing in the upcoming years, but he says he couldn't really find anything. In the accounting/finance world, he says the short/medium term outlook for them is okay. but the medium/long term outlook is down. He says that no one can say when or how soon, but there is a lot of evidence that AI is going to take over at a certain time in the future. 

The next are he looked at was Business Analytics/ Marketing. He says that the short-medium term outlook was excellent and that the medium- long term outlook was excellent as well. Business analytics is a fast growing area continuously year after year. On LinkedIn's list of top skills that people get hired for in 2017, it said that in the top 10 there was; Statistical Analysis and Data mining, and data presentation. The risk for automation of these jobs is still there, but not as greatly as it was in finance. 

The third are he looked at was Entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurs help to create jobs for people. 

But the nation is still trying to recover from that huge recession that happened a couple of years ago and this makes it hard for creating new jobs. Small businesses have been the most powerful generator of new jobs. He adds in that a survey from Bentley University says that millennials feel that career success will require them to be more entrepreneurial. Then he says, "as a society, we should do everything we possibly can to empower every young person to learn about entrepreneurship, including opportunities to take classes, participate in workshops and get support from business mentors." 

The last area that he talks about is Human Resources/Management. The short-medium term outlook for this is okay and the medium-long term outlook is also okay. The whole point of HR is to have human contact, but he says that there are aspects of HR work that can be automated. 

There is going to be a constant demand for Business Analytics and Digital Marketing. But society needs to prepare themselves for artificial intelligence in their area of work. He has another article that is super informative about artificial intelligence as well. 

Week #14- Article #1- AI

This week I read an article that our professor wrote about Artificial Intelligence, AI. He has been doing research for the past year about it and has gotten some very interesting things that he shared in his article. He gives us three perspectives on how to look at AI. He wants us to adapt to at least one of the three perspectives, they are:

1. Adapt (good): this is where we need to learn more and keep up with the news of AI.

2. Adopt (better): this is where we need to adopt AI and be involved in the management side of AI

3. Adept (best): this is where we need to get directly involved with AI, learn coding and how to work with it. 

I think these perspectives are great because if you don't adapt to AI, you could be blindsided when you happen to lose a job to robots. Crazy things are happening with this and they are happening quickly. He says in his article that within this past year of getting research, so many things have already changed. 

I happen to have a part-time job right now that could be taken over by machines any day now. I am a bank teller, and fortunately enough for me, at the bank that I work at, we haven't switched over to the many new technological advances that have come out, like some other banks have. Usually at a drive-thru at banks now, you don't see the tellers inside anymore. They have a camera outside and it shows you a teller on the other side of it, and they are helping you with your transaction. But they are not the same tellers that are inside of the bank. I'm not completely sure of how it works yet, because the bank that I work at hasn't had this problem yet. 

The other thing that is happening is that they are starting to get rid of tellers all together and they are having people become, Universal Bankers. This really means that a person is a teller and a personal banker. This isn't so much of an AI issue, but it is still a real issue for me. I am not a universal banker, I'm just a part-time teller, so this could really be a problem in the upcoming years. As long as I stay educated about AI like he says to do, then I should be okay for a while. 

Week #13- What Color is Your Parachute- Ch. 11

This week we had to read Chapter 11 of What Color is Your Parachute. It is about the five ways to choose/change your careers. The first way is the Internet. He gives a website that you can go to which shows careers classified in different ways, like what is in demand and largest number of openings. The second way is tests. Which means instruments or assessments. He says he doesn't know how well it will help you decide on a new career, but they will help you to learn different things about yourself to kind of help guide you in the right direction. The third way is using the flower exercise that we've talked about before. There are seven petals of a flower and they all mean something different. He goes through the details of the flower exercise in Chapters 8 and 9. The fourth way is changing a career in two steps. He says you have to change your title or your field, one at a time. Its hard to change both at one time because you probably won't end up getting the job. The fifth one is finding out what the job market needs. You can Google a list of "hot jobs" and that will give you a list of jobs that are in need right now. All of these tips will help you to find a job nice and quick. If not find a job at least get interviews and get your resume out there!

