Here is an introduction to our conversation:

Online social networks create a whole new media paradigm through which to reach today’s graduating talent. The rapid pace of this shift, and a new world of social etiquette, has left many corporate university recruiters off on the sidelines.

In this podcast we’re joined by author, speaker, and Gen-Y expert Lindsey Pollak, as we begin to frame out an approach to social media practices that can serve recruiters in the university space.

Listen here and please join the conversation at TheUniversitySpace.com!

Asa asked me how job hunting is like baking cupcakes — a question that, believe it or not, no one has ever asked. Here was my response:

“Job hunting is like baking a cupcake in that there are many steps to the process,” says Pollak. “Follow up is involved and once you finish the cupcake and you finish the job hunt, the enjoyment of the work you’ve put in – eating the cupcake or finding a job that you love – is always worth it.”

Many thanks to the job seekers/cupcake bakers you see in the segment, from left to right in the photo above: Kara Johnson, Katie DePaola, Melissa Basolo and Anna Schilawski. Email me for any of their fabulous resumes!

Huge thanks to reporter Asa Aarons and to Laura Allen of 15 Second Pitch for making the introduction.

Click here to view behind-the-scenes photos and a gallery of the cupcakes we baked that day.

I’m very glad this topic is still on the radar screens of major media reporters. I just wish the articles would include some helpful suggestions for young people who find themselves in the tough position of facing the longest recession period since the 1930s. The Comments section of the Times article certainly included a lot of — ahem — suggestions, but I’m not a big fan of snark. So, I thought I’d share my three cents on how college students and recent grads can still improve their resumes without a traditionally “good” summer job or internship.

Volunteer. In fairness, in addition to the snarky remarks, the Comments section of the Times piece was filled with the suggestion to volunteer, and that advice is spot-on. I’ve written many times about the value of volunteering and it’s even more important this summer.

Although future employers will understand why you might not have a superstar internship on your resume for the infamous summer of 2009, they won’t understand why you don’t have any volunteer experience during that time period. Volunteer for Meals on Wheels, a political candidate, a soup kitchen, a Little League team, Big Brothers/Big Sisters, an animal shelter, anything. Search for thousands of opportunities at Idealist.org.

Take on a Project. I just finished reading the memoir Julie and Julia, which has been made into an upcoming movie starring Meryl Streep and Amy Adams. The book is about a young woman with a boring temp job and dreams of becoming an actress who decides on a whim to spend a year cooking every recipe in Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking and writing a blog about it. A little weird? Check. A challenging, unique project that takes commitment, determination, creativity and confidence? Also check. If I were a recruiter for a cookbook publisher, restaurant chain or the Food Network, I’d call Julie in for an interview.

Can you spend the summer taking on a project related to your area of career interest? A business major could read through every book on the summer’s Wall Street Journal business best seller list and review each book on Amazon.com. An aspiring film industry worker could watch every film on the American Film Institute’s list of 100 best films of all time. An aspiring curator could tour every museum in a 200 mile radius. If you choose a worthwhile, valuable project, it could lead to a job (or a book deal).

Start a Small Business. My friends over at Gradspot.com just featured a great post outlining four businesses that are easy to start and manage, including dog walking, tutoring, computer programming and babysitting/nannying. These are all resume-worthy summer pursuits and can lead to great opportunities for networking, skill building and, of course, moneymaking. I’d add to this list jewelry making, graphic design, lawn mowing, gardening, house painting, social media consulting (you would not believe the number of people who ask me if I know of a college student who would teach them how to use Facebook or Twitter) and bartending (if you’re of legal age). Employers are often impressed by the hard work and leadership it takes to launch and run a business on your own, especially in hard times.

Do you have more suggestions for making the most of an jobless summer? Please share in the comments!

The show will feature your regular hosts, thirtysomething authors Christine Hassler, Alexandra Levit and me. It will air live Monday, June 22nd at 5PM ET. We’ll be talking about our relationships with MEN over the years — this should be a fun one!

Hope you’ll join us live on Monday or listen to the replay.

Whether you know it or not, we Gen Yers have a competitive edge over older job seekers in the career search. We are less expensive to hire, we are more impressionable (not having already settled into one company culture or way of doing things), and we have grown up with ever-changing technology, having become fast learners as a result.

However, the major obstacle that we encounter in our career search keeping us from getting the job is our lack of previous “real-world” work experience. Especially considering the current economic situation, this is not the issue you want to run into when you graduate and suddenly realize that it’s too late to go back in time and fill in your resume.

