September 11 & Internships: A Message from the ICIG Head
Alan Kirkpatrick, ICIG Head

For most students, Sept. 11 and every day thereafter has contained news of events unlike anything they'd previously experienced. The effects have been sobering:

I've got to get an internship.

I've got to get an internship.

As a university internship director, the first line is what I am accustomed to being told. The second, with the subtle accent shift that underscores how many students now view the job market, is becoming the norm this fall.

Most aren’t asking whether the job market has been changed for the worse. They simply assume it has, and to their credit they seem to be looking at their careers more seriously and broadly than ever.

For journalism and mass communication students seeking to expand their marketability, it means a search for more useful information about jobs and internships.

Of course, this also happens to be the mission of the Internships and Careers Interest Group, and as a result AEJMC members have the opportunity to participate in ICIG efforts to bring such information to the fore.

Since its inception, ICIG has endeavored to bring these issues before AEJMC membership through programming at the annual conference. Now, the group wants to develop a long-term service commitment through its Web site. ICIG is looking to develop an online resource for those who advise JMC students on topics such as:

• Legal, ethical and job-satisfaction issues and research.
• Employment trends.
• Links to job and internship sites.
• Scholarships.
• International internship opportunities.
• Minority programs.
• Resume and interviewing skills.

We’d like to hear from colleagues interested in helping to expand that list and implement the Web site. Those wanting to contribute ideas and expertise can contact me at mailto:alan.kirkpatrick@colorado.edu I’d also like to hear from those who either are conducting JMC career-related research or are familiar with some that ICIG should know about. Finding relevant research has always been a challenge for ICIG, so any help in this area is always greatly appreciated.

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Using the Thermometer Approach to Teaching Resume Writing
Robert P. Martin, Director of Career Placement & Internships,
College of Communication, Penn State University

As the sole person in charge of career placement and internships for the largest accredited communications college in the nation, I often find myself fighting life’s biggest enemy—time. With over 3,000 students to super-serve, I have had to prioritize my time more stategically than at any other time in my career, including my 12+ years in broadcasting. My goal is to provide personal advising and coaching just as I provided one-on-one customer service in my broadcasting career. The challenge of course is how to provide a range of services — from teaching resume writing, to giving leads on internships or job opportunities, to actually developing an effective search strategy š and still do it one-on-one. Among the many strategies I use a teaching model I call the Thermometer Approach. I’ve had good success with this tool and wanted to share it with my counterparts at other mass communications programs. I hope that internship and career placement directors at other institutions will share their ideas in future issues of the ICIG newsletter.

Here’s how it works. In a typical advising session with a student, I may need to consult on a range of topics: the procedures for credit internship approval and documentation, internship leads, the proper strategy to execute an effective search for the right internship opportunities. Then, just when I think the student has everything he or she could possibly need, I hear, “Could you tell me how to put together a resume?”

Since so many students need to learn how to write a resume, I offer two “Basic Resume Writing for the Communications Professional” workshops per semester. In a perfect world, every student interested in how to write an effective resume would attend one, but we know the unfortunate truth to the situation. Some students have other activities and job commitments to which they must attend. Whatever the case may be, it leaves many coming to our office later asking for help. Since it's my customer service philosophy, I do not turn them away, and I give them the Thermometer Approach.

The Thermometer Approach lets me teach a student in 15 minutes an effective way to structure a resume that best sell the student. It is memorable for future use when the student was updating his/her resume. It gets the student to think logically about how to construct a resume. It also gets the student to empathize with the person who is reading it, the potential internship supervisor or employer who is making the hiring decisions. The student easily recalls this simplistic approach. The student does not need repeated meetings with our office on basic issues regarding resume construction.

It is called the thermometer approach because it is analogous to a thermometer, the higher up on the resume, the hotter the information. Face it, the person reading the resume and making the decision as to who is hired is also often times strapped for time as well. Do not waste the reader‰s time by placing unnecessary information close to the top. The resume writer needs to create immediate impact. The information near the top should be most important and create impact on the reader. In America, we read from the top to the bottom, not from the bottom to the top so don't place critical information at the bottom. An easy way to explain it to students: The higher up on the page, the hotter the information. The middle of the page should be hot, and the bottom should be warm. I use the word warm for the bottom because a resume should never include information that could be considered cold or useless. This thermometer approach is consistent with the belief of keeping a student's resume to one page.