This is the website that he mentions in the first way to change your careers.

Week #12- Hootsuite Certification

For this class, Social Media Marketing, we have to get a Hootsuite certification. That's a plus side of this class, we take it and learn a ton of stuff about digital marketing and we come out of it with a certification!

To get this certification, first, you have to pay $99.00, but since we are in college, we got it for free :) But after that you have take a test and get at least a 65% on the test to get the certification. There are a bunch of different reviews and things to help you understand the material that will be on the certification exam.

This is part of the courses that you can go over to prepare you for the certification exam. You can take the certification exam as many times as you'd like, but you only need a 65% to pass it. 

Week #12- What Color is Your Parachute- Ch. 10

This week I read Chapter 10 of What Color is Your Parachute and it was about our handicaps. This means anything we think that will hinder us from getting a job. Things such as: I'm not pretty enough, I'm too fat, or I'm ugly. Stupid things like that, that actually don't matter when we are applying for a job. Bolles actually says, "If all this were true, there would be only three weeks in our life when we are employable!" He goes on to say that we are all handicapped. No one isn't. We all have those insecurities about ourselves. He says most of us think about reasons why employers won't hire us instead of thinking about the positives and why an employer would hire us.

A way that we can try to help us think about the positives is by creating a chart. On one side of the chart you put skills you do have and then on the other side of the chart put skills you don't have. And find a list of transferable skills from somewhere. There is a list of them in this book in Chapter 8. Once you're done creating the list of skills that you can do, pick out 5 of your favorites and then write down a time when you performed this skill. This will help you to focus on the positive and the things that you're good at.

Another handicap that he talks about is shyness. He says if you are a shy person than you need to go after a job that you are enthusiastic about and you are curious about. This will help you to become less shy. Most employers like you to stand out above the rest, so if you don't because you're too shy, this could be a big problem for you. So that's why you need to find a job you are super enthusiastic about.

Week #11- What Color is Your Parachute- Ch. 9

This week I read Chapter 9 of What Color is Your Parachute, and again it was a fantastic chapter. This one was about how you get to chose where you work. After doing the flower petal exercise you then get to figure this out. The first step is that you have to look at your Flower Diagram and look at the fifth petal and then choose the top three of your favorite Knowledges. Write them down on a piece of paper or on your phone and rank them in order of importance to you. Then look at the Skills petal and chose the top five favorite Transferable skills and again write them down on the same page. Then take this page and show it to at least five people who know you, family, friends, or work professionals who know you and then ask them what what jobs or work that your page suggests to them. Or you can take your skills and make a Venn diagram and see how they all relate to each other to see which job would be best for you. When people suggest all these different things to you, make sure you jot them down so you remember everything. Then once you've talked to everyone, sit down and look at everything people have suggested and circle the ones you like the best and research some things.

The next thing you have to do is to try on jobs before you decide which ones to pursue. Use LinkedIn and see if you can get into contact with people in a field that you are interested in. See if you can go to Starbucks with them just to talk about their job and what they actually do. He gives a bunch of good questions to ask them.

Next, you have to find out what kinds of organizations have the jobs you are looking for. He gives an example of teachers. When people think about where teachers are employed they only think of schools, but he says no, there are tons of other places where teachers are employed at like, corporate training and educational departments, workshop sponsors, foundations, private research firms, educational consultants, teachers' associations, professional and trade societies, military bases, state and local councils on higher education, fire and police training academies and so much more. So do your homework and look to see all of the different options that you might have.

The fourth thing is that you need to find names of particular places that interest you. This way you can use LinkedIn and other platforms like that to help you figure out who people are that work at the places that you want to work and try to get yourself an in with them.

