Friday 24 August 2012

A hesitant migrant’s first step into the blogosphere


 
Hi, and welcome to my inaugural blog post. My name is Joan Schiebelbein and I’m the Director of CAPS: Your U of A Career Centre. While I’m a blogging newbie, this is not the first blog to be hosted by CAPS. Ms. Metamorphosis, a student in her final year at the U of A who shared her musings about her career and search for employment, was the first official CAPS blogger. Last year we hosted an employer blog. For this year, I agreed to take a stab at it. Why, you (and I) ask? Well, I’ve been working at CAPS for almost a quarter of a century (more about that in a future post) and I thought I might have some wisdom to share. I also have a selfish reason for taking on the task. I am a hesitant migrant to social media. I’ve finally accepted that social media is more than a passing trend and figured being responsible for the CAPS blog for at least the next several months will help me get over my reluctance. Heck, I’m sure I will learn a thing or two along the way. I always encourage students (my nieces and nephews might say preach) to try new things even when they don’t know where it will take them.
So what is this blog all about? (I have put some thought into what I will write about over the next several months. I’m not going into this totally blind!) I will share with you my career experiences, as well as those of friends and colleagues, in the hopes that you might glean something helpful for your own career. I will also share interesting articles, books, movies, speakers, websites, etc. I’ve read or seen that have some bearing on careers and employment. I am planning to invite guest bloggers to offer their thoughts and advice. I hope you too will take part in this endeavor. If you have a career-related question, I will do my best to answer it - or find someone who can. If you have suggestions for topics or guest bloggers, please let me know. If you have a story or piece of advice to share, or a comment on what I or someone else has written, please don’t hesitate to submit it. I want this blog to be interactive. After all, that’s what social media is all about…or so they tell me.