As Public Allies, you are required to:

1. Serve four days per week at your placement, and train on the fifth day.
2. Create, improve and expand services that address diverse issues such as youth development, education, healthy futures, economic opportunity, and environmental stewardship.
3. Attend intensive weekly skill training and leadership development seminars.
4. Work in community building and team projects with a diverse cohort of peers.
5. Perform presentations of learning at the end of the year to demonstrate how each Ally met the learning outcomes of the program.

Public Allies receive as benefits for their service:

1. Critical feedback, reflection, and personal coaching toward individual performance and professional goals.
2. Earn a monthly stipend of $1,400.
3. Health care, child care, student loan deferment, and a post-service education award of $5,550.

The minimum requirements to be a Public Ally are:

Interested in making a significant impact on your community? Public Allies Pittsburgh is seeking dedicated, service minded Allies to be part of this ten-month apprenticeship in nonprofit organizations in the Pittsburgh area. You must be passionate about social issues, interested in working with a diverse group of people, and ardent about developing your full leadership potential.  Click here to apply online - applications are due April 6th!

Please contact Laura Pollanen at lpollanen@coropittsburgh.org or 412-259-3024 to find out more about Public Allies Pittsburgh.

Young professionals seeking to jump-start their career in the Pittsburgh region through a leadership program are competing to participate in the Coro Fellows Program in Public Affairs. Fellows of this unique leadership program are given numerous six-week-long placements in local businesses, non-profits and government organizations in Pittsburgh. Additional centers are located in New York City, St. Louis, Los Angeles, and San Francisco.

Participants build their leadership skills through weekly seminars and group projects, and become intimately connected to the many community issues and leaders in the greater Pittsburgh area, through focus weeks and leadership interviews. Coro Fellows can expect to develop the ability to:

ƒ 1. Analyze the resources, needs and goals of different institutions and
organizations
ƒ 2. Communicate effectively with members of diverse communities
ƒ 3. Build consensus among individuals with differing viewpoints and agendas
ƒ 4. Envision, plan, implement, and evaluate team projects
ƒ 5. Build and maintain a career network

Moreover, at the end of the program, Coro Fellows accumulate work experience in a variety of sectors, strong professional connections, and a deep understanding of the community as a whole.

Future prospects are another benefit of being part of this Coro leadership program. Due to Coro’s relationship with local universities like the Heinz School for Public Policy at Carnegie Mellon University and the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Pittsburgh, Coro graduates may get:

1. Waived application fees;
2. Joint enrollment opportunities;
3. Minimum scholarship awards ($6000 per semester);
4. Preferred acceptance.

Applicants must hold a bachelors degree or have equivalent work experience to be considered. Those interested in pursuing this opportunity, are encouraged to participate in national informational webinars currently being offered by Coro. Go to www.coro.org/fellowsprogram, to see the dates/time and click on the links to register for the one that better fits their schedule.

You may be asking yourself this question as you prepare to graduate. Most freshmen, sophomores, and juniors once in a while will wonder what to do after graduation. The most obvious option is to get a job (or go to college, if you are graduating high-school) however, especially in this economy, I’m happy to inform you that there are other options.

Fellowships, apprenticeships, and leadership programs are an excellent opportunity for developing skills that will lead to your career advancement. Southwestern Pennsylvania is filled with options for those searching alternative opportunities after graduation as Pittsburgh is home for two amazing programs: the Coro Fellows Program in Public Affairs and Public Allies Pittsburgh, a program of Americorps.

Coro Fellows Program in Public Affairs

The Coro Fellows Program is a full-time, nine month, graduate-level experiential leadership training program that prepares participants for effective and ethical leadership in public affairs.

Through placements in government agencies, nonprofits, and for profit entities, Coro Fellows learn how to translate their ideas into action.  The goal of the program is to develop leaders that will later be motivated to improve their own communities and “who can skillfully bridge the competing concerns of an increasingly diverse constituency in a world of constant change,” as stated on the program web-page.

This program entails field placements, group interviews, seminars, focus weeks, individual and group projects. The Fellows Program is offered in Los Angeles, New York, Pittsburgh, San Francisco, and St. Louis.

As program participants support community projects in partnership with local nonprofit organizations, they also participate in intensive skills training, active community-building projects, personalized coaching, and critical reflection. Public Allies recruits talented young adults from diverse and under-represented backgrounds who have a passion to make a difference.To learn more about Public Allies Pittsburgh and apply, click here.

So, don’t just wonder what to do after graduation. Look into these opportunities and expand your options!