The next thing is that you need to learn as much as you can about a place before formally approaching them. This shows that you've spent the time to learn about the company and it shows that you really want to be there and that you are a hard worker.

The last thing is, you need to send thank you notes. If someone has gotten you in contact with someone important send them a thank you note. If someone gives you their time to go and talk to them about a job, send them a thank you note. 

Week #11- More Facebook Stuff

This week in class we learned about how to look at the views and everything of our Facebook ad that we ran. I did not run a Facebook ad because I am a broke college student and didn't want to spend money that I don't have on a Facebook ad. But we did look at some cool statistics on our professors ads. There is a thing called CTR, which is click-through rate. The click-through rate of an advertisement is defined as the number of clicks on an ad divided by the number of times the ad is shown. And it is expressed through a percentage. These things are super important for businesses who really need to focus on their advertising. In my case, I'm really not worried about how many people are seeing my ad and how many people are clicking on it.

This is the equation to calculate CTR. Again things like this are really important for major businesses and even small businesses just trying to get off the ground.

Week #10- Facebook Ad

This week in class we learned how to create a Facebook ad, to try and draw more attention to our digital marketing pages. This was super cool, because it was kind of a behind the scenes look of Facebook. I never understood how much work went into making the ad and running it and having to pay for it. I just see these ads and typically scroll right through them. There is a lot of background work that goes into it. You get to chose how much you want to spend on them, and figure out when you want them to begin running and end running, unless you want them to continuously run, that's an option as well. You can also chose what you want your picture to be, like what you want the add to look like. I just chose to make it one of my blog posts that I put on there previously.

This is a preview of what the add would look like when I post it onto Facebook. It says sponsored right under the Lauren Digital Marketing, that's how you know it's an ad. And then it gives the option for people to like it, so the page gets more likes and more people will begin to read my blog! 

Week #10- What Color Is Your Parachute- Ch. 8

In this chapter of What Color Is Your Parachute, he talks about the self-inventory again. This time he talks about the Flower Exercise. "This self-inventory is a flower with seven petals (including the center)." The first petal is You and People. This is where you describe who you are in terms of the kind of people you prefer to work with and to help. The second one is, You and a Workplace, this is where you describe who you are in terms of you favorite workplace or working conditions. The third one is You and Skills, this is where you describe who you are in terms of what you can do, your favorite skills, these are key to being at your best. The fourth one is, You and Your Purpose in Life. This one you describe who are you in terms of goals or sense of mission and purpose for your life. The fifth one is You and the Knowledge you Already Have, you can describe who you are in terms of what you already know and what your interests are. The sixth on is You and Salary/Responsibility where you can describe who you are in terms of your preferred salary and level of responsibility. The last one is You and Geography, this is where you describe who you are in terms of your preferred surroundings, here or abroad, where you want to live and work for a while.

He also gives a bunch of worksheets that are super helpful for every petal of the flower. They really help you to figure out a bunch of things you wouldn't typically think about yourself, so you can find the best job that fits you and your interests.

Week #9- What Color is Your Parachute- Ch. 7

This week in What Color is Your Parachute, it was about self-inventories. These are super important for a job hunt because you learn more about yourself and what good qualities you would bring to a job. Then, in turn, will help you find a better job that would better suite you. By doing a self-inventory you really get to see what kind of job would best fit you, and that will definitely help in your future job search. It will make you more eager to find something you are looking for. Also by doing this self-inventory, it gives you unique ways to describe yourself to potential employers. Also, having done this, if you're up against so many other people for this job, you can tell the employer your unique qualities that will make you stand out above the crowd. If you ever wanted to change your career, after doing the inventory, it would really help you to decide what career path would be good for you to go into.

