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HASO (Help A Sister Out)!

Carlee Mallard — Sun, 29 Aug 2010 18:26:27 +0000

And by that I mean literally, my fresh-out-of-college unemployed little sister, Rianna. She’s probably the

best person that I know, and I’m probably the best sister that anyone could have. Which is why I’m dedicating an entire post to her today.

I’m not sure exactly when she decided she had to move to New York City after graduating from UNC-Chapel Hill with an Anthropology degree this past May, but I’m pretty sure her mind was made up when we visited the city during her Spring Break back in March. While I was walking around complaining about my blisters, the cold, and what a dirtier city this was than I remembered from a few years earlier, she was plotting how she would move back there.

So what now?

Well, after 3 months of unsuccessful long-distance online job hunting (that is, a lot of “we went with someone more local”), she took the plunge and booked a one-way ticket to JFK and found herself traversing the NYC metro by Wednesday morning. Now don’t get me wrong, this girl is my best friend and she just left me in Raleigh for what appears to be, well, nothing, so I’m not super ecstatic about it. But if she wants something this badly, then gosh darnit I’m going to help her as much as I can.

For now she’s couch surfing with friends and staking out over-booked holiday weekend hostel rooms until she finds a job and a place of her own or until she runs out of money (and we really can’t have that, can we?).

What she’s looking for:

While she’s working her ass off looking for jobs online, writing kick-butt cover letters, and stalking companies like Big Duck and Carrot Creative to get her dream job, she’s not above anything that pays the bills at this point and still walks the streets of Manhattan & Brooklyn looking for “Hiring” signs in the windows.

About that dream job though, in her words:

I love people, so it makes sense that I would want to work for them as much as with them. I love non-profit, socially conscious organizations because they are groups of people with a mission they really (have to) believe in.

Working with people means that every interaction, day, minute is always different. I like when I have multiple things I have to do in a day, all with completely different teams, places or requirements. I love new things, new challenges, new problems and new solutions! One of my favorite quotes is “if we do not find something pleasant, at least we shall find something new” – Voltaire

What I know is that she’s dedicated her life to the arts in one form or another. As an artist herself, interacting with talent at performances, and even on the nonprofit organization side. And even if you’re mean to her, she’ll pretend to be your best friend. (I’m not sure where she got that from; maybe the southern upbringing, but definitely not from me!) Point being, she’s mad smart (some even say smarter than me; gasp!), insanely creative (I have her write all my catchy headlines & titles, brainstorm with her about creative fundraising ideas, and I insisted on hanging a pencil portrait she drew above my bed), and a total people-person. In my personal opinion I think she would make an amazing company spokesperson or first point-of-contact. Yeah.

How can you help?

We all know how important networking is. If you live in the New York City metro area then you can easily help just by reaching out and connecting with her. I can promise you a great return too, because she’s a pretty amazing person and the Mallard sisters are known for being genuine helper-outers.

So meet her for coffee or lunch. Send her job leads if you have them. Take her on a tour of your neighborhood so she knows how real New Yorkers live. Be all-around nice to her!

Find her:

Twitter @riannam

Email rianna[dot]mallard[at]gmail[dot]com

Linkedin http://www.linkedin.com/in/riannamallard

On Justifying Social-Networking (Or Why I Might Abandon Social Media)

Carlee Mallard — Tue, 11 May 2010 22:00:40 +0000

Would I keep using social media and networking sites if I weren’t ever looking for a new job or clients? Already certain industries are more prominent on LinkedIn and Twitter (marketing, public relations, news sources, internet startups, consultants, freelancers, etc.) and more jobseekers than steady-job-havers keep active social networking profiles.

But at this stage in the game I just can’t see ever not using Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Brazen Careerist, but believe it or not there was once a time when I barely used them (two of which I didn’t even adopt until 2009). Whoa was I behind the times. Thank god I caught up, huh?

I wonder, though, what would happen if I no longer “needed” to “network” to find a job or clients? Would I stop using Twitter (or at the least cut back on my use)? Would I abandon updating my LinkedIn profile (there wouldn’t be that much to update on my “resume” anyways, right)? Would I stop attending tweetups and networking events?