The event is held each year at Heinz Field, and celebrates outstanding individuals and organizations in Southwestern Pennsylvania who are leading by example, and working to transform the region. The Martin Luther King Jr. Awards reinforces Coro’s mission to develop ethical and effective leaders that share a commitment to civic engagement.

The Leadership Award is given to an individual who exemplifies outstanding leadership results in the business, non-profit, or government sector. Through the Diversity Awards, the Martin Luther King Jr. Awards also acclaims two organizations that demonstrate superior achievements in creating an inclusive workplace, and that utilize diversity to drive productivity and performance.

The following are the 2012 Nominees for the MLK Leadership and Diversity Awards:

Leadership Award

Tom Baker, Big Brothers Big Sisters of Greater Pittsburgh

Al Condeluci, United Cerebral Palsy

Deborah Fidel, Pittsburgh Area Jewish Committee

Heather Mediate, Girls Coalition of Southwestern PA

William R. Neal Jr., Five Starr Champions

Zineb Outnouna, Atlas Dreams Languages, LLC

Doug Shields, Pittsburgh City Council

Bernadette Turner, Addison Behavioral Care, Inc.

Mary Esther Van Shura, Allegheny County Office of the Chief Executive

Dwan Walker, Fedex

Diversity Award – Organizations of more than 50 employees

Every Child, Inc.

Pittsburgh Pirates

Urban Pathways Charter School

Diversity Award – Organizations of 50 or fewer employees

Pittsburgh Social Exchange

Urban League Young Professionals of Greater Pittsburgh

Women and Girls Foundation

The award recipients will not be announced until the event itself, which will be held on Friday, January 13, 2012 from 5:30 pm – 8:30 pm at Heinz Field.  Tickets can be purchased at www.CoroMLKAwards.org

I was raised in a Marine Corps family.  The two people closest to me are my step-father, a WWII veteran and my brother, a retired Gunnery Sgt.  I grew up in awe of the Marines and always wanted to become one.  Due to hemophilia, this never happened.  Hemophilia is a genetic bleeding disorder that causes me to bleed spontaneously, usually into my joints.  It’s also extremely painful.

Another “problem” of my youth is that I never really felt comfortable in my own skin.  From my earliest memories, I thought I was a girl.  I remember around the age of 5, I thought that this feeling was “wrong” and I needed to make it go away.  I pushed these feelings so deep inside that I didn’t know who I was.  In my teens, I was a quiet, introverted loner and an awful student.  I just hated everything about school. Looking back, I might have done better if I was true to myself. It was another 25 years before I put all of this together.  But that’s a different story…

When I graduated high school, reality hit me hard.  Around this time, I rebelled and had a pretty wild youth.  I ended up gaining responsibility when I became part of the management team at my local drug store.  With the added responsibility, I calmed down quite a bit.  But overall, I hated my job.  I felt trapped in that store day after day.  I longed to have a job that “mattered”, where I wasn’t stuck indoors all day.  Stocking shelves and developing pictures just wasn’t fulfilling for me.

One night, I went to the movies and saw “Bringing Out the Dead”.  This night at the movies changed my life.  This is a very dark movie about a burned out paramedic and I knew it wasn’t entirely accurate.  However, it gave me the idea that being an EMT is an important job that doesn’t require me to be in a store everyday of my life.  Within two months of seeing this movie, I was volunteering at my local EMS agency and enrolled in EMT school.  In March of 2001, I was hired full time at my local EMS agency and I felt like I fulfilled part of my dream.  I would never wear those fancy Marine Corps dress blues, but I got my own uniform to be proud of.  I made it.

Within two months of seeing [Bringing Out the Dead], I was volunteering at my local EMS agency and enrolled in EMT school.

The first year of full time EMS work was probably the most memorable of my career.  I remember my supervisor telling me, “We’re throwing you to the wolves”.  To top it off, my first partner was Josh, a man known as “The Grim Reaper”.  Every EMS agency has somebody they refer to as a “black cloud”.  This means that bad things follow them everywhere.  I swear that the wildest calls I ever had was when I was still learning how to run calls.

I like to say that learning in these “trial by fire” conditions felt like I was drowning.  I was desperately trying to keep my head above water.  Josh gave me a piece of advise that stuck with me for my entire career, he said “Learn to relax and have fun with it, this can be a very fun job if you let it be”.  He was right.  Eventually, I caught on to all of the details of my job and I think I became a good EMT.  I think it took me about two years to feel that I earned being an EMT.  It was now time to relax and enjoy my job.