There are a number of steps that go into actually doing the self-inventory. They are:
1. Mental Preparation
2. One Sheet of Paper (Digital or Physical)
3. A Number of Worksheets
4. Some Kind of Graphic or Picture
5. A prioritizing Instrument or Grid
6. Conclusion: Prioritizing the Petals

I encourage you, if you want to know more about a self inventory and what exactly each of these steps are, to go and read this book, because it's really amazing and gives a lot of other helpful tips and tricks that will really help out in the real world when looking for jobs. 

Week #9- Hootsuite Demo

Today in class we learned more about how to use Hootsuite and honestly, it's pretty cool. It's a really neat way to manage all your social media profiles. So today we learned how to add our accounts to the page.

In this screenshot it shows all the profiles I have added to Hootsuite. My Digital Marketing page, Twitter page, and LinkeIn page are all added to Hootsuite, so I can post to them simultaneously. You can add more and different profiles. I could've added my personal Facebook page, but I just decided to do my Digital Marketing Page. 

In this screenshot, it shows how to post. In the left hand side of the page, it shows the three accounts that I have linked. And just by tapping on them you can either add them or delete them to where you want to post. Next to it, in the big white box, you write what you want to post. 

In this picture you can see that my post has worked! Wahoo!

The post got sent to LinkedIn

And finally, it got posted to my Twitter! All at the same time, which is super cool!

All of this stuff is super cool and I'm super excited to continue to learn more about Hootsuite. 

Week #8- Hootsuite- Ch. 7

This week I read a chapter of Introduction to Social Media Marketing and it was about Hootsuite. Hootsuite is a took to help you manage your all your social media accounts in one central location. You can post to multiple accounts by just having this one thing. This is very helpful because once I write a blog, I have to go to each one of my different social media accounts, including: LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter, so I can share my blog. Then I always forget if I already posted it on my social media or not. So this would be really helpful for me, who is forgetful sometimes. 

In class on Tuesday we made our own Hootsuite accounts and now we are going through a course to teach us how to use it. Hootsuite makes a lot of YouTube videos to help everyone learn how to use it. They are very user friendly. In the book he takes you step by step on how to use Hootsuite and especially on how to get started. The nice part about Hootsuite is that you can schedule when to post things for you. So in my case this is very helpful because like I previously said, I forget to post to some places and I don't always post a link to my blog every time I write one. So this way I can schedule when I want to have something posted and then it does it for you. How convenient! Hootsuite really helps with people who manage many different profiles. The author of the book, my professor, manages so many different pages on Facebook, so this took, I'm sure, is very helpful for him!

This is a snapshot of someone else's Hootsuite account, just so you can get a glimpse of what it looks like. We haven't gotten that far in our Hootsuite experience, but when we do, I'm sure I will have more to blog about!

 

Week #8- What Color is Your Parachute- Ch. 6

This week I read another fantastic chapter of What Color is Your Parachute, and this week it was about what to do when your job-hunt isn't working anymore. He talks about something called the "Traditional Approach". This is how we have always been looking for jobs, this is how everyone tells us to look for jobs. The first 5 chapters of this book were about the Traditional Approach. This approach doesn't demand too much out of us and we can easily learn how to do it. The other way we can look at our job-hunt is through the "Parachute Approach". This is where you start with yourself and not the job market. You look at yourself and you figure out which of your strengths would best fit what employer. You shouldn't wait until they have an opening, you go to the employer that you want to work for and approach them through a "bridge-person. It's someone who knows you and someone who knows them. LinkedIn is a good way to find this "bridge-person".

Then he gives 11 best and worst approaches to job-hunting. Things that you and I might think are good ways to find jobs are actually not good ways. The first is job-hunting on the internet. "This method apparently works on average 4% of the time". That's ridiculous considering I just found my last job on the internet! LOL! One of the better ways to job-hunt is to go knocking on the door of any employer, this method works 47% of the time. It works the best with small employers. The best way to job-hunt is using the Yellow Pages. This works 65% of the time. But it does take a lot of time to go through them. Either way you try to job-hunt, it is usually a lot of work.

