I was knee-deep into trying to get NPR interns jobs by tweeting when I realized that we had a problem: I had no links. Part of the usefulness of Twitter is that much of the content available is in teaser form: a little blurb and then a link to find out more. Our interns didn’t have their own personal websites, resumes, or other place to contact them online — nothing to link to.

This is a problem. If you’re actively looking for a job, please make it easy to find out more about you and contact you. You don’t need to have a slick website but you do need to have something — a LinkedIN profile, an emurse.com profile, or even something this.

Here are some good examples of the few NPR interns that have personal web presences. Only two of the follow are actively looking for work:

• Brandon Neil – A large splash-page photo that links directly to a PDF of his resume. Actively looking for work.
• Georgia Rhodes – She’s a photographer so she uses a blog/portfolio style site.
• Megan Pellegrino – I know she has a redesign on the way so I won’t criticize the the early 2000s design but this is an example of a more work-oriented / job-hunting personal site. Actively looking for work.
• Anna Tauzin – Demonstrating she can work in Drupal, her site is pretty basic on the outside but take a look at her blog, portfolio and you will quickly realize what’s what.
• Katie Hayes – As a photojournalist, she has a selected portfolio of her best work along with bio/resume and a blog of her recent musings. Good style.
• Tristan Ahtone – OK, his blog hasn’t been updated in eight months. Brutal. But he has the most unique and personal design — clearly some work went into this.

I ended up scrambling to get interns to have their resumes uploaded to a public Google Doc. That’s OK for Twitter but not going to do you many favors down the road. A friend told me I should open up a business doing personal websites for college-grads. Charge a small, one-time fee that does the basics: bio/resume, objective, a photo or two, and maybe a few links. Thoughts?

Update: Some people call this building the “personal brand.” Here’s an article on MediaShift that talks about it in more detail.

Experimentation. That’s what social media is all about. Today, I tried two little tests:

1. Promote NPR interns who need jobs: As a person who is going back to school, I feel for those interns who are ending internships without work. So, I decided to help these smart, outgoing individuals by offering to tweet their links/resumes/experiences to the 1700+ followers of the @NPRInterns twitter account. This is a fine line to walk though. You can just dump resumes out of Twitter or promote these interns by tweeting every other minute about their greatness. You have to make a short argument (140 characters) for why someone should look at their resume and consider giving them an interview. On top of that, you have to make it clear that NPR supports these interns in their future endeavors but is not married to or endorses them. Overall, the results were promising. People on Twitter were very supportive, often retweeting and adding words of encouragement. But I think most were just excited that someone was bold enough to 1) let their interns support themselves, and 2) put it all out on Twitter. A few people even offered some job tips — email this person, contact that person, etc. I heard of one intern getting a direct resume pass-off to a higher up. In the future, I’ll be sure to add a hashtag to make the tweets more searchable.
2. Gather feedback and provide background for Middlebury’s WebRedo Project: I was reading through comments on the WebRedo Blog about the new Middlebury.edu mockup designs by White Whale. Then I heard that the LIS intern would be doing a chat Q & A with interested parties the next day. Why not do this in a liveblog chat format? A what? NPR.org frequently uses liveblog chats on The Two Way blog and on NPR Music. Liveblog chats essentially are a chat room that is moderated as a question and answer session. It’s done live, so people interact in real time and it’s a great way to get people engaging on an issue rather than simply leaving a comment and forgetting about it. It’s also a good way to get some buzz going. Some examples of the tools: ScribbleLive and CoverItLive. Here’s the result from today’s chat. Overall, low turnout but the format could pick up speed if you promote it well ahead of time. I think people like the format because it’s interactive but relatively low key. Plus, the conversation is archived so others can see it after the fact. I will try more of these soon.