Posts tagged with career.

Move your career goals forward: Visit your school’s career services centre

Nicole Wray, TalentEgg student contributor, January 8, 2010 at 4:51 PM

Nicole Wray

Whether you have mapped out your career path or not, it is never too early or too late to take advantage of the resources offered by your university or college's career services centre.

I recently spoke with a career consultant at Wilfrid Laurier University who compared choosing your career to choosing which laptop or cell phone to buy: you need to do research. Unfortunately, while most students will do some research when buying their next cell phone or laptop, many won't put in the time and energy it takes to research and identify career options.

Workshops

Check out your school's career services website to find out about workshops available to students.  If you are interested in getting hands-on help for résumé writing, cover letter writing, interview skills, job fair tactics or anything else career-related, your career services centre will be able to direct you to the workshop, person or resources you need.

Your school's career services centre may offer career aptitude or personality testing workshops to help you narrow down your career options.  Whether or not you value such tests, career testing is a great starting point for discussing career options with a career counsellor.

Career counselling services offered outside of a university or college can be very expensive.  Fortunately, as a university or college student or graduate, your school's career centre likely offers free career counselling both before and after graduating.

Career counsellors are experts in their field.  Whether you have solid goals or zero direction, visiting a career counsellor armed with questions and concerns is a great place to either begin building a career plan or to solidify your current career plans.

Connect with alumni

Employees at your school's career centre likely know of former students following a similar career direction as you.  Get in contact with your career services centre and ask if they offer alumni contacts or alumni profiles of graduates who are working in the field you are interested in.

Choosing a career direction may be one of the most important decisions you make while in university. Take advantage of the staff and resources your school's career centre offers; after all, you do want your career to last longer than your latest cell phone purchase, right?

 

Tagged with career, counselling, centre, university, students, college, advice, grads | Comments (0) |

How to figure out what to do with a liberal arts degree

Cathy Keates, TalentEgg.ca career counsellor, December 18, 2009 at 12:43 PM

Cathy Keates

Liberal arts degrees are a great preparation for a great many careers.

Not having a prescribed set of careers you must pursue can be both a tremendous freedom and a bit of a headache.

Without that equation of "x degree = y career," how do you figure out which career is for you?

There are two ways to get started: you can start with the degree and/or you can start with you.

Start with the degree

What career paths often follow this degree?

  • What have past grads done with that degree? Speak with people in your department (staff and faculty) and see if you can find out what previous students in your field have gone on to do. Check to see if your department invites any alumni back for career panels so that you can hear graduates' career stories and ask questions.
  • Consult "careers by discipline" lists. There are lots of books and lists of "What to do with a degree in ..." For example, many university career centres will have books with titles like "Great Jobs for Liberal Arts Majors," "Careers in Psychology" and "Great Jobs for Biology Majors."

Start with you

What are you interested in, and what career paths relate to that? You can ask yourself some questions to start narrowing down what types of careers might be things that you could find satisfying.

  • What are my interests?
  • What type of environment would I like to work in?
  • What are some of the kinds of work I've always been attracted to?
  • What are some things I know I really don't want to do?

The wonderful thing about your career path is that you get to construct it. There is a lot of flexibility and space for creativity. But it can be hard to get started without some information about what is out there, and what might be a good fit for you.

If you'd like a helping hand along the way as you research and contemplate your options, I'd highly recommend checking out what your career centre has to offer. Speaking with a career counsellor can help you get focused. They can help you explore yourself and what makes you tick (they'll often refer to this as "self-assessment"), and point you to resources based on your interests - saving you lots of time by focusing your research.

Best wishes!

Cathy Keates is the director of Career Considerations and the author of Not For Sale! Why We Need A New Job Search Mindset

 

Tagged with career, arts, liberal, degree, choices | Comments (9) |

Do you meet even the basic requirements of an entry-level job?

Cassandra Jowett, editor, TalentEgg.ca, July 10, 2009 at 11:35 AM

Cassandra Jowett

Still don't have a meaningful job?

If you've been applying for entry-level jobs with no result, and if you've been doing all the right things, it may be that  you don't have even the basic qualifications entry-level recruiters are looking for.

Yes, the economy is still a long way from recovering and yes, you missed the September recruitment drive, but many new grads out there are still getting good jobs.

You may have little or no relevant experience to show off to potential employers because you were too busy working minimum wage to pay tuition, making friends and having fun like everyone says you're supposed to during post-secondary. Well, if that's the case, you're not alone.

But even if you have to work as a server, a barista, a cashier or something else completely unrelated to your education to pay the bills, it's important to also make time to work on the career you want.

Find out what you're missing

Research the qualifications required for the type of role you want and match them up with your own qualifications. Do they match? Do yours go above and beyond? If not, chances are your résumé ends up in the trash every time. Recruiters often report they receive job applications from students and new grads who don't even meet the minimum requirements for the role.

If you're not sure what the qualifications are, scour job sites for detailed entry-level job descriptions in your field and make a list of all the software, processes and certifications they require. To get a leg up, research some mid-level roles as well to see what you're up against in terms of more experienced workers who may have recently been laid off.

Plan to meet and exceed the qualifications

If you're missing a crucial skill set or certification, plan to teach yourself, take a course or complete a test at the next possible opportunity. However, if you need experience or require a thicker portfolio and no one will hire you, then it's time to put yourself to work. If you have a skill that's also a verb, you can write, design, develop, etc. on your own, or by picking up one-time, contract or freelance work online or in your community.

Offer to do small projects for local businesses - even if they don't use your work, you can still show it off to potential employers.

Just like your education, these tasks can be costly but are well worth the investment in the long run. You'll meet other people in your field, hopefully gain references and build a body of work outside of what you did at school. You may also discover that you like working for yourself and it's possible to earn a living doing freelance work or running your own business.

Set realistic deadlines for yourself

Just like the work you do after you're hired, finding a job takes planning and discipline. Use a calendar to plan a timeline for your progress.

Depending on your schedule and how much extra work you have to do to bring yourself up to par (and hopefully beyond), for example, you may want to schedule a few days or a week to determine what you're missing; another week to research the best ways to get the required skills, experience or certification; three months to take a course on a specific piece of software; and so on.

Stick to your own deadlines as though your career depends on them, because it does!

Determine whether your salary expectations are realistic or not

Currently, one of the main selling points of recent grads is how cheap we are compared to workers with decades of experience. Sure, we'd all love to start at $60,000 and have our student debt paid off in two years, but for that kind of money an employer could hire a mid- to upper-level employee with the skills and experience we don't have. But, for half that price, new grads like us are a bargain.

I've found that online salary charts and calculators are often inflated and probably reflect an average/median salary or a mid-level role, so ask around. Talk to friends, family and former profs - anyone who has some idea how much someone in your position is likely to earn when they're just starting out.

Good hunting

Once you've brought your skills and experience up to or beyond the level expected for an entry-level role (and updated your résumés and cover letters to reflect that), you can be confident you've made yourself as valuable as possible as a potential employee. There are no guarantees, but hopefully you'll run into some fantastic opportunities along the way - and you'll be prepared to continue to update your skills as you move through your career in the future.

 

Tagged with job, qualifications, requirements, entry-level, resume, career | Comments (7) |