At the end of the day, EMS really shows you how fragile life is and it’s always in the back of our minds.

I have learned that EMS providers are very unique people to say the least.  Most of us become very good at separating ourselves from any situation. We are able to sit in the truck and close the door like the past hour never happened.  While families are barely starting the grieving process, we are en route to Wendy’s and talking about a TV show.  It’s not that we don’t care or we are made of stone.  Each one of us has to deal in our own way but none of us want to dwell on anything.  I assure you, thinking too hard about some things will drive you crazy.  I assure you that if you take things too hard, you will not last long in the field.  Over time, we all become cynical about our jobs.  People need to understand that this is our 40 hour workweek.  We all clock out and go home to our lives and our loved ones.  At the end of the day, EMS really shows you how fragile life is and it’s always in the back of our minds.

If you are in school or have just finished school (and you haven’t already) you should definitely do an internship. If you don’t you’re a dork. You’re a dork because, if you don’t do an internship, you’re missing a huge opportunity.

But here’s the thing, a lot of students spend tons of time and energy to get situated to do an internship – but then show up on the first day of their internship totally unprepared. Why? Because of lot of schools don’t teach students anything about the working world.

Don’t get me wrong, I love school. It’s just that often very well-meaning teachers and professors don’t teach their students squat about the working world. Why? Well, I’m sorry to say, many folks in academia don’t have a lot firsthand working world experience themselves.

So what happens? Instead of gaining the specialized knowledge they expect to learn, students go into an internship and spend the majority of their time learning basic work/office skills. By the time the master the basics of work, the internship is over.

Don’t let this happen to you. Before you go into an internship, learn the basics. The only difference between a seasoned professional and a student straight out of college is that the seasoned professional just knows some things the newbie hasn’t learned yet. But becoming a seasoned worker need not be some sort of mystical process; all knowledge is teachable and therefore learnable.

So, if you feel moisture behind your ears and are one of those newbies about to start an internship, find a seasoned professional (the grumpier and caffeinated, the better) and ask them what they know .

Ask them something like, “what is the most annoying things you see when it comes to work habits of people just out of school?” Trust me, it’ll get them going. Write down what they say and take it to heart. Do some thinking about how you can be a slightly more mature worker, even though you’re brand new to the working world.

If you do, you will stand out as a rock star among all your other intern colleagues on your first day. Instead of getting bogged down with learning Work 101, you’ll be ready to dive into the good stuff.

I had heard about World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms (WWOOF) before and ordered a U.S. directory from their website. WWOOF connects folks looking to live and work on farms with farmers throughout the world. Most farms offer room and board, some farms offer a stipend or wage. Workers stay for a couple weeks or a whole season.

I was looking for a farming internship in the middle of the winter–the right time for farmers to pay attention to anything other than farming. I contacted a few farms in Virginia, Pennsylvania, Maryland and West Virginia, but ultimately decided to post an inquiry on the Pennsylvania Association for Sustainable Agriculture (PASA) website. I received a handful of responses from farmers searching for helpers, including one from Jen Montgomery at Blackberry Meadows Farm in Natrona Heights, PA.

Blackberry Meadows is an 85-acre organic farm not far from Pittsburgh and 2009 was the first year completely under new management/ownership of a group of Slippery Rock University graduates. For my farming internship I worked the whole season (April to November) and lived in the basement “apartment” of the farm house. I lived there for free, ate the best food on the daily, learned all new skills, made great friends, and got connected to the local sustainability movement in Pittsburgh. I wasn’t making any money directly, but my basic needs were taken care of, and living on a farm removed me from most pressures to spend money.

Rayden Sorock poses with a giant ball of row cover, Blackberry Meadows Farm, 2009

Some weeks I worked more hours, some less. The work is physically hard, sometimes it is highly challenging mentally, as the frustrations brought on by bugs, weeds and weather are tough to get over. But I got to work outside, which in my opinion is lovely even when the weather is bad. The work varied every day–always something new to seed, or plant, or harvest, or prepare for the next round of growing. And as someone interested in communities, sustainability, food security, and the environment, I was able to see what it’s like on the ground (in the dirt) in the whole “green movement”. I have a completely new appreciation for farmers, for the land, for the weather and for animals. I had been some variation of vegetarian for 10 years, and yet I helped our poultry farmer-friends process (a.k.a kill and gut) chickens. I wonder how many people would still eat meat if they had to raise, kill and process an animal for every ham sandwich. Having such a direct connection to food is a luxury not many of us have, being isolated in suburbs or cities and equating food with sterile supermarkets and impersonal global companies.

