For this week's Tapping in with Business, we had the opportunity to have a phone call with a member of the Home From College Team. Home From College is a digital platform creating short form content for college students. It began with the idea to help students during their lack of community, opportunities, career development, and more during Covid. Once the pandemic is over, Home From College will still be able to connect college students to free career resources. On the phone we talked with Andrea Anaya, who was one of the first people to join the Home From College team as it started. Here are some notes we wrote down from the conversation.
What has Home From College been doing from a content standpoint?
Home From College has 4 main programs they have currently been working on, with other side projects sprinkled in as well. They have a speaker series, which includes industry leaders talking about their experiences. They have Office Hours. Office Hours are similar to the speaker series except students can actually ask questions to these industry leaders over zoom. This is a great opportunity to hear first hand from businesses and begin some early networking. They also recently launched the 2009 Club. This is a mentorship program for recent college graduates to get matched with graduates of 2009. This connection is crucial for recent graduates because 2009 graduates also graduated during a recession. This provides an opportunity to learn and still seek out a job even with all the difficulties in the job market right now. Lastly, launching soon they have the HFC GIG program. This is the biggest initiative yet that I think will be a real game changer for those who take advantage of it. The GIG will allow students to basically get micro-internships. They will work remotely for a company on one project for a short amount of time. This will provide amazing opportunities for college students to get some real work experience without doing a full-internship or having to move somewhere in order to complete their internship. This program is launching soon and I highly recommend everyone to check it out!
On top of all of those amazing initiatives, Home From College has resources on LinkedIn like their Career Workbook to help students start to realize their strengths and passions. They also have Instagram resources like their recurring "Things You Can Do Today" daily package of resources to help raise awareness for different movements such as Black Lives Matter and Pride.
How is it managing your time spent on college work and this business?
Home From College started in mid-march, so for Andrea it really was balancing her time during remote classes in the spring. She does have a large role within Home From College so it was definitely a challenge. She found ways to budget her time so half of her day she did school work, and the other half worked on Home From College. It was doable for Andrea because of what seems like a strong passion for this business, and a want to deliver her best in all aspects of life.
What has been Home From College's biggest challenge?
Home From College has had some difficulties targeting students who are not in the northeast. They are happy they have been able to reach this crowd, but want to expand their reach to give these resources to students all over the country. Also, they are able to have a lot of resources for jobs in marketing and design but missing resources for other jobs like in the medical field, law, and more. Since they are so new, they haven't been able to do all of this fully yet, but look forward to continuing expansion so all students have resources that align with their goals.
What has been the most fun working with Home From College?
Andrea really enjoys the people she works with. Home From College only started in March but already has around 40 employees! This team is mostly made up of college students and Andrea says that team is really fun to work with. She's always learning new things and working to make better content. She also really enjoys being able to talk with the speakers that Home From College seeks out. She really sees the value is those conversations and highly recommends everyone to check out the speaker series and Office Hours to be able to join in these conversations as well.
What is your advice to students looking to get a job or start a business?
Andrea told me a quote from one speaker they had said which is that "70% of the jobs you get are from people you know." She talked about how everything in today's world is about networking and it's really important to get yourself out there. She also talked about building up your skill set. This summer where most people are at home bored is probably the best time to seek out some online certifications to build some tangible skills that you can use for future jobs. She also talked about how all the Home From College resources can really help you start a business or find a job, whatever it is you want to do. Their resources will help you gain more knowledge, connect with others, and expand your skills.
Overall, in the few short months that Home From College has been around, they have done some really amazing work. They are really doing all they can, and have some real support behind them, as they have a following over 17K on Instagram in 4 months!! College On Tap definitely recommends checking this business out and utilizing the great resources they have out there!
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