It’s a new year! Time to get on your grind and land that summer internship. What better way to kick start the search than apply for the Conde Nast Summer Internship program? It’s super competitive and intense but since when has that stopped anyone serious about getting into the industry? Plan an appointment with your career services coordinator, get your resume and clips in order and apply. The deadline is Feb 15 so get to it! You have a little over a month to start freelancing and get on staff at your campus paper or magazine.

Apparently common sense isn’t that common. Get your drunk, high, both and any other compromising photos off of facebook, off of myspace and off of any other social networking site on the web! You’re on a social networking website where people can look you up by your birth name and get all of your personal information and you’re posting photos with beers, weed, lap dancing, and other questionable activity. Be weary of your internet footprint because privacy settings are not always effective. Employers look at your photos and profiles as a screening process during recruitment so keep your footprint as clean as possible. There seems to be a common misconception floating around leading unsuspecting students to believe that simply because one’s privacy settings are programmed to bar anyone outside of their friends and networks from accessing their profiles which isn’t always true. While posting pictures of inebriated hall mates underage with red cups in hand is simply idiotic here are a few points to consider before uploading incriminating Kodak moments.

1. Just because you programmed your friends as the only viewers of your photos does not mean no one else can see them. If you were tagged in a photo and the person who tagged you has looser privacy settings then your photo is still public.

2. Untagging a photo that is still posted to someone else’s profile does not mean no one else has it or might find it elsewhere, even off of social networking websites. If you can recall the dreaded photos from black-face racist parties in Connecticut and Texas, those photos were originally posted on a social networking website and were later removed however, the photos can be found in a mere google search.

3. There is no such thing as privacy on the internet. You can’t trust anything you can’t control. Anybody on your friends list can innocently share a photo that would have otherwise been private to someone off your friends list and it will be posted in their shared items, mini feed and even profile for the world to see.

4. It doesn’t matter how well you look on paper, a slip up on the internet can deter employers from offering a position, even internships. Did you know the CEO and head of Human Resources at The Washington Post both have facebook accounts used to screen prospective employees? More and more companies are utilizing myspace, facebook and internet search engines as background checks. Remember, companies have interns who they utilize to screen students and the likelihood of their interns being in your network or having friends in your network is quite high.

5. Just because you’re old enough to drink does not make drunk photo albums okay. Your comments, your profile, your pictures—they’re all used to judge your character so legal or illegal too much of anything will reflect badly on your behalf.

6. Google your name. If there’s something questionable in the search results that could tarnish your reputation, remove it immediately. Google is the easiest and quickest way for anyone to pull your personal information so see to it that your private life stays private.

Face it, employers and college admissions have the right to search prospective employees and students on the internet. Anything that appears in a search engine or social networking website is public information and it is likely that when registering for said sites you confirmed that you agreed with their privacy policy or lack there of so be aware of everything affiliated with your reputation.

The game has changed. The internet allows anyone to gather up loads of information on you that you innocently provided on your myspace page. Don’t be stupid –the days of posting profile pictures of your underage affair with a Bud lite is so high school anyway.

Don’t Identify As A Freshman:

• I learned quick that editors don’t like students, let alone fresh on campus and inexperienced ones so I dropped the student title for something a bit more attractive..freelancer. Like one of my professors says..”You are a journalist who just happens to be a student, not the other way around.” When trying to freelance for small publications its best if you leave your dorm room horror stories for water cooler laughs AFTER you secure a job. Now if they ask do not lie just nonchalantly remark that you simply like to keep your academic and professional lives seperate
• FYI do keep education on your resume! But if you’re in college, nobody cares what high school you went to.

Live In The Career Services Office

• Become very acquainted with everyone in Career Services–they are your friends. If you stop by every now and then you’ll be the first one they tell when a new internship listing pops up. Often it is the Career Services Coordinator who chooses candidates for internship programs like ASME so get in quick and get in good. If you have a lot of spare time, offer to volunteer in the office or better yet work study and get in their good graces. They are a great  resource and will soon become gods in your eyes.

Know Your Professors

• I didn’t get to take any journalism courses until my sophomore year but don’t let that type of situation stop you from being acquainted with the journalism department. Become as I was so coined a “superstar freshman” who saught out the journalism staff and started getting advice early. Not only do they know everything about your chosen industry, many of them used to or still work in the industry and most definitely know someone who knows someone.  While wandering in the career services offices I met a professor who also is the EIC of a community newspaper and he said I’ll give you one week to get settled into your dorm, after that I want to see you in my news room. Needless to say I was in his office daily and landed a cover story my first semester.

Get Clips!

• Your calendar should have the budget meetings of every student publications permantly scheduled. Any opportunity you get write. If your school paper is competitive, volunteer to do the mundane pieces and later pitch a review on the upcoming Roots album. Editors often reward those willing to pick up the staff writers’ slack. While its great to get clips in your chosen niche, make sure you diversify your clips so employers feel they could put you anywhere and you’d click.

But not just on campus!

• Freelance, freelance, freelance! If you can write a mean review, get your clips together and pitch to local papers. Find up-start or small publications with limited budgets and offer to write for free (which you…a lot). Clips are a precious commodity but remember its quality not quantity!

Scour the internet:

• Google is your friend. Search for internships and copy and paste all pertinent information in a word doc until your blue in the face. If there is no classification requirement, keep it on file, if it claims they only want juniors still keep it for future reference. After searching the internet high and low create a list of internships to target and develop a timeline of when and how you will go about applying.

Live on Ed2010:

• Ed2010 is yet another beautiful resource next to poynter and mediabistro. Who ever invented Whisper Jobs is a genius! Ed2010 has a million and one resources and should be checked on a daily basis.

Develop your tools:

• Have your resume, cover letter and clips reviewed by at least two professors and the career services advisor. Once they are approved for send off hit up your internship list and get to mailin’

Correspondence is Key:

• Editors are busy, very busy. After a couple of weeks with no response email them a friendly reminder. It is important that you are “pleasantly persistent” or else they’ll get an unattractive impatient vibe from you and put your resume in the NO pile without even a moment’s glance.

Remember even an internship at a little known community newspaper is beneficial. It’s all about experience and ability so never turn your nose at an upstart just because you vie for Vogue.

Grazing through Spring semester is no longer an option..let the shameless overachieving commence!