The smallest dreams get pushed aside while the largest ones changed my life.
Rite of Spring by Angles & Airwaves.

It’s funny – now I’m living in a city that I never thought I’d even visit and find myself unemployed, looking for freelance writing opportunities and potential full time work. It’s amazing to look back at your life and think of all the plans you had made for yourself and then see how quickly life can put you on another path. Chasing your dreams can really lead you somewhere you never expected.

In this case, I was going after my dream of falling in love, getting married, and finding that one person in the world who never fails to make me smile.

And so here I am – sitting in our little 300 sq. ft. studio that looks more like a dorm room than an apartment. I’ve always heard people say things like “We didn’t have much, but we were happy,” and now that phrase means so much more to me. It’s so wonderful to take a step back and look at everything you do and don’t need and just be able to rely on each other so fully and completely that you feel like you can make it through anything together.

Does that mean it’s easy? No. Does that mean I’m not stressed about struggling to find work? Absolutely not.

I’m just saying that sometimes you have to take risks and leaps of faith in order to follow your dreams.  I took a gigantic leap of faith in myself and in my relationship to leave my last job and move out to San Francisco to be with my fiancé – but you know what? I don’t think I’ve ever been happier.

Over the last few months I’ve seen more than a few posts pop up from Gen Y-ers regarding the institution of marriage.

I have to say, it’s been really sad for me to see how many people in Gen-Y are jaded about marriage and it makes me wonder how future generations will view it.

I can understand why people are so worried about becoming one of the statistics – that was something my fiancé was concerned with before we got engaged. To be fair – neither of us have divorced parents and our parents get along very well together, so that may have some impact on how our views of marriage evolved.

That being said, we did not rush into the decision to get engaged – in fact, we had been discussing it for over 6 months. We had purchased a book with 1000 questions to ask before we got married which made us discuss chores, money, kids, careers, insecurities, conflict management, etc.

One of the most important things we learned is that in a serious relationship you really need your partner to be flexible and willing to compromise. I think that is the foundation to a strong a relationship that will last.

My fiancé and I have been together for over 2 and a half years and have been engaged for 7 months. We’ve spent much of that time in a long distance relationship as she lives in San Francisco and I live in Austin – and it still works. We are both whole-heartedly committed to each other.

Ultimately, the reason I asked her to marry is because I cannot stand the idea of not having her in my life. So much so that if something ever happened to her, I don’t know what I would do with my life – because she is my life.

The turning point for me was one day when my mom made a simple comment, “You know Dominic, you always talk about getting engaged, but you don’t do anything about it – so I’m beginning to doubt it’ll happen.” And it hit me – there is no other person in the world I want to be with and nothing makes me happier than holding her in my arms and waking up next to her in the morning.

Falling in love was the easy part – discussing the questions and seeing the challenges we’ll be facing was difficult, but I know without a doubt in my mind there is no one else in the world I would rather have standing by my side as we face those challenges together. I think that level of commitment may be a commitment Gen-Yers are afraid to make.

All I know is that she’s strong, fiercely independent, and a little stubborn – but I love her all the more for it and I am excited out of my mind to be marrying her.

So what are your thoughts about marriage?

This led me to some soul searching to find out why I was maintaining a blog and I had to ask myself “What’s the point of blogging again?”

Ultimately, I realized I had pigeonholed myself into trying to maintain a professional blog that focused solely on my career. There’s nothing wrong with that, of course, but there is a problem when you’re censoring the things you write out of concern of what your employer or potential employers will think about your posts.

To me, the whole point of social media and blogging is to encourage conversation and to challenge the status quo through these conversations. Once you’ve started to do that it’s not long before true innovation and new ideas start showing up everywhere.

I don’t think I was really contributing to any conversation in my old blog. While I definitely wrote some helpful posts to people looking at working at a small company or who may have an interview coming up – I don’t think it was really stimulating any type of conversation.

That has led to the close of prsnackbar.com and to the grand opening of dominicrgarcia.com.

So tell me – what do you think the point of blogging is?