I wonder about these things because I don’t want to stop any of that. Right now–because I’m on the search for job opportunities–I can justify the time invested in all of that as well worth the value. If I couldn’t justify the time put in any longer, would I have to cut myself off from tweeting like a crazy person? Perhaps that’s the most responsible and productive action to take, though. Twitter and social media can be such a distraction that unless it is part of your strategy to reach your goals, we can really only consider it recreational fun and our time with social networking should be limited, right?

Not only that, but I want to make sure that I’m being authentic and my “brand” doesn’t scream, “I’m only here to help me, not you!” I want to make sure that I’m involved in social media/networking for the right reasons; reasons that will stick around for a while.

But in the end, you know what? I don’t think I would ever stop using social networking sites because networking is so much more than “finding a job”. Networking is so important in all aspects of life.

This is something I’ve always been told but didn’t realize personally and actually start taking it seriously until very recently. And after discovering how much I love connecting and talking with people I just don’t see myself ever in a position (for work or fun) that wouldn’t benefit from continuing to be socially-networked.

What about you? Do you see yourself cutting back or quitting social media any time in the future? Do you think it’s here to stay, or that once the economy picks up and people aren’t scrounging around for jobs anymore that social networking’s popularity will die down?

April Monthly Goal Meetup

Carlee Mallard — Fri, 02 Apr 2010 14:57:00 +0000

Everyone else is saying it, so I will too. Thank God For Spring Weather!!!!!

Now let’s jump right into reviewing my goals for March:

Finish perfecting the killer resume. Honest to god, I have a rough-draft, but wow some things just take a lot more time than you imagined. I’m carrying this one over to April .
Finish the new blog redesign. You might not notice a huge difference from last month, but there was a lot of behind-the-scenes stuff going on. The only part I’m still trying to work out is the Photography page. Hrmmm. There seems to be no good way to create Flickr photo galleries and have them carry over into WordPress. Maybe a flash slideshow is a good idea. Except for the fact that I sort of hate flash slideshows.
Don’t be shy. PIECE OF CAKE! When you’re meeting new people who understand where you’re coming from and are open to new ideas, it’s easy to open up. As a result, I’ve got an amazing new group of friends (yay!). I met some really awesome people in NYC face-to-face for the first time, including Steph Auteri, who just opened up her own Career Coaching for Word Nerds business (and I get to be one of her guinea pigs for the next month)! My sister and I also followed Patrick Johnson & Elisabeth Rosario into the city after meeting for only a few minutes at the #PRStudChat tweetup at Gary Vaynerchuk’s Wine Library in New Jersey. And on our last night in the city we braved the monsoon weather to sing karaoke (a first for me!) with Teresa Cantwell, Abby Schoffman, PRCog and others.

All in all, March was really amazing in quite a few ways. Great new friends, great new “extracurriculars”, great travel, great personal development, etc. There is still so much more progress to make. It was hard to think of new personal goals after such a productive month on a personal level, but here we go.

For April:

Finish my resume. Carrying this one over from March, but I hope that after working with Steph for a month there will be no excuse not to have it in tip-top shape.
Take a walk at least 5 times per week. I don’t know if anyone has noticed the burst of warm air outside? Yea, I plan on taking advantage of that and taking at least a 1 mile walk either at lunch during work, or at a park or downtown on the weekends. All you “fit” people are probably saying “Wow a 1-mile walk? That’s nothing, gosh I’m running marathons in NYC” (ahem… Beth, haha), but for me that would be a huge accomplishment (especially considering I seem to have a worsening heart condition and running is just not an option at this point). If I had more disposable income I would probably hire a personal trainer, but alas walking it is for now!
Spring Cleaning the minimalist way. I’m not even sure what that means yet, but I’ve been reading more about minimalism (most recently Everett Bogue’s blog Simple Minimalist: Far Beyond the Stars) and have been seeing it pop up in my life over the past few months. I’ve already jump-started this one by canceling our home land-line and cutting out $90 from the monthly budget. It was such a relief and an empowering feeling at the same time. I can’t wait to apply more minimalist concepts to my life.
Switch up the music on my iPhone. I am completely lame and haven’t added new music to my iPhone since Christmas. Considering we’re not allowed to stream music from the internet at work and I listen to my iPhone all day long, 5 days a week, I am totally sick of listening to the same songs over and over again. PLEASE CARLEE just put something else on there SOON! New fav song recommendations?
Spend less than $350 this month for groceries. Background: I live with my mother, grandmother, and sometimes my sister on the weekends when she comes home from school. For the past 6 months my mom has been doing all the grocery shopping for the house and I’ve been slightly disappointed recently. I honestly just think that I could buy better (healthier) food for less money. I challenged her this month to hand over her credit card, let me do the shopping, and see if I can spend a simple $50/month less than her. Doable right? If Rebecca Currie can eat for One Dollar a Day in my neck of the woods, I think we can eat for $4/day!

