Boost Your Job Prospects: Email a Celebrity

(MoneyWatch)  When I was a young reporter at the Los Angeles Times, I made the mistake of mentioning to my editor, while were standing in line in the newspaper's cafeteria, that the person cutting the roast beef was carving it wrong.

Bob was curious how I would know this so I explained that one of my college jobs was cutting roast beef at the student union. From then on, my editor referred to me as a former food service professional.

Most of the jobs that I had in college were equally dull. I was a waitress and a typist, which included a brief stint at the cat food division of Ralston Purina. My goal wasn't to impress anybody with my work experience, but to make enough money to buy a used car. Despite my resume, I had no problem landing a journalism job when I graduated from college.

Emailing Movers & Shakers

For today's college students, however, that sort of lackluster resume just won't cut it. If you're a student, internships and other meaningful work is the name of the game. Connections can also be incredibly valuable.

That's why I wanted to share a fascinating way that students can make contacts and position themselves to get job offers out of college. Here's the advice: start emailing celebrities.

That's the advice that you'll find in a Debt-Free U, a great new book and Amazon bestseller by Zac Bissonnette, a senior at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.

Bissonnette, who is a talented writer and editor with AOL Money & Finance, took the initiative to connect with a lot of impressive people. Andrew Tobias, the highly regarded financial journalist, wrote the forward to Bissonnette's book. Suze Orman, Herb Greenberg, David Bach and others in the financial world have also provided him with professional advice and encouragement.

Bissonnette met all these celebrities in the financial world by emailing them. Here's what Bissonnette told me about his practice of reaching out to people whom he admires professionally:

"The bottom line is that if you are interested in connecting with someone -- no matter how powerful they are -- and communicate your enthusiasm and intelligence well, the Internet really offers the best networking opportunity in history. You can connect with almost anyone."

Are you hearing that college seniors?

Email image by Andrew. CC 2.0.