the job search.

Yeah, you heard me, the job search. Myself, along with millions of other graduating college students throughout America are sitting down to our laptops and sending out our resumes to companies near and far hoping to strike a fancy with at least one to hear those words, "You're hired!" Or to at least see them in an email. However all we usually get, or at least all that I usually get is an automated response that says something along the lines of; "Thank you for your interest in Company X. We will review your application and contact you should your qualifications meet our needs." Awesome. Great. I take that as there is a one in a million chance I will ever hear back from you! But I just keep plugging away anyways because what else am I supposed to do? Yes, I can network but I only know so many people that I can reach out to and who knows if they will follow through or even have an opening or anything at all? But I have continued to do that anyways as well.

However, yesterday I was filling out another one of these monotonous applications, submitting my resume and cover letter as usual. but when I progressed to the next page I immediately was taken aback. The company asked me to respond to two questions which were: 'What is one of your accomplishments in PR/Communications that makes you proud?' And 'What inspires you?' I was thinking to myself, wow, for the firs time I am really going to be able to showcase a more personal side of me rather than just my bland resume and cover letter combination.  I was actually excited to respond to the questions; now I know that someone might not ever look at this application either but I still felt elated knowing that I could give them a better vision of who I am and why I would be a fit for their company. So below, I will list the answer to the first question which was 'What is one of your accomplishments in PR/Communications that makes you proud?'

"As a senior at Marist College in Poughkeepsie, New York, every major is required to take a capstone course. Although it does vary by every major, the Communications department is unique in that you get to cater your capstone project to exactly what you want it to be; whether it be start a blog, plan an event or film a documentary. For my capstone project, I formed a group with two classmates of mine and we started with the idea that we wanted to plan an event for a non-profit organization. We then were able to continue brainstorming and decided that we wanted to help the Alzheimer's Association since myself and one other girl each have family members with the disease and my third group member had interned the previous summer with the Connecticut chapter. It took a lot of hard work but we were able to put on the event in early November at our college. Our aim was to educate people our age about the disease and steps they could take now to prevent it later in life. We received support from local businesses and organizations such as Saint Francis Hospital, Alzheimer's Association Hudson Valley Chapter, Hudson Valley West Coast Swing Dancing and a local yoga instructor. We were able to drive home the idea to our fellow students that you could keep your brain healthy by doing easy activities such as yoga, dancing and simply eating the right types of food.

In addition, since all three of us were both dual concentrations of journalism and public relations, we decided to create a pamphlet that includes six intimate interviews we each conducted with people who either have relatives or close friends with Alzheimer's. It was inspiring for us to be able to conduct these interviews but also to share the pamphlet with our classmates as we did at our event.

Overall the event was a success even though it was small and we had evaluation sheets for students to fill out on their way out. One person wrote "my grandmother has Alzheimer's and I'm so happy you did this so I can learn more about it." That truly hit home for all three of us and really made all our hard work worth it and it has definitely been my proudest moment as a PR/Communications student."

Like I said this has been the one and only bright spot to the job search process so far and I hope to see more like this! In the mean time, anyone want to hire me? ;)