Your college career is winding to an end. As a last ditch celebration before searching for a job, you decide to buy a ticket to see real dinosaurs at Jurassic World.
While you wont find any actual dinosaurs in the workplace, chances are that you’ll find some technological ones. Before you set foot in the park or start your job search, let’s explore one vital question: do you have the technological skills to survive the rigors of the park and the job search soon to follow?
Why is knowledge of technology so vital?
An individual who has a sophisticated understanding of modern technology is vital for any group fleeing from dinosaurs at a Jurassic resort. In most of the previous Jurassic Park movies, the technology ignorant adults had to rely on the very ill-advised inclusion of elementary and middle school children. Small, physically weak humans with very short legs—not a great companion to drag along with you as you flee for your life.
On the job search side of things, job searchers deal with a very competitive job market. If you haven’t worked hard to beef up your resume, now is the time to start, and you can give yourself a huge lead ahead of fellow job seekers by adding various tech oriented skills to your repertoire.
Social Media
Businesses have slowly begun to utilize social media to connect with their clients and customers. Currently 87% of the companies you might apply to using social media as a business tactic. As a new employee, you should familiarize yourself with how Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, and/or Google + works. Why check out all of them? Every social platform has different guidelines, search functions, and max word counts.
If you’re adamantly opposed to creating social media accounts under your own name, you might want to consider creating a penname and email to allow you to explore without attaching the account to your own name. And who knows, having a social media platform might allow you to sound the alarm when the dinosaurs escape. And when you get back, you can utilize social media to help you locate a job.
Tech For Telecommuting
Technology has reshaped how employees work. The times where the majority of American workers spent their entire work life glued to a cubicle is at an end. Today, about 24% of Americans work from home at least some of the time. Working from home is a perk worth earning. You can increase the chance of landing a job at a place that allows telecommuting by acquainting yourself with some of the technology that employers utilize to meet with their employees on a virtual medium.
Second Life is a virtual world where users can create avatars (virtual versions of themselves) and interact with a computer generated environment and other users from across the globe. Universities and businesses have realized the telecommuting potential of the platform. Rutgers online program utilizes Second Life to “meet” with their students for their weekly lessons. Many businesses have followed in the education giants footsteps when it comes to hosting real time virtual meetings via Second Life Work.
Before you hit the job search or jump onto a plane for Isla Nublar, create an avatar and give Second Life a whirl. All you need is access to a computer and the internet to get started. Even better, the program won’t cost you a dime.
Basic Web Development
You might not think that the ability to understand and write HTML 5 and CSS (website development code) will protect you from dinosaurs, but you should think again. You might need a way to vote who is going to tragically and heroically sacrifice themselves for the good of the group. Rather than vote, you and your group can have a quick web development session and kick out the person with the ugliest site.
And as an added bonus, when you return safely home, you can add it to your resume. Teaching yourself how to build websites from scratch is relatively easy. All you need is a computer, occasional access to the internet, access to a source code editor, and a how to book or access to Code Academy.
If you spend an hour a day learning, you should know enough to survive by the time you need to either flee from dinosaurs or drive to interviews. And if you do need to run from dinosaurs, don’t be afraid to place that on your resume as well. Nothing says that you can handle a stressful work environment like being able to keep your cool when faced with an old-school T-Rex.
By Samantha Stauf.
Photo Credit: Image Mash-Up of 10 Ways to Motivate Students, Best Jobs In America, & Jurassic Park Wikia