To participate in the meet-up:

1. Post a list of your career/life related goals for April, along with your checked off March goals if you’d like, on your own blog.
2. Come back to BrazenCareerist.com network and leave a link to your post in the comments (*If you don’t have your own blog, feel free to share your list here in the comments to join in!)
3. Then, check out everyone else’s lists as they leave comments - click their links, visit their blogs, say hello, meet, greet and support each other because that’s what it’s all about!

March Monthly Goal Meetup

Carlee Mallard — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 07:00:06 +0000

February surprised me in a lot of ways. When I wrote my goals for February I thought that I had it all planned out. But then mid-month some new opportunities arose, events popped up, connections were made, priorities changed.

Cyn Mallard's New Paintings

I know that’s all very vague, but my point is that if you can’t go with the flow, you might just miss out on some really great stuff. For example, you might notice that I have a brand new WordPress website with my own domain! When my aunt offered (read: really pressured me) to host the new site for me and help with the technical side of things, I couldn’t pass it up the opportunity to learn the WordPress platform and get a little more serious about everything. So before I get into March let’s check out last month:

Do my taxes! I even got my refund back already. Onwards and upwards!
Arrange my first tweetup in the Raleigh-Durham area. An example of something that I would have worked on had some unforeseen more immediate events come up. Instead of working on our own tweetup, Brianne and I have been working with the Pecha Kucha Night event organizers to help out doing PR, spreading the word to get more speakers, and helping out the day of the event. It’ll be a meetup, even if not a tweetup. We both agreed to postpone the tweetup until after all the March events are over.
Up the blog frequency. This was so much easier than I thought it would be. Easier as in… I wanted to do it, so I did it. Not easier as it didn’t take a lot of work, because let me tell you — it takes a lot of work. So much fun, so exciting though! It’s as if there was a piece of me that was missing all this time.
Take on a part-time job. I did a lot of looking and made notes & bookmarks, but I realized that I really need to re-write my resume first. I needed to break up the big goal into smaller goals.
Keep having fun. I didn’t end up doing everything I thought I would do, but there were some exciting things going on last month. Most notably my mom had her first art show in over 5 years. I am so proud of her we had a fantastic night celebrating after the opening!

Reflecting on last month, I’m hesitant to make any predictions for March. What I do know about this month is that it’s packed full of events, traveling, networking, and birthdays! What do I want to get out of it all then?

Finish perfecting the killer resume. I started this in February when I realized it needed a complete re-haul. I’m even considering hiring a resume writer to help out. Personal recommendations?
Finish the new blog redesign. You all reading this are among the first to see it live, so tell me what you think. Feedback is ever-so-appreciated!
Don’t be shy. By this I mean get out of my comfort zone, talk to people I haven’t talked to before, and make some meaningful connections. There are 4 big idea sharing events that I’m going to this month (3 this week and 1 the last week of March) where there will undoubtedly be hundreds of people eager to have interesting conversation and I CAN’T wait. So excited. Not only that, but my sister and I are going to NYC March 10th – 14th. While we don’t have a plan yet, I will be happy as long as I come home thinking it was worth my time. I really hope to catch up with some old friends but also meet some new people that I’ve met online. So really, help me with this one, and if you’re in the NYC area please let me know so we can get together!

To participate in the meet-up:
1. Post a list of your career/life related goals for March, along with your checked off February goals if you’d like, on your own blog.
2. Go back to Brazen Careerist and leave a link to your post (*If you don’t have your own blog, feel free to share your list in the comments to join in!)
3. Then, check out everyone else’s lists as they leave comments - click their links, visit their blogs, say hello, meet, greet and support each other because that’s what it’s all about!