Excellent piece from the Radio-TV Digital News Association. It talks about radio but the principles apply to all fields. All students should take a second and read this:

By Vincent Duffy, RTDNA Chairman

It’s that time of year again. Graduating seniors, recent graduates, and folks looking for broadcasting careers are hitting the job fairs held at journalism conferences and broadcasting schools across the nation.

Broadcast stations participate in these job fairs whether they have positions open or not, because it helps them meet their EEO requirements enforced by the FCC. I’m sure it happens, but I don’t personally know anyone who was hired into a full time position from a broadcasting job fair. My station, however, has hired interns we met at job fairs, and some of those interns have turned their internship into a job, so the fairs are not a complete waste of time.

My first job fair of this season is next Wednesday. For a couple of hours I will stand behind a table and shake hands and accept resumes from a parade of people while other hopeful job seekers stand in line behind them. It’s like a cruel form of speed dating because you can’t even be sure I’m actually looking for a date.

The key to a successful job fair for applicants is to stand out from the crowd, either with your experience, your awesome work samples, or just plain charisma and people skills. What you don’t want to do is be remembered for the wrong reasons. What are the wrong reasons? I’ve listed five here. These things have all actually happened more than once, and you can learn from the mistakes of others.

1- Don’t show up at the table with your mom and dad. Seriously, I understand that you don’t have a job and maybe your parents had to drive you to the job fair, but find them a place to sit down, buy them a cup of coffee, and give them your iphone and show them how to play Temple Run. Unless your parents plan to come to work with you every day, I don’t need to meet them or have them answer questions about you.

2- Don’t tell me your dream is to work in television, but you’re willing to work in radio “to get your start.” Think about it. That’s kind of insulting. You are not going to be my first choice if I feel like I’m your second choice. The folks who work at my station happen to think working in radio is pretty cool, and we’re not doing it to bide our time until we can finally get into TV.

3- Don’t look too relaxed. Yes it’s radio, but appearances still matter. You don’t need to wear your interview suit to a job fair (although it won’t hurt), but you should look professional. How you look indicates how seriously you take yourself, and the job fair. Guys, while that vintage KISS t-shirt may be a conversation starter, it doesn’t reflect well on your maturity. Ladies, you’re looking for a job, not a date or a dance partner. Dress for the job fair like you would dress for work. It should go without saying that you should use deodorant and not too much perfume or cologne, but some guys still walk up to the table smelling all “fierce” like they just finished a shift at Abercrombie and Fitch.

4- Don’t hand me newspaper clips or music air checks. If I am going to hire anyone from a job fair, it’s going to be someone who can demonstrate they know how to do what we do at our station, which is radio news. It’s not impossible for a print reporter or a music host to be hired at our station, but you don’t want to try and get my attention in the same hour that scores of other people have handed me examples of exactly the type of work we do.

5- Don’t open with a corny line. Somewhere out there are counselors who keep telling people to introduce themselves with a clever, confident statement such as: “I’m going to be your next morning drive host,” or “I am the answer to your stations problems,” or (my favorite) “I want your job.” I wish those counselors would stop. If you want to impress me, compliment me on something my station has done and tell me you’d love to be able to do that kind of work.

A job fair is not the best place to get a job, but they are not a waste of time. You can use job fairs to find out what sort of work is done at stations in your market, find out what sort of skills news directors look for in new hires, and begin steps in networking with professionals in the industry. They are tailor made for you to have a chance to meet people and be remembered, just make sure you’re not remembered for the wrong things.

http://rtdna.org/article/students_5_mistakes_to_avoid_at_job_fairs

By now, many of you have read or heard about the current controversy over “inflammatory” tweets by members of the WSU football team, first reported by two students from the Murrow News Service (http://www.komonews.com/sports/Legal-experts-question-WSU-Twitter-ban-175657891.html).

The story is just the latest reminder that there is no such thing as private communications on the Internet. If you post it on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr or any other social media site, it is there for the world to see.

That includes future employers, future spouses and your parents.

