 Welcome to this week's podcast with Christopher Pirello and Jeffrey Fouts, the hosts with the most from the iSchool Career Services. We're continuing to work remotely due to COVID-19. This week, our podcast topic is something I think a lot of our students can relate to, if they're constantly on the LinkedIn platform. I have to say that in challenging economic times and times of uncertainty, kind of like what we're living through right now, since people are so nervous about getting jobs and internships, that sometimes we fall prey to scams or we may give our credit card number out or a checking count number to people on LinkedIn who may claim to have all the answers and that's crazy. Jeff and I wanted to address this briefly this week, just to make sure that we're all keeping level-headed and focused. I'm going to hand it over to my good friend and colleague, Jeff, to maybe address this a little bit more and help our audience understand a little bit more about this issue. Hello, everyone. Thank you once again for joining us on our third podcast, as Christopher had mentioned. We love doing these podcasts, by the way. We have a lot of fun and we've gotten a lot of positive feedback from these podcasts. As long as people are enjoying these and finding them helpful, we'll continue to do them. Right? It's fair to say. Yeah. Amen. I thought one of the topics for us to talk about is especially I'm noticed on LinkedIn, and we encourage our students to use LinkedIn a lot. We're on LinkedIn all the time. And one of the things that struck me was it's people who either have good intentions or don't have good intentions, whatever it is. But I've seen posts where they're like, hey, I've had interviews with Amazon, and I've had interviews with Microsoft, and I've had interviews with Google. All you have to do is contact me, and I will show you the magic bullet that you need in order for you to get an interview, too, with one of those top companies. And it's like, look, the circuit that you do that or you say I'm in or whatever it is, they have you. And they're only pushing their hidden agenda of whatever it is that they want you to purchase or look at or review from them. So I guess the point of this podcast is to just be careful. I know that once again, people have good intentions and they want to help, but we want to remind you that Christopher and I are here to help you. And we have a path that we try to put you on that's going to lead to success, and we want you to follow that path. So be careful who you're getting advice from, because who knows what their hidden agenda is as to why they want you to do certain things. Yeah, no, you said that beautifully. And I think one of the keywords you said is magic bullet. There's no easy answer to this, right? There's no magic way of just getting an internship and a job in this climate. We have to work for it. We can't count on people to just act as referrals or, well, this guy on LinkedIn is claiming that he's interviewed with all the top tech companies, and therefore he's going to help me get, he's going to give me a magic formula to just to get the interview and internship and job that I need to get from any of the big companies. And I think that the key there is like, use LinkedIn responsibly, just like you'd be using any other application process adequately and safely. Yeah, exactly. Go ahead. You can still network with folks. You can still ask for advice, insight and tips. But I think the most responsible way to do that is using your alumni network, right? And I think we talked a little bit about this last week, that part of what you're paying for at Syracuse and part of the robustness of Syracuse University is having that strong, amazing alumni network. And Jeff, we've had alumni reach out to us just the last week who are clamoring to help our students out. And so if you are interested in using LinkedIn as a way to proactively connect with professionals to network, then contact Jeff for me because we can connect you with some of these amazing folks. They can't give you a job or an internship, but they can provide you with some advice and insight into the field that you're looking for. Yeah, that's a great point to make. And the idea here is it doesn't have to be an alumni from your school. It can be an alumni from Syracuse University. And we always say it doesn't matter what school they graduated from and it doesn't matter what year they graduated. They're alumni, like you're alumni for life. And I know that's a cliche to say, but it's true and alumni really want to help current students. And you're going to do the same thing, students. When you graduate, you're going to help current students and we're going to rely on you to help students. And it's nothing more than just giving them a direction or giving advice on what they, what it took for them to get where they are and the steps that they took to get where they are. Alumni are not going to steer you in a wrong direction. So you want to make sure that you're reaching out to the network that you have available to you. And as Christopher has said, it is tremendously large and they are scattered throughout the world. So no matter what industry you want to go into and no matter what job that you want to have, we have alumni that are willing and able to help you. Yeah, and just one last thing about this. If there is a company that you're really interested in or an industry that you're really interested in and you cannot find an alumni on LinkedIn that's connected with that company or industry, just let Jeff or me know. We can seek out and find people for you. Try to share your LinkedIn profile. One of the nice things about working in career services is we're constantly connecting with people who have graduated from the iSchool or from Syracuse at large and work in particular fields. We can help you with that. Yeah, so once again, it's be careful of people's hidden agendas that you see on LinkedIn. There's good and there's bad and you have to be careful with who you're reaching out to and what it is that you're giving them as far as the information goes. So we're encouraging you to utilize the resources that you have available to you. Christopher and I are available and the alumni network that we have at Syracuse is available. And I don't think you can go wrong by utilizing those resources. Oh, wow. Good job, Jeff. Yeah, that was a good topic. That was good. You're a good man. Yeah, I like that one. I think I should put a pay raise in your payroll. Oh, wait. Oh, what is this? I think I'm good. I'm good. I'm fine. Oh, this is just voluntary. I didn't tell you that when we hired you. Jeff, before I sign off, I can't help but notice that you're wearing a Michigan shirt. Where's your Syracuse gear? I was hoping that you wouldn't notice that. It's hard to notice. It really is. It's all I have in from the wash. Lenses. Same here. I'm wearing this hoodie that I seem to wear every week for our podcast. Well, it's the podcast hoodie. It is. My podcast hoodie. All right. Listen. So, Jeff, thanks a lot for all your help today. This was a very good and telling topic in times of anxiety. And we'll be back actually next Tuesday for another podcast. You got it. All right. Have a good day, my fine friend. Yes. Have a good day yourself. Thank you.