CLEVELAND, Tenn. - When meeting a future employer, scholarship provider or college admissions officer, seven first impressions about you will be made in the first 11 seconds.
That's the advice from a Wacker Chemical representative who met Tuesday with Walker Valley High School seniors.
"It may not seem fair, but that's the way they make their decisions," said Jeff Zierenberg, training and personnel manager for Wacker's $1.8 billion plant being constructed nearby.
Then there are social media messages and images that could complete the first impressions, he said.
Tuesday was all about the future -- the immediate future -- for Walker Valley students. Ninth-graders took buses to Lee University and Chattanooga State Community College to learn more about college life.
Tenth-graders heard Ryan Otter from Middle Tennessee State University and The College Game Project, which offers multimedia help to encourage students to "Be Weird," or think beyond the average and learn how to deal with the professional world while still enrolled at school.
Eleventh-graders were taking the ACT on Tuesday after weekends of Saturday ACT Boot Camp while seniors heard Zierenberg and Phil Cook from Lee.
"I was thinking to myself, 'This will be super boring,'" senior Ben Lamb said. "But it all made sense. I feel like I can use this in an interview and it will help.
"I use Facebook all the time," he said. "We do judge each other by what we see on each other's Facebook."
Band director Alan Hunt told seniors, "You are hearing it from the other side, not your teachers. What he is saying is true."
Senior Allie Morrow said the idea of "seven impressions in 11 seconds was kind of shocking to me."
"That helped me as much as anything he said."
She said Zierenberg's pointers reinforced what she has found during intern and scholarship interviews.