Archive for 'Uncategorized'

Know where some of the most talented professionals I ever worked with in Admissions work now? (Hint: It’s not Admissions).

Sadly, our industry’s best and brightest often feel as if they have no other choice but to leave campus in search of professional development, career advancement, and in many cases, a decent salary.

In my time (and when did I get old enough to say that by the way?), phrases like “you’ve got to move over to move up” were the norm. Despite the fact that I worked full-time — plus “nights, overnights and weekends” as we liked to say in the business — my MBA advisor kept asking me when I was going to get a “real job.”

True — my colleagues ...

Seems like we have been recruiting millennials for a long time and now they’re joining our ranks in the workplace.

AdAge recently published “What to Know About Your Latest Class of Employees”. The article outlines five observations and best practices that are relevant to millennials in the workplace:

1. Loyalty is back
2. Engagement is essential
3. Watch for short circuits
4. Make time for face time
6. Harness the coffeehouse effect

Read the quick article for all the details.

Regardless of what generation your work team is; Millennial, Gen X or Boomer, all employees should have well designed and well thought out business cards. Even in today’s digital world a business card reigns supreme for connection. However, keep your business cards simple in ...

Ever heard the one about “How the liberal arts major says hello?”
(answer: “Would you like fries with that?”)

[go ahead, guffaw]

An NPR reporter recounts the old joke in a recent piece on how new trends could be challenging the notion that specialization in higher ed is the only path to success. They go on to tell the story of how food giant ConAgra — think Chef Boyardee and Marie Callender’s — has revamped their internship program to include the recruitment of such “off the beaten path” employees as journalism or biology majors.

Could it be? Are media outlets finally recognizing that there is value in educational pursuits that don’t reduce to 1′s and 0′s?

USA Today seems to think ...

I love to read.

But it wasn’t always that way.

As a kid I loved car magazines, newspapers and biography/history books. Fiction and literature eluded me. During my first semester at Lee College, I was lucky enough to have Dr. Janet Rahamut for several courses.  She taught me to read with not only my mind, but my heart and soul. She changed my life.

What can you say about your favorite professor? Did they inspire you to think? To justify your thoughts? Did they make you a better student and a better person? That’s what Janet Rahamut did for me. Each time I pick up a book, I say a word of thanks for having been her student.

One book I never would have ...

Last week, I had the opportunity to attend two conferences, each anchored at opposite ends of the CRM product lifecycle spectrum.

On Wednesday, I drove down to Washington, D.C. for Cloudforce, a regional Salesforce.com conference; on Thursday and Friday, I exhibited and presented at the College Board’s Recruitment PLUS User Group.

Both conferences relied heavily on “environmental” metaphors: Cloudforce, as its name suggests, promoted the future of “cloud” computing, while the College Board conference focused on the “sun-setting” of the Recruitment PLUS CRM.

The tone of Cloudforce could best be described as buoyant.  With projectors illuminating the Salesforce cloud logo on every wall, there was an almost tangible sense of floating among the clouds as participants flitted from room to room: Social networking. ...

A few weeks ago, I learned that my Saturn Vue runs on a Honda engine.

Not being a “Car Guy,” I sort of twisted my head and said, “Huh?  Whattya mean it has a Honda Engine?  Doesn’t it have a Saturn engine?”

Nope.  No Saturn engine.  Just a Honda engine.  And actually, a really good one to boot.

It took me a few minutes, however, to get my head around that:  so all this time I’ve been driving a Honda?

Well, sort of.  I mean, most of what I love about my car is very Saturn-y — the interior, the stereo, the controls, the design, the roominess.

But the Honda engine gives my car its power.  It’s what allows me to make those road trips ...

[With apologies to the Corrs...]

When I was in High School, my parents bought a treadmill.

It was sleek and black and had a big important-looking console on it.

It felt powerful.  Like you could lose weight just by being near it.  My parents had big plans for it and bigger dreams for themselves.

My father said, “It’ll be great.  I can watch Seinfeld and lose weight at the same time.”  And my mother: “I don’t have to worry about the cold winter weather, because I can exercise in comfort right here in the basement!”

Just like in a million other homes across America, however, it wasn’t too long before the treadmill was forgotten — relegated to a second life as a glorified laundry rack.  ...

When I first started in Admissions, I lived in an apartment a few blocks from campus in good ol’ Scranton, PA.  I had a short commute (a 5 minute walk to work) and quiet neighbors, but because my apartment was carved out of an old house, there weren’t a lot of other fringe benefits.

Across town, my colleague, Adrienne Bartlett (who also started her illustrious career with me in Admissions), lived in a sleek apartment complex.  Adrienne’s rent was less than mine and she had on-site laundry, an in-ground pool, workout facilities, and — best of all — included cable!

The staff on-hand at Adrienne’s complex would mow the lawns, shovel the parking lot, clean the pool, and replace the workout machines.  ...

“When you’re finished changing, you’re finished.”

-Benjamin Franklin

2011 is a marquee year for TargetX — and with that comes exciting changes that we know will add to our success as partners.

Two of the biggest changes are related to the future of the weekly XpertTip email broadcast.

So today I thought I’d talk briefly about what we have in mind with the expectation that we’ll follow up with subscribers in more detail in the weeks to come.

The first point of interest is that our own Jeff Leisse is now heading up TargetX Client Support.

Many of you already know and love Jeff and have told us he’s one of the most knowledgeable, patient and relatable techie-types in the business.  ...

This week I’m preparing some of the most common email “faux pas” for the next installment of our Free on Friday webcast series.

But since I’ll only have a half-hour to highlight the biggest offenders, today I thought I’d share an email tip I probably won’t get to on Friday.

You’d probably be amazed by it — but I’m still seeing emails with the recipient’s first name merged into the subject line.

It’s a practice that was pretty neat back in the day because it had that “Hey, look what I can do with this nifty new email broadcast tool thingy” quality about it.

But these days it’s ...

Have you read the January issue of University Business Magazine?

[Full disclosure: I am aware that February's issue is already out.  But it's been a super-busy 2011 so far and I'm admittedly behind on my reading.  Somehow I doubt I'm the only one though...]

My malingering aside, there’s a don’t-miss article in last month’s UB that focuses on the changing priorities (and subsequently budget allocations) of today’s admissions offices.

Don’t have the time or inclination to get through it on this manic Monday?

Allow me to share what I think are some key sound bytes from “Today’s Admission Office Budget”:

1.  “For the foreseeable future, the main concern of all involved in ...

To my loyal XpertTip readers:

On behalf of all of us at TargetX, I wanted to be the first to officially greet you from our new digs here in Conshohocken, PA (just outside of Philadelphia).

We’re all moved in and mostly settled into our new home — a home we hope you’ll visit soon and often (ahem, hint, hint;)

As you’d expect with a growing company, there are lots of exciting changes happening around here. And biggest among them for me is an exciting new initiative that I’m heading up.

It’s a brand-new Education and Training Center (ETC) that will operate here in conjunction with our new offices.

We’ll be featuring all of your favorite X-ers (even the ones in Atlanta) to work with ...

Seems like as soon as that first piece of holiday swag hits the office, we morph into wide-eyed little children distracted by all that the season promises.

Amidst the magic of it all though, it can be pretty hard to keep track of those to-do’s and wade through all of the year-end offers and opportunities coming your way.

So today I’m going to do my best to help you wrap up this year and get organized — at least as far as TargetX is concerned;)

Here’s a list of client-related items to keep in mind amidst festivus fever in your part of the world:

• Kevin Corr and myself will be hosting a special webcast for Recruitment PLUS users to learn about our Student Recruitment ...