Whether or not you know what you want to do in your full-time career, I can’t begin to impress upon you the importance of gaining as much experience as possible during your high school, college and grad school careers. Experience is experience, even if it is not directly related to the job you are applying for.

Start now and “body-build” your resume while you have the time and the opportunity to set yourself up for the career of your dreams. I also recommend that you sign up with LinkedIn so you can show off your “heavyweight” resume online!

“How can I body-build my resume?” you might ask. Here are six ways all Gen Yers can gain more valuable leadership and professional experiences and skills:

1. Summer Internships: Summer employment is essential to most Gen Yers. We need the money, and it gives us a little structure to our vacation. However, an internship may be much more valuable to you and your career than a traditional hourly gig. Summer internships often have full-time hours, last multiple weeks and/or months and provide you real accomplishments, professional contacts, references and opportunities for full-time employment. If your financial situation allows it, do consider unpaid internship opportunities, for there may be more of them in this job market than usual. No one will ever ask you if your internship was paid or unpaid, and unpaid internships can offer just as valuable experience and can also lead to full-time paid opportunities.

To find internships of interest to you in this tough economy, I recommend using job aggregators, like Indeed, SimplyHired and LinkUp. Indeed and SimplyHired collect listings from across hundreds of job boards online, including Monster and CareerBuilder, and LinkUp uniquely collects listings directly from company websites, often revealing opportunities that weren’t externally advertised. Craigslist is also a great place to search local opportunities, so check out the internship listings under each city or area of interest or proximity to where you live or go to school. Lastly, never forget the power of the almighty Google. Try Googling specific companies or types of internships. You might be surprised by how much you find.

2. School-Year Internships: Companies and organizations are always in need of interns even after the end of the summer, so if your academic schedule allows some flexibility, consider using the search tips listed above and also checking with your career center for opportunities. This again gives you some valuable experience, references and contacts — and potentially can count for academic credit if unpaid. Also, an unpaid internship may be more acceptable during the school year for students who wouldn’t have enough time to hold a traditional part-time job otherwise.

3. Volunteer Work & Mission Trips: Community service of all types, including domestic and international service trips through church and school groups, offers you a way to give back. It also provides you leadership opportunities and looks really good to employers, especially as more companies develop their corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives and efforts. You find these opportunities by asking friends how they get involved, calling up and volunteering for a local animal shelter, serving as a tutor for local students, or joining service fraternities, charitable organizations and churches in your area. You can also search online. Idealist is the global directory of volunteer opportunities and other resources and is a great place to start.

4. Extracurricular Clubs & Activities: Whether you’re in college, grad school or just launching your career, get involved with as many extracurricular groups, organizations and activities of personal interest or relevance to your career as is manageable for your lifestyle. These are often more fun than work, but also help you build up your resume and provide you valuable leadership experience. Invest yourself in your clubs and activities, and pursue more responsibility and leadership positions when opportunities arise.

5. Entrepreneurial Ventures: If you are creative, entrepreneurially-minded and have launched or will launch a business of any size, don’t forget to play up your efforts and accomplishments on your resume. Employers really value entrepreneurs as employees, for they not only find new innovative ways to grow their businesses, but also tend to have strong general business skills.

6. Social Media & Blogging: As more companies and organizations get more involved in social media channels, employers are increasingly seeking social-media-inclined employees. Become an expert on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and any other social media networks in which you are interested, especially from the business perspective. If you have the interest or the ability to blog on career-relevant topics, this is also a great way to really establish your personal brand and expertise and use it to sell yourself in your career search. Google’s Blogger and Wordpress are two great platforms to help you get started and launch your own blog.

My advice to Gen Yers in this job market is to “flex your career muscles,” get more experience and body-build your resume!

Chris Perry is a Gen Y Brand and Marketing Generator, a Career Search and Personal Branding Expert and the Founder of Career Rocketeer, the Career Search and Personal Branding Blog.

Image: FHRBusiness.com

Participants must be available to devote two hours on Tuesday, June 23rd, from 6:30pm- 8:30pm OR Wednesday, June 24th, from 6:30- 8:30pm, to offer their candid opinions in a group setting. The focus groups will be held in midtown Manhattan. The group will be anonymous — any information recorded from these sessions will not be used in association with any names and will have no impact on employment decisions.

Pizza will be provided!

