Glad we could help. I’m sure Dave and I will plan a road trip to an event in the near future.

Best of luck with the new chapter.

Brandon
@bchesnutt

Thanks for the comment. I’ve met people with degrees in PR and journalism who couldn’t write if their life depended on it!! I’m glad you have recognized this as well.

That’s really interesting that you have a degree related to music, but you are interested in social media. Good luck pursuing your interests. It would work well to work for a music-related company as a social media specialist.

I like your suggestions. Results are really important, but saying you were able to get 400,000 media impressions on a project you simply sat in a meeting on would obviously be wrong. Thanks for the comment!

I agree with Evan’s great advice about only taking credit for your part of a project, or mentioning the team. Just be honest, and take credit where you deserve it.

Furthermore, I include results that I, specifically, accomplished. Results, results, results! More than likely, the person taking credit for the work they didn’t do can’t post these specifics, so the more information you provide, the more legitimate your claim (and the less likely it is to be stolen by someone else).

I also recommend slyly mentioning to the person that you caught them red-handed. They may not change the claim, but if they know that you know, and that you have the capability of exposing them, they might re-think doing something similar again.

This post definitely hit home. I agree with you 100% when you say that a college degree is just a piece of paper. Even though most employer’s want you to possess a degree in a particular field before considering you for employment, it is only a piece of paper. A person could hold a degree in English but also have the worst written communication skills on Earth!

I believe that people should heavily utilize social media practices (among other efforts) when seeking to secure a job/career. The most successful businesses use it to market their products and brands. Why not use it to market yourself? Job seekers should create blogs, join social networking sites if they haven’t done so, or even upload videos of why they would be a success at the company they’re trying to become a part of.

Let’s take me for example, I have a background in Music (Bachelor’s in Performance and Master’s in Music Education). I’ve been teaching privately here in Dallas, but I want to do more. I have a huge passion for social media. I’ve been working with social for about 4-5 years and I feel that my social media skills are pretty good. Recently, I’ve been doing some informal marketing work. And I REALLY enjoyed it. I’m currently seeking job opportunities where I would be able to utilize my social media skills professionally (Entry Level Social Media Marketing Specialist/Social Media Coordinator/etc.). But as you know, most hiring managers look at my resume and wonder if a musician/music educator has what it takes to uphold a Social Media Coordinator or other related position.

I make it my priority to inform potential employers of the skills and intrinsic qualities that serious music study has allowed me to develop in my cover letter. All qualities I feel would allow me to succeed in any career. I have a question for you. What advice would you give someone from a background other than Marketing or PR seeking to secure an entry level position in social media marketing? Thanks Rachel!!

-Alan

Ross: Great point! And, once you get caught lying, it’s really tough to recover your reputation.