Your online presence is, to use a horribly tired cliché, a window on your character. As someone who hires people, I can assure you that we look at the Facebook sites and Twitter feeds of potential faculty and staff to get a sense of who they are.

If your Facebook page is a study in alcohol abuse or your Twitter feed is a trail of misogynistic patter, your odds on getting that plum job when you graduate are probably pretty thin. And even after you are firmly on your career path, don’t let down your guard. Think twice before you post. It’s easy to misinterpret – or misstate – something said in 140 characters. And that picture you thought was funny at the time may not be perceived the same way by co-workers in the cold gray light of dawn.

The unemployment lines are full of people who “didn’t mean it that way.” An old colleague of mine was a senior executive at CNN one day and just another out of work reporter the next thanks to a poorly-phrased tweet.

Don’t let that happen to you.

Incredible effort today led by Ben Shors, with support from Lucrezia Cuen Paxson, John Paxson and students of the Murrow News Service to gather, produce and distribute nationally a set of multimedia pieces on the assault on the US embassy in Yemen shot by Mohammed Bahashwan, one of the Yemeni journalism students in our summer State Department-funded Study in the U.S. Institute on New Media Journalism.

http://video.msnbc.msn.com/nbcnews.com/49025547

Mohammed was in the thick of the protests and produced gripping video, which was some of the only tape shot during the attack. Student Spencer Kabelac interviewed Mohammed via Skype, Jeff Fairbanks shot the interview and edited the piece that was picked up by CNN and by NBCNews.com (and re-voiced by one of their reporters). Meanwhile, Rochelle Adams and Joe Utter wrote a print piece based on the interview with Mohammed and the NW Public Radio team cut sound-bites for use on the air. Compelling work by all – and especially by the brave Mohammed!

It was the second Murrow News Service piece TODAY that made national news. A light feature on a pool party for dogs by students Mindy Rossner and Bill McKee ran on CNN (voiced by an anchor) and was distributed to CNN affiliates across the country.

Here’s the print piece:
From Murrow College
Eyewitness Account Of The Attack On The U.S. Embassy In Yemen

BY ROCHELLE ADAMS AND JOE UTTER
Student journalist Mohammed Bahashwan had a first-hand view of Thursday’s protest at the U.S. Embassy in Yemen, using his cell phone to capture video of the chaotic scene.
“The situation escalated little by little,” said Bahashwan, a 24-year-old journalism student who studied at Washington State University this summer. “It started to be very wild, very chaotic and violent.”
Bahashwan’s 90-second video provides one of the only recordings of the protest at the American embassy in Yemen’s capital city of Sana’a. The protest started at about 10:45 a.m. and lasted for about 45 minutes, resulting in two fatalities and about 10 injuries, Bahashwan reported. He said he believed it began as a non-violent protest, but that it gradually grew to 200 people. His footage shows protesters breaking windows and striking at a U.S. government vehicle outside the embassy. Bahashwan said the van’s inhabitants were not harmed.
Bahashwan said between 50 to 80 police officers and Yemeni National Guard members surrounded the embassy and began firing shots into the sky. One officer fired shots into the crowd, fatally wounding one of the protesters, he said.
“They weren’t supposed to use any live ammunition,” he said. “It could have been possible to stop the protest without any live bullets.”
Bahashwan said protesters easily passed the outer gate of the embassy. Bahashwan said there were only about six guards in front of the gate. Usually there are about eight to 10, he said.
It was the latest of a series of attacks on American embassies in the Middle East, prompted by an anti-Islam film that mocked the Prophet Muhammad. Bahashwan said the film was disrespectful to the Muslim religion.
“They’re insulting our very core beliefs,” Bahashwan said. “The topic is offensive to all Muslims … They wanted to show the American government that movies like that should not be produced.”
The scene around the embassy has settled since the protesters were dispersed, Bahashwan said. He doesn’t believe there will be more protests at the embassy in Sana’a, but expects more protests at other American embassies throughout the Middle East.

http://nwpr.org/post/eyewitness-account-attack-us-embassy-yemen