I would do another farming internship for sure. I am still friends with Jen and the folks at Blackberry Meadows. I get such a strong feeling of appreciation from them for the work that I did. The connections I made there have led to nearly every other job I’ve taken in Pittsburgh since 2009. Occasionally I still get the chance to volunteer for them. My whole relationship to food and land and work is different. I encourage you, if you haven’t considered it already, to try a farming internship, live somewhere new, live small, live simply and take the time to figure out what comes next.

Links:
Blackberry Meadows Farm http://blackberrymeadows.wordpress.com/
WWOOF http://wwoof.org/
PASA http://www.pasafarming.org/

The following graphics illustrate the importance of social media for universities and provides data that shows which are the best schools on the web when it comes to social media for universities:

Created by: Best Education Sites

There’s limited amount of space that you can use and nothing more than a printed piece of paper that can make or brake you career plans. However, there are many, many ways you can reduce your chances to get a call. It makes sense, right? With so many applications received by employers, it’s only natural that resume mistakes will be a great way to sort good candidates from great candidates.

Resume Mistake 1: Typos & Grammar Errors

It seems like a silly thing, right? Just like that harsh Professor that insists on reducing your grades because of typos. I hate to break it to you though… it really isn’t silly… it’s actually a big deal! When you deliver a document of any sort with grammatical errors and typos, it shows your employers two things:
1. You are not very careful about your work, as you are showing not to give attention to details.
2. You will be sending their clients and business partner documents with similar mistakes which reflects negatively on the company’s image.
Does it make sense now? Great! So, make sure to use proper and clear language and always, always proofread your resume.

Resume Mistake 2: Resume is Too Long

One page is the standard, especially for interns.

Resume Mistake 3: Bad Formatting

The rule of thumb here is ORGANIZATION. The information on your resume should follow and easy-tio-understand, Illogical order. Inconsistent formatting makes your resume difficult to read, so use bullets and headings to clearly categorize the information you provide.

Resume Mistake 4: One Size Fits All

As much as you can, craft your resume to each internship position you apply for. If you are applying to a lot of positions, pick your preferred internships and customize the resumes you send with these applications. Customization means using key terms that you read on the position description to show potential employers that you have the right skills to successfully complete the internship program.

Resume Mistake 5: No Action Verbs

Start each bullet that describes your experience with and action verb. You can use words like “coordinated” and “achieved” to engage recruiters and present your experience in a accomplishment-based manner.

Resume Mistake 6: Lack of Accomplishment Oriented Information

Reinforcing the previous advice, is to dig a bit deeper into each bullet that describes your experience. Start the sentence with an action verb and end it with results generated by your work. For instance: “Coordinated a social media campaign that increased Facebook likes by 20% within a month’s period.”

Resume Mistake 7: Too Fancy

The main goal of your resume layout should be readability. Avoid flashy fonts, too many colors, and design elements. Remember, you ant to make it as easy as possible for the recruiter to pick up key terms on your resume that describe your experience and skills. So, keep it simple!

Resume Mistake 8: Repetitiveness

Be creative with your action verbs and avoid repeating the same words over and over again. It may give the recruiter the impression that you have limited skills to offer the organization.

Mistake #5:  Including Unrelated and Irrelevant Personal Information.

It’s absolutely unnecessary to add information like your driver’s license number or your address, unless required by the employer. Personal information should be restricted to your full-name and contact information – a phone number and an email address.

Things like status, religion, age, race, height, weight, race, and other interests do not belong on your resume.

Resume Mistake 9: Not including a cover letter

It’s the best chance you have to talk about your goals and why you are such a great fit for that position. Be brief and straight to the point. A recruiter once told me that a great way to write a good cover letter is to create a simple introductory paragraph and a swift closing one. In between, create a two column chart. On the first column, make a list of requirements listed on the position description. On the second column, match each requirement to skills you have that fulfill those requirements.

Resume Mistake 10: Not Sending Your Resume to a Specific Person

Companies receive many resumes that are not addressed to a specific person within the organization, which leads to the document getting little or no attention. Take the extra time to find the right person to address your cover-letter and resume to, it will pay off!

Of course, avoiding resume mistakes does not guarantee that you will get an interview, however, it sure helps you ensure that you make a good impression!

In Episode 3 of Larkin Street Stories, Toby coaches a transgender youth who is preparing for an important job interview.

“I enjoyed my internship at Larkin Street because I was working at a place I like and respect.”

For more information, visit: http://www.larkinstreetyouth.org/