Creating Opportunity in 140 Characters or Less

This summer I am studying abroad in Paris for five weeks and I am getting ready to leave in less than 20 days. Earlier this year, I wrote a blog post about creating and taking advantage of the opportunity to travel and study abroad because of the benefits it provides to you as an up-and-coming young professional. Luckily for me, I followed my own advice (and the advice of many others).

However, being gone for such a large gap of time this summer meant that finding an internship this summer would be nearly impossible. Those that know me, know I am an internship addict of sorts. I haven't had 20 internships or anything crazy, but ever since I began interning last summer I haven't been able to stop and have had three internships since. I have plenty of things to occupy my time with this summer including arranging travel plans, my part-time job and working on things for the firm however I couldn't help but feel as though I was missing out on opportunities to do more.

I graduate next May and it is my dream to work in public relations/communications for a wildlife conservation nonprofit organization, combining my passions for PR, animals and nonprofit. I've had a great deal of experience with nonprofit, interning with two nonprofit organizations, interning for an agency that works solely with nonprofit organizations and managing several nonprofit clients through my work in PRowl. However, I had yet to gain any experience working with a wildlife conservation organization and I knew I needed to start making connections now not a few weeks before graduation.

So, I sent out a tweet. The tweet read: Dream job: PR for nonprofit animal conservation org. Looking to connect, learn more & volunteer services! I proceeded to tag @nonprofit orgs, my favorite Twitter feed that is connected to over 50,000 nonprofit organizations on Twitter.

Within an hour, I received a reply from an organization called Nikela Wildlife whose mission is to find and qualify experts and certify wildlife conservation and education projects in order to protect our planet's wildlife and prepare the rising generation for careers in conservation and ecotourism. I spoke back and forth with one of the organization's founders and she asked me if I would like to assist them with their blogging efforts for their "Meatless Mondays" installation that provides readers with meatless alternatives to their favorite recipes. It was honestly perfect... combining my love for wildlife, social media, blogging and food. I've already written up three posts and I very much look forward to writing more throughout the summer for this incredible organization. To check out their blog and read more about their various projects visit www.Nikela.org.

Twitter can be an incredibly powerful tool when used correctly. A friend and PRowl alumnus was able to find a job using Twitter and I was able to find a volunteer opportunity using 140 characters or less. Make sure you are clear and concise (you don't have that many characters to ramble with) and make sure you let people know how you can help and what you can bring to the table. Opportunities are out there, just learn how to use the tools you've been given to go find them.