If you are interested in participating, please email me at lindsey@lindseypollak.com with the following information:

Name
Current School
Degree
Graduation month/year
Major
Home State

Please respond by Wednesday, June 17th. Participants will be confirmed and sent final instructions by Thursday, June 18th.

Thank you for your consideration. Please feel free to forward to trusted friends!

Image: BehaviorResearch.net

Here is a chunk of my current “to-read” list. I hope this will guide you to some interesting content. And, if I never make it to the bottom of my stack, hopefully you can share your thoughts with me on what you’ve read…

“The Way We’ll Work”
Time magazine’s special report on the future of work and careers.

“Reinvent”
My 30/20 Vision radio show co-host and friend Alexandra Levit is writing a terrific syndicated column for the Wall Street Journal Careers website and I am way behind on her great articles.

“How to Give a Great Talk”
Barry Eisler’s blog post was recommended on Twitter recently and I’ve been eager to read it. Always looking for good tips on being a better presenter.

“An Executive Guide to Social Media”
In this special report, BusinessWeek provides a peek into how companies are using Facebook and Twitter. For anyone who wants to work for, sell to or understand corporate America, this sounds like a must read.

Who’s Got Your Back
If you’ve heard me speak about networking, you’ve probably heard me rave about Keith Ferrazzi’s first book, Never Eat Alone. This is his second book and it’s sitting on the top of my nightstand stack.

Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry Into the Value of Work
I loved Matthew Crawford’s recent article in The New York Times Magazine called “The Case for Working with Your Hands.” It made me realize how much I focus this blog and my speaking on advising young professionals how to get jobs in offices. In reality, “desk jobs” aren’t for everyone, nor should they be. I’m looking forward to read more about Crawford, a University of Chicago PhD who now runs a motorcycle repair shop.

What are you reading (or wanting to read) that you’d recommend? Please share!

Image: ny2ks

I’m excited to share this new website and blog design, which features more career advice videos, more social networking opportunities, more information about my campus and corporate speaking and — coming soon — audio downloads.

Many thanks to Scott Weiner of Brandwagon for all of his creativity and hard work.

I hope you enjoy the new website and please share any feedback you have!

There aren’t any reality shows about finding America’s next top writer.  And I’m not saying there should be.  I know that my writing process—sitting in front of a computer silently willing myself to focus instead of Google ex-boyfriends from college—wouldn’t make scintillating television programming.  But still, without a Simon or Tyra barking directives from the television, an aspiring author might feel left in a lurch when it comes to launching a career.  So, Lindsey asked me to write some tips on starting a writing career.  And while this is a tough request as there’s no one path to follow to writing success or specific way to guarantee getting published, there are a few writerly must-do’s when you’re getting started.

1. Write. Writing is a pretty huge part of being a writer.  That sentence might read stupid obvious, but it’s a fact that writing’s easy to talk about and hard to do.  Having a book idea or writing aspirations is one thing, but churning out the pages to back those ambitions up is a completely different thing.  So put your fingers to the keyboard, pen to the page, or quill to the parchment, and get writing.

2. Share. As hard as writing is, sharing your writing can be even harder.  But you can’t get published if your work never leaves your hard drive.  So, don’t be afraid of other people’s eyes on your words or editorial feedback.  In fact, you should seek it out.

3. Read. Read as much as you can, and not just from the genre you’re writing.  Read everything from literary memoir to paranormal romance to the instructional poster about hand washing in your dermatologist’s office.  Inspiration and influence comes from everywhere and seeing how others are practicing the craft can be very motivational.

4. Toot. Toot your own horn because, to paraphrase someone famous and philosophical, if you’re not tooting your own horn, who is?  Let people know that you’re not just a writer, but an awesome writer.  Tell the world how funny/poignant/lyrical/thrilling your work is.  How else are they going to know?

5. Live. Writing is important, but so is having something to write about.  A story about a guy who stares at his QWERTY keyboard for eight hours a day and limits his social interaction to the pizza delivery guy and his cat isn’t going attract that many readers.  So get out there and learn and do and see, so you have a base of experiences from which to write.

Hope this helps and inspires writers out there.  And I’ll leave you with this insider secret: never underestimate the power of switching fonts to WingDings when you’re up again writer’s block.  Inspiration at its finest!

Click here to check out Julie’s new novel, Slept Away.

This month, my co-hosts Christine Hassler (author of 20 Something Manifesto) and Alexandra Levit (author of How’d You Score That Gig?) and I will talk about gap years: should you take time off?

We hope you’ll join us live or check out the replay.