To begin her career test, J.T. O'Donnell asked a room of around 100 UNH students to stand and remain standing if they had a Facebook account.
The room fell silent, as every student remained standing.
"Stay standing if you're Facebook account does not have any pictures of you… doing keg stands or any other compromising things," she said.
That's when the commotion started, with some students shifting to sit and others laughing.
"OK, now we're starting to see people sit down," she said. "Got some bad news for you guys, Grandma's on Facebook now."
O'Donnell is a career expert with over 18 years of experience, managing, training and coaching on career topics. Her company, Careerealism.com, offers free advice targeted for those beginning their careers, especially college students.
With an estimated 2.5 million college seniors graduating this year, and a poor job market, O'Donnell stressed the importance of getting ahead of the competition through online networking on Wednesday, as well as offering other online tools invaluable to the career journey.
"Social media tools will separate you from the pack," she said. "The most social media savvy people are getting their pick of jobs."
O'Donnell said these tools help graduates network, find employers, and climb the proverbial corporate ladder.
"Four out of five hiring mangers Google search your name before they decide to bring you in for an interview," she said. "So like it or not, you have to clean it up."
Her test continued.
"Stay standing if you have a LinkedIn account," she said.
Most students sat down.
"In five years, you're not going to need a resume," she said. "LinkedIn lists your professional history… it is easy to read, and does all your formatting for you. The average college student doesn't have LinkedIn. It will put you head to shoulders with about 1.75 million college students."
LinkedIn allows a person to browse and friend employees of various companies or fellow peers, and create a solid networking foundation.
O'Donnell stated an example of a woman searching for a job at Martha Stewart Living. Although none of her friends worked there, one of her friend's friend on LinkedIn worked there, and provided an essential 'foot in the door' to the company.
"Its called networking," said O'Donnell. "80 percent of all [hiring] right now in this economy [is] done through networking. It's all who you know. People are applying to jobs that used to get a response in one in every 100 applications - now it's over one in 200."
Two people were left standing when O'Donnell asked if students had a Twitter account.
"It's really hard to get your message out there, and it's hard to build credibility with people," she said. "[Twitter allows you to] feed and post links that you're interested in, ones that you think are smart or relevant, and you can share them with followers."
She added employers will search Twitter for relevant terms to their company, which can grant credibility to users and invaluably show employers what he or she is interested in, a chance that the resume or cover letter can typically fail to do.
"If people like what you're tweeting about, people will start following you," she said. "If you're a political science major, immediately start tweeting anything about political science, anything that you find interesting or valuable."
These online tools allow a person to "brand" themselves, or show any prospective employers the identity he or she wants. O'Donnell said that the number one career truth is "to brand or be branded."
"It's really not that hard and it's the most valuable thing you can be doing right now," she said. "It's all about branding. You are up against millions of other people; if you want an employer to hire you, you've got to have the right packaging."
O'Donnell said the top four or five things through a Google search of your name should include your Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter accounts.
O'Donnell's website, careerealism.com, offers links to sites and games that can help students identify their personality and a fitting career. One particular site is the career interests game found on the alumni section of www.career.missouri.edu.
By choosing three types of personalities, it will sort out careers, all directly linked to the U.S. Bureau of Labor with information on salary and job outlook.
"You need to be assessing your strengths, your values, your passions and interests… and market them," she said. "Make an appointment with the career center and use every single resource they have. The rules have changed from thirty years ago. Today, a college degree only gets you to the starting line."
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