Proactive Summer

The summer is such a great time of year! There's festivals, family gathering, vacations, and hopefully, plenty of time for some well deserved R&R (rest and relaxation).  The worse thing about the summer, in my opinion, is that it simply goes by way too fast.  Recently glancing at my calendar, I've realized that the Fall 2012 school year is quickly approaching. Not something you want to necessarily think about right now but being proactive has it's benefits; trust me on this one.

The 2012 academic year brings with it career fairs, employer visits, and of course on-campus and off-campus interviews.  The Fall Career Fair and the Post-Grad Service Fair are both scheduled to take place in September.  There are already approximately 24 employers signed-up for Fall on-campus interviews!  Corporations and agencies are setting their calendars to recruit on Marquette's campus for the best and brightest just weeks after the beginning of the school year.  In preparation for the Fall Career Fair, Post-Grad Service Fair, and internship and full-time position interviews, professional documents need to be in tip-top shape.  The saying is that your résumé gets you the interview and the interview potentially gets you the job.  Don't wait until mere days before the fair to get your documents together, put your best foot forward - and decrease your stress level - by starting now.

There's a few avenues to choose from when working on your professional documents.  One, do it yourself; you may not need additional assistance, you just need to buckle down and get it done.  Two, explore our Online Library for awesome resources available to you 24/7.  Three, and always most recommended, set up an appointment with a career counselor to go over your professional documents.  Even if you've completed options one and two, option three is available to students and alumni five days a week from 8am until 5pm :-)

Knowing & Owning Your Skills

PSST… those of you hoping to begin a career after graduation read this!

A very wise person once told me that a résumé gets you an interview, and an interview can
then lead to you getting a job/career. Now I know we’ve all heard before, from some person or another, to just try our hardest and put our best foot forward during interviews. Here’s the problem with that, if your résumé is not impressive enough to get you the interview, you’ve just missed out on your opportunity to wow the interviewer(s) in person.

So you ask, “How do I create a résumé that will shine above the rest and put me closer to the top of the interviewing list?” There are countless ways to make it happen, one being, knowing and owning your skills. MU CSC very recently had an On the Road event that presented the topic of “Identifying and Building Your Skills.” We learned that employers have standards, along with expectations. They desire for potential new hires to possess good communication, technology, critical thinking, problem solving, and leadership skills, just to name a few. A significant amount of job descriptions will list (directly and indirectly) the skills new employees should have.

So now you ask, “what does this have to do with my résumé?” Well, here’s a simple exercise to aid you in pulling all of those pieces together:

1. Grab a blank sheet of paper and write down all of the skills and job qualifications the employer has mentioned in the job description
2. Now place a check next to each skill/qualification you feel as if you possess
3. Next, think of an experience, or two, in which you’ve displayed that skill
4. Last step, and most important, incorporate those skills into your résumé so that
   employers can clearly see why you’re the ideal candidate for the job.
   

That’s it! With three easy steps you’ve just intensified and enhanced your résumé.

“WAIT”, you scream, “I’m not sure if I can do this on my own.”

My reply, “No worries, that’s what the MU CSC Career Counselors and Advisors are here for.
Either stop by – Holthusen Hall, first floor – or give us a call at (414) 288-7423 to set up an appointment.”

Volunteer Your Way to a Job

I recently read this great article on the "Fast Company" website that ran through all of the benefits of volunteer experience as you move toward the world of work (http://www.fastcompany.com/1778415/volunteering-will-save-your-career-or-be-a-path-into-a-new-one). I encourage you to go check it out, but here is a brief overview of what volunteer experience can do for you:

• 41% of employers polled said they considered volunteer experience as valuable as paid work experience
• 20% of the hiring managers polled in the survey admitted to making hiring decisions based on volunteer work
• Volunteer experience is the next level of assessing if a person is someone worth hiring when education and work experience are equal among candidates

So, read the article, decide what you would like to give your time to, and go out and do it!

What Is That?!?

Do you have a smart phone? If yes, get it out. Now, download a barcode scanner app and scan the image at the left. Open the link in a browser and - Voila! - you are on the CSC webpage. Amazing.

