Getting Ready to Take the Next Step

By SARA SINGER SCHIFF, Special Advertising Sections Writer

All the time, effort and money spent on school can pay off, but the work isn’t over once a student becomes the proud owner of a new diploma. The next hurdle is finding a job, and it’s never too early to start the process, said Linda Drake, assistant director of the UC Irvine Career Center.

Even students who don’t know exactly what they want to do upon graduation should start the process by clarifying their specific interests and skills and researching occupations that might suit them, she said.

During their first year of school, students might want to start working (possibly through internships or volunteering) to gain experience and figure out what jobs are right for them, Drake said.

“[Students should not] just be going to classes. Part of their education needs to be experiential. One of the best ways to make themselves competitive is through relevant work experience,” she said.

Liz Kraus, an Oxnard teacher who started pursuing higher education at age 43, credits her job success to volunteering. While working on her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in English at Cal State Northridge, Kraus volunteered as a teacher’s assistant at Ventura Community College.

Midway through her education, she was offered a job to teach an English composition class at the junior college. Now 51 years old, Kraus works part time there and teaches English full time at St. Bonaventure High School in Ventura.

Utilizing career centers

While Kraus sought out work experience on her own, students can get help finding internship positions through their campus career centers, according to Carol Carter, author of “Majoring in the Rest of Your Life: Career Secrets for College Students” (LifeBound, 2004). Carter, who is also the founder and president of LifeBound, a Denver-based career coaching company with a special focus on students, said great resources are available at most schools, including community colleges and private and public universities.

For example, UC Irvine’s career center offers workshops on how to find an internship and make the most of it. Like most other college career centers, it also provides such services as one-on-one counseling, and assistance with writing résumés, interviewing and networking. The center offers online job and internship postings and access to company directories as well.

Networking

Carter added that professors, other students and alumni can be good resources in job searches.

But networking shouldn’t end with those connected to the school, according to Beverly Sinclair, executive coach and career counselor for the Sinclair Group in the San Fernando Valley.

“You ought to be talking to everyone,” said Sinclair, who teaches “Techniques for Making a Successful Career Transition” at UCLA Extension. “You have no idea what your next-door neighbors’ brother-in-law does. Talk to your hairdresser. Talk to your market checkout person. Chances are your job will not come from someone you know now. It will [come from] people you do know passing [your name] on to people you don’t know.”

Drake also stressed the importance of networking, suggesting that students take part in programs offered through their colleges, including alumni events and career fairs.

Once valuable contacts have been made, the next important step is marketing yourself. The best way of doing this is through your résumé.

Sinclair said the most important objective of a résumé is to grab an employer’s attention. She suggested the best way to do this is by including a brief, one-paragraph summary at the top of the your résumé stating that “this is what you get when you hire me.”

Creating a good résumé

A good résumé can help open doors, while a flawed one might shut them, said Lisa Carter, director of the Career Success Institute in Moreno Valley, which helps people transition into the workforce from a range of situations.

“A prospective employer might think ‘This one is hard to read or this one has a mistake.’ If you really want to be effective, you need to learn how to communicate what is great about you to an employer,” she said.

Justin Serrano, general manager of graduate programs at Kaplan Test Prep and Admissions in New York, also emphasized the importance of making a good first impression. Students should pay attention to such details as spelling, typos and grammar.

Serrano added that what makes a good student is not necessarily what makes a good employee. Therefore, while academic achievements are important to include on a résumé, students also need to stress skills they have developed that may be relevant to the skills required for the type of job they are seeking, he said.

Students who worry that they don’t have enough relevant experience, shouldn’t discount what they have done, Drake said. Even if they have just held entry-level jobs, they still probably have acquired skills that can be applied to new jobs.

However, it’s not just work experience that catches the eye of prospective employers, but unique and interesting experiences that also demonstrate some translatable skill, Serrano said.

“Employers are looking beyond GPA for a complete package, so [students] have to be able to package and present themselves in a way they never had to in college,” he said.

According to Serrano, employers look for qualities that generally fall within four categories: intelligence, people skills, experience and attitude.

“Think about intelligence as not just academic intelligence, but also problem-solving and critical-thinking skills, creative thinking and common sense. People skills can mean the ability to work within a team as well as leadership capability. It also means interpersonal and communications skills. Attitude encompasses a range of qualities – commitment, motivation, enthusiasm and energy [and] initiative,” he said.

Researching company

Doug Boyd, president of Los Angeles-based Boyd Communications, a brand consulting and marketing company, said that researching the job and the company before applying for a job can give a candidate a leg up on the competition.

“It’s really easy now [to do background checks on companies],” said Boyd, who receives numerous résumés from graduates. “Everyone has websites. The better prepared you are and more knowledgeable you are, the more you can tell a company why you’re going to be of value to them.”

In addition to exploring a company’s website, Serrano suggested that students read newspaper coverage and analyst reports. He also noted that publicly traded companies make a range of general information available to the public, such as size, performance and management team.

Ultimately, there is no shortcut to finding a job. It takes a lot of work and persistence. And while it is possible to land one’s dream job upon graduation, Drake said she believes career planning is more of a lifelong search.

“Students should think of this as their first career out of college. It’s a launching point for many of them,” she said.

Sara Singer Schiff is a freelance writer based in Sherman Oaks.

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