Summer's Over...Back to School?

Well, the summer is almost over. I'm here at Panera typing another blog posting, I haven't had a call from a recruiter or anyone else in weeks.

I guess I can take some comfort in the fact that I'm STILL in good company. According to last week's Department of Labor, NYC has a 9.6% unemployment rate in July, its highest level since June 1997. I keep telling myself, "This is the summer slowdown...everyone is on vacation...September will be better..." and all the positive things I can think of to keep on trucking. But sometimes it feels like job finding and lotto winning have about the same odds.

I am most worried about my skills and resume getting stale. So I think I'd better come up with a Plan B. I'm seriously thinking about signing up for a few more classes at NYU School of Continuing and Professional Studies (SCPS).

These classes are around $800 and go for 6 sessions. While I hate to shell out the extra bucks, I believe they are one of the better ways for me to stay on top of the trends in the industry. Plus, I think the trip into the city and the social interaction, and the class would be a good change of pace for the fall.

I've been working towards NYU SCPS Digital Marketing Certificate for a few years now (on the dime of my previous employer). I've taken the Digital Strategy, Strategic Search Engine Marketing (SEM)and Social Media classes. I've found them to be incredibly informative and eye-opening. I was able to put all of my learnings to practice at work, and in my opinion, it was the best investment my employer ever made.

I first found out about Second Life in the Digital Strategy class. The concept of people sitting home and building an alternate reality for themselves on the internet and people making money programming clothes, cars and houses absolutely blew my mind. We also learned about other digital marketing opportunities, such as bluetooth, and podcasts.

The SEM class was sponsored by Google, and we were actually given a budget and a real life campaign to manage. I was able to take this hands-on knowledge to expand my responsibilities at work to include SEM marketing.

In the Social Networking class we learned the nuances of this communication channel and the best practices for using them to meet marketing objectives. I put into practice on Jillian Michaels facebook page and was able to grow the site to over 11K members in a matter of weeks. It was amazing.

This time around, I'm looking at the Advanced SEM class, and the SEO Strategy class.

Well, Back to School...that's my Plan B. In the meantime, I am playing Lotto... religiously. Just in case. Hey...you never know!