Preparation for Jobs | Graphic by Rose Taylor | The Wright State Guardian
Setting out on a quest to land your ideal job is an exciting but difficult undertaking. The road to career success in today's cutthroat employment market requires careful planning, strategic preparation and unwavering determination.
Account in job portals
The first thing a student should have for searching for a job is an account on job portals. Students can open an account on Handshake and craft their profile with their education, skills, experiences and their area of interest for the job. This way, students will be able to find jobs they want to apply to. It will also help the recruiters to filter their candidates, as student profiles are well-organized according to your study and experiences.
Kim Gilliam is the director of Career Education and Success at Wright State University and has plenty of advice on searching for a job.
“Almost 80% of the companies in the U.S. are on Handshake, so if you are trying for an internship opportunity or a full-time job, it could be a good place for that,” she said.
There are other important sources for searching for jobs, such as LinkedIn, Indeed, ZipRecruiter, CareerBuilder and Monster, from which students can get more options for searching their desired job.
Resume
A resume serves as a vital tool in the job search process, encapsulating a candidate's professional journey, skills, qualifications and achievements in a concise and organized manner. It provides recruiters with a snapshot of the candidate's suitability for a specific role, making it an essential document for securing job interviews and advancing in the hiring process.
A resume should be reviewed by a career consultant so that a student can make sure that they have tailored the resume according to the job market they are going to apply for. Students need to mention their GPA and highlight their skills and experiences on the resume relevant to the job they are applying for—recruiters will filter the resume according to the skills, experience and GPA.
“A lot of companies are now using AI to screen resumes, and that is why the format of resumes is very important. Students can always come to the career consultants to talk about their goals and priorities and craft their resume accordingly,” Lance Cauley, a career consultant for the Raj Soin College of Business, said.
Interview skills
The goal of the resume is to get you to the interview, and the interview will get you the job. It is very important to know about the company and the job you are applying to. Try to make sure you have researched about the company well and your skills and experiences match with their requirements.
Applicants have to mention all the relevant skill sets they have regarding the job post. There is nothing to worry about if someone does not have industry-level experience. Students can mention their volunteer activities or sports, which can prove an applicant's leadership skills.
Debbie Moore, talent acquisition specialist at Wright-Patt Credit Union, discusses the importance of the activities a student mentions in their resume.
“We try to focus on the skills and qualification of the candidates [that] match our job post and also [if] they have any volunteer activities or not because we believe we are serving the community, and we also try to find someone who has that serving attitude in their mind,” Moore said.
Important tips
According to Gilliam, it is very important to gather experience while someone is a student. On-campus jobs, internships or any kind of volunteer activities will play a vital role in the resume.
Building a network is another crucial aspect of job hunting. Students can search for companies on LinkedIn and get connected with the company’s profile or any person from the company to create a network. A good relationship with university and job faculty is also helpful because they have connections with industry and relevant people.
For international students
International students who are here on F1 tend to think that it is very hard to get a job here as an international student. Cauley explained this issue.
There are some organizations who work with the Federal government that cannot hire international students, as they need so many forms of clearance. Except for those companies, there is no obligation for other companies to hire international students, though a lot of companies think that there are so many complications for hiring an international student.
“When we invite the companies [to] our campus, we try to educate them that there is no complication to work with the international students. We have to work on this to make sure that companies know that the process of hiring international students is not complicated,” Cauley mentioned.
For more information and help landing a job, visit the Wright State Career Services website or contact personal academic and career advisors.
