USU Career Services in midst of another busy year

Utah State University’s Career Services office and staff are working over time to prepare students for their majors and careers.

Career services helps students explore majors and careers, obtain student employment and internships, prepare for graduate school and health professions, and take admission and certification tests, as well as succeed in their careers.

This year, with the increase in students at USU, there are not enough jobs to fill the demands.

“We have had an increase in traffic, and the job market just needs to catch up,” said Donna Crow, the executive director at Career Services and Student Services Assessment. “The growth of students and the job market do not usually happen at the same time.”

Even though the career service office has a lot going on, the staff still finds time to help every student that comes in looking for some help.

“The career service office is always very busy, and I had to make appointments well ahead of time and wait a while for my appointments because my adviser was so slammed,” said Haley Macdonald, an undergraduate studying equine science at USU. “I know they’re working hard to help everyone, because my adviser would email me back my edited resume long after hours. She must have taken time out of her personal evening to work on my application materials, which really showed me how much she cared about her job and students like me.”

The back-to-school rush is nothing new for career services. Crow said that in a lot of cases, she works with students even before they get to campus. The office has incoming freshman that reach out to career services over the summer and want to know how they can receive a student job. Once they get to campus, the staff at career services coach them through the process of receiving a job and then an internship during their sophomore or junior year.

Career Aggie is a job-posting system that career services use as a tool to help students find jobs. There is a broad range of jobs on Career Aggie from entry-level jobs in food service to jobs in the HPER building for students that are looking for more experience. Career Aggie also has job listings for students that have majored in a specific field and have more experience.

Last year there were over 12,000 jobs posted to Career Aggie.

Paula Johnson, USU’s employment supervisor, said that for the 2014-2015 school year, there were 3,096 students employed at different on-campus jobs. The number of off-campus student jobs posted to Career Aggie was 3,298.

These numbers are expected to increase with the new school year.

“I recommend a lot of students create a search engine, because then they are getting just that scope of jobs that they are interested in, but also be open to alternatives,” Crow said. “Do not limit yourself too much. Sometimes you fall into something that you were not expecting to.”

Career services help students work on their interviewing, resumes and other documents.

“We have drop-ins everyday for about 10-minute sessions,” Crow said. “We also help students look ahead to what their resume should look like when about to graduate.”

Career services emails students that have come in looking for help every two weeks with new opportunities, internships and careers.

Crow said that 80 percent of students reported that they had a job or were heading on to graduate school three to four months after graduating.

“Students who use our services increase their chances of getting a job when they graduate,” Crow said. “We want our students to show to the employer that they have that bundle of skills that they are looking for. It is a good thing to start early doing some intentional career planning.”

For more information on career services visit usu.edu/career.

jillian.mccarthy@aggiemail.usu.edu