Week #7- Social Analytics

This week in class we learned about Social Analytics, its learning how to analyze things, such as our Facebook pages we created. We got to learn how to see how many people have "liked" our page and how many people look at our posts. Where the people come from that like our page. It was actually super cool to be able to see all that.

Seeing certain things like this are super helpful to people who are really trying to market things and advertise different products, for me, I'm not too concerned about if a ton of people are liking my page or not. I'm not really trying to sell anything.

In this screenshot of my page, it shows the post that I have made to my page. Then it shows in the orange how many people I have reached. In the light blue it says how many people have clicked on my page and then in the red it shows how many reactions, comments and shares I've gotten. As you can see I'm not doing too hot. But that's okay because my grade doesn't depend on it.

Week #7- What Color is Your Parachute- Ch. 5

This week I read Chapter 5 of What Color is Your Parachute, and it was awesome. This chapter was about salary negotiation, what no one wants to talk about, or what really everyone wants to talk about but everyone is afraid to do it. He gives 6 secrets to salary negotiation. The first one is "Never Discuss Salary Until the End of the Whole Interviewing Process at That Organization, When (and If) They Have Definitely Said They Want You".  He also gives three responses for when employers ask about how much you would like to get paid. These responses are super helpful because I always think, "I have no idea how to respond to that".

The second secret he gives is "The Purpose of Salary Negotiation Is to Uncover the Most That an Employer Is Willing to Pay to Get You". I think this is super hard to realize because I think its hard to realize what an employer can afford to pay.

The third secret is "During Salary Discussion, Never Be the First One to Mention a Salary Figure". This one could be easy for me because in interviews I am always nervous about discussing pay with them. He does give tips on how to respond to when employers ask "What kind of salary are you looking for?"

The fourth secret is "Before You Go to the Interview, Do Some Careful Research on Typical Salaries for Your Field and in That Organization". He goes on to discuss that 2-3 days of research can get you an extra $15,000 a year sometimes. It's not always going to happen, but he has seen it before.

The fifth secret is "Research the Range That the Employer Likely Has in Mind, and Then Define an Interrelated Range for Yourself, Relative to the Employer's Range". Again he says that this is going to take some extra time and work on your part, but it could definitely be worth it in the end.

The sixth and final secret is "Know How to Bring the Salary Negotiation to a Close; Don't Leave It 'Just Hanging'". This is a super important secret because if you don't have it down in writing and signed than the employer will "forget" what they told you.

All these tips are super important for job hunting and super helpful because no one likes to talk about salary when they are going on an interview.

Week #6- What Color is your Parachute- Ch. 4.

This week I read, yet again, What Color is Your Parachute chapter 4. This chapter was probably the best one that I have read yet. This one is very useful for not just students, but everyone. I believe everyone should have to read this chapter to graduate college. It was all about interviews, one of the most scary things a person has to do in life. Interviews are scary and they can be very intense, but they can really make you "make your mark" on an employer. Interviews aren't always just for jobs either, college students get interviewed a lot for graduate programs that they want to get into. So many of us either have gone through an interview process before, or are going to go through one at least once in our lives, so this chapter is great for you. I have gone through a handful of interviews myself for part time jobs. They have been somewhat stressful and I wish I could have read through all of his tips before I went on my interviews. He gives us 16 tips on how to have a successful interview and each one of them has really stood out to me and really helped to open my eyes about what people are looking for in them.

I am very glad to have been given the opportunity to read a book like this in class. It is so helpful for the real world, and I could use all the help I can get. I will be entering the "real world" only in about 7 months, so I really am going to use all the tips and tricks that Bolles provides throughout this book.

Week #6- Twitter- Ch. 5

This week I read Introduction to Social Media Marketing chapter 5, and this chapter was about Twitter. I absolutely love Twitter. I think its a great way to get things out to people and to market yourself and others. There is a feature on Twitter that lets you take a post that you see and you can "retweet" it, which means it's almost like you're sharing the post again, so everyone you follow can see it once you retweet it. You can also just "like" something. When someone you follow likes something, it might pop up on your timeline because you usually like the same things.

