Who's Next? Be The New Career Services Amabassador!

Senior year comes with so many lasts, that I’d almost forgotten that this was one of them: my last semester as Tufts Career Services Ambassador. I’d come on board my first semester junior year, eager to fire off career-related posts and cultivate my writer’s voice. I started out as a “freelance” blogger, if you will, contributing posts 3,000 miles away in Madrid. My experience was only enhanced when I returned that spring to Dowling Hall and became a more official part of the office staff. Now, I am confident to say, my experiences at Career Services remain among the highlights of my college career.

So, what made this experience so particularly meaningful and important? Ahh, there are so many things. There’s the wonderful Career Services staff; the chance to utilize relevant marketing tools; the opportunity to write and publicize career information that is critical to every single one of us.

To break it down a bit, the most enticing benefit of this job is that it allows you to cultivate a wide and essential skill set. The handling of Career Services’ online presence—a task essentially made for us digitalized youths of tomorrow—is by nature multi-faceted, dynamic, and ever-changing. What’s more? These skills have become increasingly necessary for breaking into today’s transforming media industry.

First there’s the writing, or blogging, element---my personal favorite part of the job. Truthfully, I had never blogged before this experience. In middle school, I wasn't brave enough to advertise my deepest, darkest thoughts through the overly popular Xanga. But as soon as I started blogging, transforming my formal journalists’ voice into something personal and accessible, I came to love it more and more. Blogging, about whatever topic of the minute, came to feel refreshingly easy and natural.

Along with blogging, there’s the opportunity to co-manage the office’s increasingly “likable” Facebook page. This includes the chance to brainstorm posts, advertise new job opportunities, and generate content that will zoom right into students’ newsfeeds. As all of us media hawks probably know, social media has redefined the way we read and digest professional news. Today, a journalist’s popularity is easily gauged through his or her teeming collection of Twitter followers and Facebook fans, for instance.

Beyond this, the job of the student ambassador is to strategize ways to reach Tufts student audiences. This takes creativity, thoughtfulness, and drive. But we’re also in a familiar position: simply put, we’re targeting the student population—that is, ourselves. We have the privilege of living among students and directly gauging what it is they want to know. And we have the accessible online tools to drive these messages home.

Simply put, the opportunity to develop and publicize Career Services’ online presence comes with wonderful professional benefits. So much of our communication is occurring via the web—through online news stories, quickie blog posts, Facebook, twitter, and more. Regardless of which industry niche you’re looking to navigate, experience in blogging, social media, and marketing strategy will give you an important edge in the job market. These are critical skills to add to your ever-growing repertoire.

Beyond the resume boost, however, is the gratification of feeling like my writing is making a real impact. The one thing you can bet students are discussing, whether calmly or in a state of frenzy, is the fateful career hunt. The job-hunt is universal, and it affects every single one of us. Covering everything from interview tips to job-hunt sites to networking follow-ups, the blog offers a relatable, accessible lens on the whole process. It’s been incredibly satisfying to contribute to the dissemination of helpful and critically important career knowledge.

As I started weighing my career options (I do work at career-services after all), I realized this was something I could see myself doing full-time. The job has pushed me to discover the types of writing and publicity work I love, as well as the media jobs I can see myself pursuing professionally. Between the writing, marketing, and creative components, this job is truly all-encompassing; it allows you to dabble in various online mediums and discern your specific strengths and fortes. And it all happens within Tufts’ hub of career-discovery, right here under Career Services’ roof.

The best part? This position is still transforming. Nothing is rigidly defined or set-in-stone. If you have a penchant for a certain type of skill, or if you’ve brainstormed a new approach to our traditional way of doing things, Career Services wants to hear about it. We are Tufts’ fresh, young student voices after all, here to bridge the gap between the office’s resources and our student body. Your voice and ideas really matter. Simply put, the job is truly what you make of it; it’s there to be molded and reshaped by the unique ambitions of whoever is next in line.

Career Services is currently hiring a new ambassador to create content for the blog and utilize online and social media platforms to connect with the Tufts community. If this position seems like a good fit for your skills and interests, apply by March 16, 2012. Click here for an application.