In my own experiences and after asking other H.R. managers and executives about how they read resumes, most will candidly admit that they spend about 30 to 45 seconds reading a resume to determine if the person will be considered for the position. This does not mean that they will not revisit the resume, but first impressions count and that is why this approach works. The student should create impact in the first thirty seconds with the most pertinent information relative to the objective (or, if the student chooses not to use an objective, relative to the first sentence or paragraph in their cover letter). After the first thirty seconds, the reader may continue to read the rest of the resume or they may have made up their mind to consider or not consider the candidate. Either way, the student has structured the resume properly and has not wasted an opportunity to create impact or wasted the reader’s time.

Teaching a student to create different subcategories or headings to highlight certain experiences can also create a strong impact and allow the student to keep components in chronological order while placing more important experiences under their own heading. For example, a student looking for an internship in television production may want to list a previous internship that wasn‰t the most recent experience as its own heading ‹Internship.Š This allows the student to make this component stand out over a more recently completed project or experience that would normally take first position under relevant experience. Referring back to the thermometer approach, the internship listing would precede the other relevant experience to create a stronger impact with experiences that matches the objective more effectively.

Approaching the structure of a resume this way creates a lasting impression not only on the reader, but also on the student. This is especially true when the student is revisiting their resume for additions or improvements, making them more self-sufficient in updating their respective resumes. This approach will not be the savior to all of your resume critiquing challenges, but it will get your students on the track of structuring their own resumes properly.

As was mentioned before, this approach is fast and effective at getting students to structure their resume to create impact and it should take no more than 15 minutes to explain. As a follow up to this 15 minute meeting or if they went to the “Basic Resume Writing for the Communications Professional” meeting, our office will then bring in approximately 10 professionals from the communications industry to critique students final drafts of their resumes at our “Final Resume Workshop.” The thermometer approach prepares students for this event and allows our office to handle the large volume of students effectively while creating effective resumes targeting the communications industry.

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Research Notes
Marian Azzaro, ICIG Research Chair

Papers aren’t due until April 1, 2002. The official AEJMC call for papers won’t come until mid-December, 2001. But, it’s never too early to start thinking about research paper submissions for the Internships and Careers Interest Group (ICIG) of AEJMC. When we make it official, we will invite submissions of papers exploring the Internship and Career planning interests of students in all fields of Journalism and Mass Communications including Advertising and Public Relations. Relevant themes from research papers presented at past conferences cover a range of topics including predictors in internship success, intern versus employer internship expectations, GPA/Internship performance correlation, the benefits of internal college internships, and emotional intelligence and employability. In recognition of our location for AEJMC 2002 (Miami, Florida) we especially encourage submissions researching the special issues of career planning and development for minority students.

In these uncertain economic times, many schools are seeing student enrollments increasing while job opportunities for graduates are decreasing. More and more, students come to us for career counseling and internship and job search advise. The need for research in this area is profound and the opportunity for submission of your work is approaching. So circle the date on your calendar, put the finishing touches on your research and join us on the road to Miami.

Contact me with any questions or to volunteer as a faculty reviewer of paper submissions, mailto:mazzaro@roosevelt.edu

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Miami in 2002: ICIG Program Preview
Michelle Betz, ICIG Vice-Head & Program Chair

After an extremely successful program in Washington, ICIG is pulling out all the stops and is aiming for a repeat performance next August in Miami. We’re looking to revisit some of the key areas and to bring back some new ones. The panel on convergence in the classroom was a hit, so we’ll likely bring back some of our panelists to see how things have progressed over the year. Another significant topic of discussion will be journalism and trauma, particularly in light of the September 11 tragedy. ICIG is hoping to take the lead in this area and mount a mini-plenary with News-Ed, RTVJ and Civic Journalism.

We’re also looking to incorporate some new panels touching on areas that have not previously been dealt with at prior AEJMC conferences. One of the areas we're considering is a teaching panel on computer-assisted reporting. We hope to bring in one of the leading international experts in this area, Mary McGuire from Carleton University in Canada to lead this discussion. We also plan to pull on the strengths of the Hispanic community in Miami by taking a look at jobs and internships in Spanish-language media. This too may be a mini-plenary, but regardless, it will have a special something added.

Other planned sessions include a look at business and management internships and a career-related advertising panel. There will also be a scheduled research session.

ICIG is always looking for volunteers and ideas. If you’ve got ideas or are interested in participating in sessions or just helping out, please contact me at mmbetz@hotmail.com

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