There are certain times when people just post something funny to their Twitter and just by a couple of people looking at it at retweeting it, these people can reach hundreds of thousands of people with their one tweet that they just thought was funny. I've seen so many people who are just like you and me, get thousands of retweets on Twitter. Anything that is going on in the world will be on Twitter within a few minutes of it happening and everyone will see what is going on. I have found out about so many events that have happened in the world through Twitter. They also have a tab called "Trends for You", and this is basically like "what is everyone tweeting about right now". It shows you news, it shows you the latest celebrity gossip, it is very very useful if you want to stay up to date.

You can see in this photo is my Twitter account. Already you can see on the left hand side of the page is my Trends for you column, and then in the middle is what people are tweeting and retweeting. The first tweet that pops up is about President Trump. Everything he says usually ends up on Twitter, not to mention the fact that he already tweets a lot of what he wants to say, but anyways, news outlets will tweet clips of his press conferences and other things that are going on it the world. So if you want to promote a business or get people to start talking about a certain product, Twitter is the way to go because you can reach so many people in such a fast amount of time.

Week #5- Introduction to Social Media Marketing- Ch. 4

This week I also read Introduction to Social Media Marketing, chapter 4. This chapter was all about Facebook ads. Facebook ads are so important to businesses of all sizes. Big or small, you can have a Facebook ad. I believe Facebook ads are the most important type of ad, because they are seen by so many people, even if they don't think so. People watch videos all the time on Facebook, and usually within the first 30-45 seconds they play an ad in the middle of the video. Even if you don't have anything that you're selling, you can still make a Facebook ad. In this chapter Kelsey writes about how he wasn't selling anything, but he still made an ad to try and get people to read a story he wrote. The great thing about Facebook ads is that, you can see so much different information about the ad and how many people it reached and things like that. You can also target ads on Facebook to certain audiences.

This picture is a picture of what I would see scrolling through Facebook. This is one of the ads I would most likely click on because it talks about millennials, and I am a millennial. Also on the right side of the picture there are two other ads. One has pretty jewelry (I like pretty jewelry) and the second one is wiper blades (I'm not going to look at that one). I think Facebook ads are great. The amount of times I'm scrolling through Facebook and stumble upon an ad and actually click on it, is a lot. I'm usually the type of person who hates ads, but when I see cute clothes being promoted on Facebook, I can't help myself not to click on it. I love shopping, so Facebook ads can be dangerous for me, because I'm one of those people who will not only click on it, but I will usually end up buying something on the website it takes me to. And that's exactly what these marketers for these companies, are trying to do. They want the best picture on the ad so that it draws in the buyers, and I think that is awesome because I see it really working in my own life.

Week #5: What Color is Your Parachute- Ch. 3

This week I read chapter 3 of What Color is Your Parachute. Every week I believe that he is so powerful when he writes and he is super positive about everything. In this chapter he discusses how job interviews are like dating. Both parties are kind of like "do you like me?", "is this going to work out", "do you want to go steady?" But when you think about that, that's how it works. You go into the interview process wondering if the employer will like you and if you will like them. Then at the end, they may ask you if you would like a job there, just like you would ask someone to date you. 

He also talks about how you are not as powerless as you think. No matter what situation you are in, there is always part of it that you can control. This women he talked to had MS and she was saying how she wasn't in control of any of it, but he said yes you are there are some things you can control. Within the next few weeks she was free of all symptoms. 

He goes on to talk about how you are not powerless in your job hunt as well. If you really want to get a job and really need to get a job, you will. He talks about how there millions of jobs that are unfilled each month across the U.S., and even when they are millions of jobs filled that month, at the end of the month there are still millions of open jobs on the market. He says if there is that many job openings every month than why don't we always have a job? And that's what the rest of the book is going to discuss.

