Summer Job Hunting Season has Arrived!

Well…summer job search season has arrived.  Since I am in the co-op program, looking for jobs becomes almost like another course.  However, it has taught me some really important skills since I joined the program in my second year of university.  My time spent at the Career Centre in the Student Career Leader Program has also reinforced these job hunting lessons: 

#1. Start early! There are currently lots of summer job postings with the government and municipalities.  

#2. Allocate time to perfecting your resume and avoid believing you can have one perfectly universal resume to distribute to all employers. You have to tailor and emphasize the talents you possess in the most relevant way possible.  I have spent a lot of time re-working my resume, and I now have a few different versions and have gotten in the habit of carefully researching companies and reviewing job requirements and responsibilities in order to cater my resume to each job. Since school can be overwhelming, a lot of students forget about finding a summer job until most of the good ones have already been taken – and resume writing takes time, so don’t short change yourself. 

I find this time of year quite stressful, and I have noticed that I am not alone on that front.  Parents pressure you to find a summer job; you start to run low on money from last summer, and just wanting to have a job for a change all seem to factor into this stress for many students.  In addition, the desire to find a meaningful, skill-building summer job makes for a more time consuming job search process. 

So…TAKE CHARGE. Be sure to use the resources provided at the Career Centre and start your job searching and resume writing early. The hard work will pay off. 

Megan Wibberley – Peer Advisor

Track Your Responsibilities

One of the most important and helpful things you can do for your future job search is to keep track of everything you do in your current job, volunteer experiences or community involvement. Having a running list of all the things you engage in will make it easier for you to “beef” up your resume when it comes time to craft your resume for the job search. 

Keeping an updated resume makes it easier to alter for individual job applications. Many students feel they don’t have time to keep tailoring their resume. Therefore, by keeping track you can then go through your list when applying for different positions and chose the tasks that are most relevant to the position you are applying for. Having a list will make the process of altering your resume for each position quicker, easier and more effective. When the tasks are fresh in your mind (you are currently working on them or just completed them) jot down notes in a spreadsheet or word document. 

This is also great preparation for the interview process. You can look over the list before the interview and have all your experiences and roles fresh in your mind, which will result in greater confidence and ability to illustrate (in detail) your skills, projects and accomplishments.   

It is a small thing you can do, but will definitely cut preparation time when it comes to the resume writing and interviewing experience! 

Natalee Snell, Peer Advisor

Career Planning 101: It’s all about me

As my graduation is quickly approaching, I’ve come to realize that the most important part of career planning: self-awareness.  Reflecting on my past four years of university, my summer and part-time work experiences I’ve realized that I know a few simple things about myself that will be invaluable in working towards a happy and successful career. 

My summer working experiences throughout university have ranged from manual labour, to working in the fast food industry to working for a large Canadian bank.  I applied for many jobs before I got my first “real” nine to five desk job and was quite relieved and happy when I landed a job at a bank.  

The job had steady hours and paid more than any other work experience I have had.  It was also the most unfulfilling work position I have ever had.  I didn’t like sitting all day. I didn’t like doing a somewhat repetitive and independent task.  The work was not rewarding and I didn’t like commuting to work.

I learned that although I am an introverted person, I like working in an environment that requires me to be social and collaborative.  I like having the chance to be creative and I like interacting with people, customers, clients or co-workers.  Had I been pushed to realize these simple, but important, personality traits about myself earlier, researching careers would have been much more beneficial than it was.

It is easy to think, “I want to be graphic designer,” or “I want to be a lawyer,” without thinking about whether or not you want to sit all day staring at a computer or whether you can handle a consistently stressful work environment.  Although I haven’t had a “real,” more permanent job yet, I know that whether or not the job I am working fits well with my personality traits will determine whether or not I loathe or love going to work everyday. 

As I am about to graduate from university, I’m not planning on serving coffee for the rest of my working life.  But I do know that what I learned about myself while working in more “menial” positions will be very useful when identifying more permanent job positions that I will find fulfilling and meaningful. 

Nicole Wray, Peer Advisor

Applying To Grad School

Like many students, I made the common mistake of thinking that I have plenty of time. Why worry about this now, that’s what fourth year is for. Just like finding a summer job or looking for a job after you graduate –  the earlier you start, the better your results! 

You should take the same approach to applying to Grad school. You first want to determine if you want to pursue a masters or PhD degree. From there you want to determine what graduate schools are looking for in their students and what requirements are needed for applying. 

Here is a list of criteria you should keep in mind:

• What are the GPA requirements
• How many faculty recommendation letters do I need
• How much emphasis do they put on volunteer experience
  • Make sure they are deep and not shallow experiences 
• How much field related experience are they looking for
  • For example, are they looking for research experience?
• Do you need to do a thesis in fourth year?

 All of the above criteria require planning and you should keep all of it in mind during third year or earlier because you starting applying to graduate school during the fall semester of fourth year. If you wait until the last second it results in a great deal of difficulty developing meaningful volunteer experiences where you have a developed a relationship with the organization. In addition, you need to start developing relationships with your professors so you are able to obtain good recommendations letters.

Below are some links about recommendation letters that I found helpful

• http://gradschool.about.com/cs/askingforletters/a/recletter.htm
• http://gradschool.about.com/od/askingforletters/ht/howletter.htm
• http://www.gradschools.com/Article/getting-recommendations/116.html

 Radha Sayal, Peer Advisor