The Career Center helps students with goals and job skills
What do I want to do with my major? What kind of job do I want when I graduate? Where do I find a good job? And how in the world do I get them to hire me?
These are questions everyone asks at some point during their college career. It’s hard to know how to plan for the future, but fortunately for USU students, there is a place on campus that helps answer these questions.
The Career Services Center, located in the basement of the University Inn, is a place where students can get help on almost anything, from finding a good job to interview tips and editing a resume.
The purpose of the Career Center is to help students get the information and resources they need to be successful after graduation. They have individual meetings with students, information books, job postings and online resources. They also host workshops and career fairs as well as work with clubs and organizations.
With a career counselor over each individual college, the center has programs and resources designed to help students at any level, whether it be freshmen who don’t know what to major in, juniors looking for an internship or seniors looking for their first job as a college graduate.
There are five basic areas that the center covers, Assistant Director Randy Jensen said. The areas are networking or job searching, cover letters, resumes, interviewing skills and career development.
“I’m really surprised by the amount of students I see who don’t know any of this type of information,” he said.
The most common reason students come in to the Career Center is to have their resumes reviewed, Jensen said. The counselors talk one on one with students and work with them on resumes and cover letters, giving feedback and advice on how to make theirs the ones the employer will read.
“That, a lot of the time, leads to the other things,” Jensen said.
They will help students with their interviewing skills. They will give the student tips and suggestions on how to dress and act and what types of questions to ask at an interview. Tyrel Mikesell, a junior majoring in accounting, went to the Career Center to get interviewing tips when he was applying for an internship.
“The information they gave me was really helpful,” he said.
Going a step further, the center recently introduced a new program called “Hireview,” a mock interview that is recorded and then reviewed by the career counselor with students to help them improve interviewing skills.
On the career development side, the counselors help students who have no idea what they want to do. Students can take a number of self-assessment tests to determine where their interests and strengths lie in relation to different majors and careers. This is part of how the career counselors help students decide what major and career path they would like to take.
Mikesell said when he visited the center for his interview tips, he also looked into these self-assessment tests. He said the information can be very useful, especially for students who don’t know what they want to do yet.
The center has several resources for a student who is looking for help finding jobs or internships and in networking. Two of their major resources are the Career Café and
“CareerAggie.”
The Career Café has books, flyers, job announcement information, job search engines and computers set up to help students in their search.
“That’s our fancy name for our library,” Jensen said. The café is set up in a comfortable corner with small tables and poofy chairs near shelves lined with resources like books and other publications designed to help with things like interviews, resumes, job searches and other similar information.
Jensen said they want to create an atmosphere where people can come in and browse “without necessarily even having to talk to us.” He said they want students to feel comfortable coming in and browsing on their own.
CareerAggie is an online service that allows students to create a profile and post their resume and a professional profile. They can view jobs posted by employers and look at schedules for interviews that will be done on campus by any companies or businesses.
“That’s probably our central electronic service,” Jensen said. CareerAggie has an alumni database where students can contact alumni for advice and an employer database. This assists students in their networking because it gives them a place to create contacts and relationships for future help and job information.
“It’s a great resource, and it’s one that we use constantly,” Jensen said.
The Career Service Center Web site provides very detailed information on its services as well as access to tips on resumes, cover letters, interviews, networking and more. Students can access CareerAggie from there.
“I use the online services pretty much every day,” Mikesell said.
There is a lot of information he can use and he said it is an easy way to keep track of what internships are available.
Although many things students would discuss with a career counselor are on the Web site, Jensen says it’s important to remember that anything someone reads online like that is generalized and generic so it applies to everyone. When people go in to the center, they get one-on-one help that is specific to their needs.
“If I know your story, I can do a better job of giving you information on what would work for you,” Jensen said. The individualized help is better for knowing what a student specifically needs to do to be successful.
But, he said, the online resources are still very important. If a student is not able to come in to the center, the online information is still available and extremely helpful.
The most important thing for the counselors is to help students be prepared for what comes after graduation. They want to avoid the senior who comes into the office in March or April and has no idea what to do. If the student is graduating in May, counselors at the center may still be able to help with career options and interviewing skills but not as much as they could have.
“We’re trying more and more to get people sooner,” Jensen said.
So whether it’s by browsing in the Career Café, reading the online material or visiting a counselor one on one, it’s never too soon for students to see what the Career Services Center has to offer.
Students can schedule appointments with the counselor over their specific college, and every day between 1:30 and 2:30 students can drop in to the Career Café and get
quick questions answered by a counselor.
The Career Services Center is open from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. and is located in
University Inn Room 102. Appointments with a career counselor can be scheduled by calling 797-7777.
-kathrynkemp@cc.usu.edu