At the end of the chapter he pretty much sums up job hunting. He says it is an art, not a science. Some people are really good at it and some people are just not good at it at all, but luckily there are a bunch of online classes and tools to help us look for jobs. He also says there is not an "always right" way to job hunt or change careers, and there is not an "always wrong" way to job hunt or change careers. Job hunting is mysterious and you don't know how things happen or when things happen. Also if you want a job that bad, it should be like a full-time job. I had a part-time job that I loved, but I wanted to get out of it because I just wasn't making enough money, so when I was searching for a new job in a new field, I was really working at it for a while and went on multiple interviews because it was in a field I have never been in before, and it turns out my hard work has paid off, because now I have a better job in the new field.    

Week #4- Introduction to Social Media Marketing- Ch. 3

This week I read chapter 3 of Introduction to Social Media Marketing, and the main area of discussion for this chapter was Facebook. Facebook is a huge place to market different things, such as yourself or other products. Todd gives you ways to create a page on Facebook that can really help you get noticed by different kinds of people.

In Social Media Marketing class last week, we had to make our own Facebook pages. We all made a digital marketing page and we had to post our blogs to it. I would definitely recommend making a Facebook page for your blog or just anything you want to get more attention with. Before I posted it on my page and my own personal Facebook page I had maybe 4 views on my blog, (they were all probably just me), and once I posted it to the page I had 200 views on my blog. Every blog since is getting more and more views too.

I think Facebook is a fantastic way to get people to see things and help people to learn about whatever the page is about. Facebook is also really good about telling you how many people have seen your page and how many likes you have and a lot of the details someone who is managing a page would want to know. Facebook obviously also has its ways of making money for themselves, so if you actually want to pay Facebook, they will promote your page even more. There are a lot of things online that will help you to promote your items, Facebook is pretty cool!

Week #4- What Color is Your Parachute Ch. 2

This week I read chapter 2 of What Color is Your Parachute, and it was actually very interesting. The main thing that was discussed in this chapter was how to build your resume. He gives really good tips on what to put on your social media profiles as well. Social media is super important when job hunting because an employer can type your name in on Google, and your Facebook page, LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube page and everything. It's nice and it could also be very hurtful to some potential job seekers. Since they can see everything you post you should be careful about what you post or at least make those pages private, so not every single person can see what you post.

He discusses a lot about keeping pages such as Twitter and LinkedIn up to date. This is important because employers are looking for people who are qualified to do jobs and if their profiles are still from when they worked as a line cook at McDonald's during high school, no employer is necessarily going to want to hire that person. He gives good insight on what to actually put in your profile. Some things such as Responsibilities at a certain job that you previously had. This was interesting to me because I used to be a manager at a shoe store and I had many big responsibilities that I would never even think to have included in my LinkedIn profile. This book has definitely given me a lot of helpful tips and tricks on how I should be job hunting now.

Week #3- Introduction to Social Media Marketing Ch. 2

This week I read Chapter 2 of "Introduction to Social Media Marketing" by Todd Kelsey. In this chapter he discuses blogs and then says how to edit videos on YouTube. People upload videos to YouTube constantly. I've uploaded a video before, and I'm not tech savy at all. Many people do this because they have vlogs. A vlog is a blog in video form. So instead of reading everything I'm writing here, you would just listen to it instead and see me in the video. There are a lot of vloggers out there on YouTube, some just do funny videos, some do makeup tutorials, and some do exercise tutorials. There are a lot of different things you can do as a vlogger.

This is one of the vloggers that I follow on YouTube. His name is Joe Santagato. He just creates funny videos and he is just a funny guy, and he gets paid to do this. Companies can sponsor your videos and that's how people can make a living from YouTube. It would be awesome to have a vlog someday, I just don't think I have the time to keep up with filming and editing. YouTube is very helpful in terms of learning how to edit your videos. This book also goes into a great detail on how to sign up for YouTube and how to just start a simple blog and how to add screenshots to your blog. All of these tips are very helpful to new bloggers like me. 