I have to say, I learned quite a bit about the interview process from the HR side from the experience. I joked with one of my coworkers after the show that I learned three main things:

1.    Everyone is hard working
2.    Everyone is dedicated
3.    Everyone is punctual

I always thought that if I was ever a job interviewer, I would ask insightful questions regarding what a particular person could bring to company. Now maybe I’m just a bad interviewer, but it seemed like after the 20th person, everyone just started to look the same.

This begs the question – how do you differentiate yourself when interviewing? This is a particularly poignant question when unemployment is at the highest it’s been in years and it’s getting harder for new grads to find jobs.

I gave it some thought and came up with three things you can do to stand out:

1.    Explain how your job experience directly relates to the job your applying for.
The number one thing that made some of the applicants stand out was when he/she would directly relate past job experiences to our company. Here are some examples:

So you worked at a call center?
“Yes, and what I learned from that experience is how to communicate with people effectively over the phone – something I know is very important to public relations with the amount of media relations we have to do.”

So you were a waiter?
“Yes I was. And that experience will help me working in PR because of the amount of multi-tasking that PR professionals do. As a waiter, I often had to juggle five or six tables at a time while providing excellent service – it really taught me how to work under pressure with as few errors as possible. In PR, I know professionals often have to switch gears quickly while still maintaining a high level of productivity – and that’s something being a waiter taught me.”

2.    Be Yourself
Don’t be afraid to mess up or laugh at yourself – you’re not perfect and no one is. If you fumble a little bit or don’t have the perfect answer to a question, that’s okay, just focus on being yourself and doing your best. It wasn’t terribly difficult to pick out people who were telling me what they thought I wanted to hear vs. those that were truly being sincere.

3.    Smile
Remember that interviews are as much for you to find out if the company is a good fit for you as it is to see if you’re a good fit for the company. So relax! Smile, relax your shoulders, and take a deep breath before speaking to the interviewer – it’ll really help you come off as calm, confident and someone I can trust to get things done.

It’s amazing how much you learn just from seeing the interview from the other side. Have any of you had similar experiences or have good tips for people that are going into interviews? I’m curious to hear your thoughts.

I put together a list of my favorite things about my company and small businesses that I’ve found make it a terrific experience right out of college. These are definitely some things new grads should consider when looking for jobs – so let’s jump in!

1.    More Responsibility

Small companies give you the opportunity to be responsible for bigger projects sooner. Why? A lot of times they don’t have the man power to do otherwise – so you’re constantly put in a position where you’re being asked to step up to the plate and get results.

2.    More work, less sleep

In small companies, if you don’t do something, most of the time it won’t get done. This means that you have to be very dependable, willing to work long hours, and be ready to be held accountable for your projects – for better or worse. This will really teach you to take ownership of every project you have and make sure it’s a success.

3.    You get to wear a lot of hats

I’m the webmaster, blogger, IT guy, stock boy, newsletter writer…you get the point. In my opinion, this just makes you a very well rounded employee and definitely gives you some job security, as you’ll be indispensable to your company.

4.    Merit based, usually not age

One of the advantages of small companies is that you often have the opportunity for promotion much more quickly than in larger firms. In large firms, you’re often going up against 4 or 5 other employees for a particular position. In boutique firms, as long as you prove yourself to be competent and capable, it’s very likely they’ll promote you right away.

Not to toot my own horn, but to give you an idea – I was an intern in January 2008 and I’ve been promoted four times since. However, you should also keep in mind that not all small companies may follow this model.

5.    Develop great relationships with your management team

With five employees, we have a very tight-knit group. It’s a terrific experience to be able to walk down the hall to the President and have a candid conversation about the client you represent, various projects, life – whatever you need to. We are definitely a team and we all understand how important each individual is to the company.

All in all, working for a small company can be a really rewarding experience, but you have to be willing to put in the extra time and effort it will take to help the company succeed.

So do you work at a small company? If not, how do you think big companies compare?

I’ve basically been spending the last two or three weeks helping her look for places to live, figure out the BART stops, and helping her prepare. She leaves on Monday (and I’m super sad…), but at lease it will definitely let things settle down a bit and I’ll have a lot more time to write.

I’ll be posting a little later this week – for now I have to go help her pack. Have a great weekend!