In the course of Seelio’s history we have been able to work with a lot of awesome people, many of them interns. Since we’re all about sharing stories at Seelio, we asked one of our former interns, Melissah Lang, to share her’s.
So we present to you, Melissah’s thoughts on networking, job searching, working at Seelio and more! Enjoy!
Seelionians, allow me to introduce myself.
Some of you know that while in alpha, what you now know as Seelio, was named truApp, and that we posted lots of blog entries on our truApp blog. Some of those entries seemed so important we figured we’d post them again. This is one of them. Enjoy! Find the original entry here.
Meet Joanna Kroll. As a Senior Associate in Career Development at the University of Michigan School of Information, she has the scoop on recruiting, your portfolio and keeping up with the digital world.
Joanna Kroll
The trend in recruiting these days indicates that recruiters in all industries are becoming more strategic about how to undercover hidden talent faster. In this fast-paced, digital world, recruiters are looking for accomplished talent beyond looking at traditional resumes and cover letters. They want to be able to evaluate and assess talent on a deeper, more strategic and holistic level, faster! How are they doing this? They are turning to eportfolios for more evidence of talent, skills, experience, personality and fit to better meet their organizational needs faster and more effectively.
A professional eportfolio is quickly becoming a job search tool recruiters expect when recruiting talent these days. A good eportfolio can be a one-stop package showcasing your qualifications that reaches deeper levels of evidence than a standard resume and cover letter. Keep in mind that resumes and cover letters are just as important as an eportfolio as many recruiters do still prefer to see a resume and cover letter first, and then will go to the eportfolio as the second step in recruiting. Your eportfolio should complement (not take the place of!) the content on your resume and cover letter in such a way that it provides recruiters the full picture of who you are and what you can do for them. The eportfolio should provide proof of evidence that complements your content on a one-page resume and cover letter.
I’ve been a career counselor for 12 years at the University of Michigan School of Information, and my advice to my students has always been that in order to land that dream job, you MUST utilize every job search resource and tool available to you. You NEED TO market your skills and talents to recruiters any way you can. And these days, recruiters are going to the web to uncover online portfolios, personal web pages, and social media plaftorms (Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and even Pinterest) to find talent faster these days. As a job seeker, YOU MUST be aware of these trends and react to them by creating an online presence through a professional eportfolio today!
Now we ask; What are you waiting for?
T’was the week before finals and all through the campus, not a creature was stirring- well maybe in the library!
As the semester comes to a close and finals are approaching, we know the hours spent and RedBulls consumed seem pretty daunting. Don’t worry, there’s light at the end of the tunnel, you’re almost there! As an inspiration for the final stretch, we have included a gallery of some impressive final projects we have seen on Seelio to date. Keep going and maybe one day if you upload your project, it could end up on the gallery!
Some of our highlighted final projects this week include:
Stand & Rest by Michelle Kim, BA Art & Design, University of Michigan – Ann Arbor (’11) 
Neuromap – Deep Brain Stimulation Probe by Paul Kapoor, MEng Energy Systems Engineering, University of Michigan – Ann Arbor (’10)
Java and SQL in EECS282 by Chihiro Jimbo, BA Informatics and BA Anthropology, University of Michigan – Ann Arbor (’13)
Design of Health Informatic Web App: SmartData by Ray Hu, MS Information, University of Michigan – Ann Arbor (’13)
Google Wallet Marketing Project by Jay Ahn, BA History Concentration European Studies, Northwestern University (’12)
Gummy by Matthew Schulte, BS Computer Engineering, University of Michigan – Ann Arbor (’15)
Dynamic Simulation of a Compressor by John Fisher, BS Mechanical Engineering, University of Notre Dame (’13)
Capstone Project for Playtex Products Inc. by George Joseph Ferko V, BS Materials Science Engineering, Lehigh University (’10)
6th Grade Dramatic Structure: A Study of the Vikings by Courtney Cales, BA Theater and Communication, Loyola University Chicago (’12)
BucketBOT Modular Robotics Challenge by Thuan Doan, BS Mechanical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (’15)
Integrated Product Development by Adam Wells, BS Architecture and Program in Entrepreneurship, University of Michigan – Ann Arbor (’13)
The Discotective by Tyler Johnson, PhD Electrical Engineering, University of Washington (’17)
Gesture Recognition using Depth Information by Anant Agarwal, BTech Computer Science and Engineering, Jaypee Institute of Information Technology (’13)
Proposal: Liquid Crystal Thermometer by Veronica Li, BS Chemical Engineering, Columbia University in the City of New York (’15)
Personal Custom Electric Scooter by Franco Montalvo, BA Mechanical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (’13)
There were several other inspiring projects we didn’t have a chance to show. See a more complete list of them here.
As soon as you are done with your final project, don’t forget to upload it to your Seelio for your peers, parents and potential employers to see. After all, you’ve worked hard on it, get keep your work alive!
Good luck with finals!
Seelio is working to create theme galleries for the next few weeks. If you have any ideas, feel free to contact Chelsea (chelsea@seelio.com).