This little doodad is called a QR Code. Some of you have heard of this already, seen them in magazines, or possibly even made your own. Who cares? Well, you might... read on.

QR Codes are the next big thing for job seekers - at least that is what I would say if I were a betting girl. Sure, they have been around for a while to do mostly boring things, but now they are also a handy little addition to a job seeker's resume. Why, you ask? Well, because if you use one you will stand out as the tech-savvy, forward-thinking applicant that you truly are!

Still have no idea what I am talking about, but maybe a little curious? Check out this blog by Lindsey Pollak and this blog by Ed Potter for the nitty-gritty!

Résumé Reconstruction

Whether you’re seeking full-time employment or an internship, most employers require you to provide them with a résumé. While incorporating previous jobs and internships relative to the position you’re applying for seems effortless, what about those jobs that don’t as easily relate? For example if you’re applying for an accounting internship position at Harley Davidson and you currently work at Applebee’s as a waiter, the correlated skills aren’t so obvious. Well, there’s actually a pretty simple solution to this problem.

In the “Work Experience” section of your résumé, use different headers to divide your experiences into those in which are career related (Career Related Experience) and those which could be categorized as other experience (Other Work Experience). Doing this creates a more coherent Work Experience Section.

So, how do you list your responsibilities for that “unrelated job?” What if I said there was no possible way to get around that problem? I’d be fibbing!!

Every activity in which you partake provides you with a skill or skills that employers’ value; they’re called Transferable Skills. Reflect on your position at Applebee’s; it’s not simply what you did, but how you did it. Here’s a scenario, a group of five friends come in to eat, their orders are really specific, they continuously complain about the food, and to top it off, they leave you a lousy tip. By keeping your temperament and treating them with the same respect you exhibit to all the tables you’re serving that night, you’ve displayed tolerance in a stressful situation which is a personal transferable skill. Or, let’s say you’re the employee who gets along with everyone, most of the time, you’re displaying the ability to interact and work effectively with co-workers and superiors, which is a human relations and interpersonal transferable skill. Allow yourself some time to think on these and if you’re still having trouble, feel free to stop by the Career Services Center (Holthusen Hall, First Floor). We’re here to help J

Resume turned Road Kill

For the last few months I have had a blue flash drive on my key chain. This important piece of hardware is home to all of my job search materials and as of just a few weeks ago, all of my final projects for graduate school. I have constantly been telling my coworkers how relieved I'll be to be done with school and employed so I can finally remove that flash drive from my key ring. I kept it there to stay organized and to avoid having to commute 20 minutes if I forgot a paper that I needed to print at school.

This past weekend I was running errands and got a phone call later in the day from an unknown number. My poor blue flash drive had fallen off of my key chain in a parking lot. Needless to say it looks like computer hardware road kill and was likely run over by a few cars before being found. A very nice man picked it up and was able to upload my resume in order to find my phone number and return it to me.

There is a lesson to be learned in all of this. I did in fact just backup all of the files on this flash drive last week so, in reality, I did not need it back. It is extremely important to backup important documents for school or your job search! Save your resumes and cover letters and job search spreadsheets in multiple formats in order to avoid a momentary heart attack when you realize your precious blue flash drive has turned into road kill.

You Were Working As A Waitress In A Cocktail Bar...

Who doesn't love 80's music?

Lots of students work as a waiter or in a bar. It's pretty good money for a college job. But how do you turn those jobs into something that you can really put on your resume? Does slinging drinks at night really help at all?

The simple answer is yes. Obviously it isn't quite that easy though.

If you are comfortable with it, you should definitely include this sort of position on your resume. It shows you are active while in school, rather than just going to class and studying all the time. Having past experience also can provide for good references too.

So how do you market this? Waiting tables is great, but is a big multinational company going to be looking for that?

Maybe not.

But what you can do is focus on the skills you pick up in your college jobs. Focus on things like inter-personal communication and leadership that can translate across all industries. These are the sorts of things that you can take away from college jobs and turn into assets for your internship or job search. Remember that you're trying to get that next job, and just focus in on the skills that will help you get there from the jobs you already had.