Week #3- What Color is Your Parachute Ch. 1

In the book, "What Color is your Parachute?" by Richard N. Bolles, he discuses 7 ways the job market has changed since 2008. He gives really good tips and tricks on how to get ahead in the job searching field. He pretty much says that it was a lot easier to get a job before 2008, and now its harder and a lot people are spending a lot more time searching for jobs than before. People coming straight out of college, before 2008, had an easier time getting jobs right away then people my age. There weren't as many advanced degrees like there are now. We didn't have to go to school for 8 consecutive years to get a decent job. With my degree I can't do anything with a Bachelor's degree. I automatically have to go on to a Master's program. There are certain fields that are like that, and that's why Bolles says that it takes so much time to search for jobs now.

The amount of skills a good candidate needs for a job now is astounding. Full time jobs are becoming less and less. More and more people are searching for part-time jobs. The amount of jobs are dropping simply because of artificial intelligence or robots that are doing jobs that humans used to do. He also says that job hunting is becoming more of an online thing now, which most things are. So instead of flipping through a paper you should go online and look for jobs.

Week #2- Artifical Intelligence

I've recently read an article called, Don't Delay, No One Can Say (How Soon AI Will Take Jobs Away), this article is about Artificial Intelligence or AI. What it basically means is that robots and computers are going to take most of our jobs one day. This could be a little alarming for people who are in certain fields that can be replaced by computers, which right now, is me.

As a student in college I have a part time job as a bank teller at a bank. At the bank, they have not upgraded their systems in a very long time, everything is very outdated. I have a couple other friends that work for different banks than I do and they keep telling me that they are getting rid of their tellers and everyone is becoming a universal banker. A universal banker is pretty much a personal banker and a teller all in one. Another reason this is nerve wracking for me is because banks are integrating a system that pretty much gets rid of deposit slips and withdrawal slips it just does everything for you. There are no more drawers that you put your money in, just big ol' machines that do everything for you. ATM's are getting pretty sophisticated now too, you can pretty much do everything at an ATM.

There are pros and cons to having robots and computers that do everything for you, and there are pros and cons to humans that do certain jobs. As a bank teller, human error plays a big role in why they are getting rid of the tellers. Being a teller is a huge responsibility, but on the other hand computers can make mistakes. Technology fails at some points.

The field I want to go into is Clinical Social Work, so I am really not too worried about AI taking over that field. There is no way that AI can be an effective way to do therapy, especially with mental health. Human to human contact is crucial to the helping profession. So I'm not necessarily nervous about not having a career in a few years. If I had chosen to stay in banking, I would be a little bit more nervous about it.

Week #1- Making a Blog

My name is Lauren Bosman, I am a senior here at Benedictine University and my major is Psychology. This is not the typical class a Psychology major would take, but I think it will better help my understanding of people and how some people are attracted to certain ads and things like that.

This is my first blog post ever. I am super excited to learn how all this blogging stuff works. I am also really excited to learn some more about social media and how we use it so much to market different items. When I first heard about this class I was very excited because I love social media, but hate the ads that pop up all the time. So I am excited to see why those ads pop up when they do and how to maybe make those ads pop up on certain screens and not others. It's actually annoying when you watch the video, but now that I get to learn about these marketing strategies, they might start to become more interesting to me. They also have ads that just pop up on the side of the screen. Those ones I tend to just ignore.

Other things I think of when I hear the words 'Social Media Marketing', I think about Instagram and how I'll be scrolling through and see an ad for a clothing line or other retailers. Those ads are pretty interesting to me because I usually see clothes or shoes and I love both of them. I hope this class teaches me everything that I want to know and more!