College Of University

Drop in at the Career Services Center Early And Often

Drop in as soon as you can to the Career Services Center. During your first visit, make an appointment to visit with a career counselor in a few days. After you’ve made your appointment, explore the resources available to you. To make sure you get the most out of your upcoming meeting with the career counselor, give yourself a few hours at least to familiarize yourself with the Career Service Center’s reference materials.

What you should do during that first visit is to take any career assessment tests the center might offer. These tests will ask you about what you’re good at, and what you want from a career. From the list of possible careers that the test suggests to you, see which of them appeal to you the most.

When you have your meeting with your career counselor, ask him or her about the path you’re considering pursuing. Ask your career counselor how to land a job in the field or fields of your choice. The answer you get may help you determine the course of study you take in your classes. In addition, you should ask your career counselor to give you contact information for alumni who are now working in the fields you wish to work in after graduation. Also, ask about internship opportunities that will help you get a leg up on a high-paying career.

Do Internships

Internships, while often unpaid, sometimes offer course credit. The most useful thing about internships, though, is that they offer you an opportunity to build relationships with people working in the profession you’ve chosen for yourself. Another advantage of internships, of course, is that they provide you with some real-world experience that you can use to enhance your resume as well as your candidacy for jobs in the future. And though internship don’t always work this way, sometimes a company will like what an intern does so much that they end up hiring him or her permanently.

Reach Out To Successful Alumni

Don’t ask them for a job. Send an e-mail and explain they are doing what you would like to do one day. Ask if it would be all right to call or have lunch at some point so that you can find out how this person got to be in the position you’d like to be in one day. And who knows, if a job is open at his or her company when you’ve graduated, since you’ve already established the connection, your resume could move to the top of the pile.