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ENHANCING YOUR RESUME

Experience greatly increases your ability to be hired. Employers look for entry-level candidates to have some relevant experience. Internships (for-credit or non), summer jobs, or volunteer experiences allow you to gain this critical experience. Employers often offer full-time entry-level positions to their past/current interns. Some companies hire 80-90% of their interns after they graduate! Your resume may be one of a pile of several - prepare yourself to stand out from the crowd!

CAREER EXPLORATION

Not only does relevant work experience enhance your resume (and hence, your marketability), any opportunity that gives you an inside look into a particular profession also serves to give you necessary information about whether to pursue it as a career. It's one thing to read about a field, another to shadow someone else doing it, and yet another to do it yourself! Some fields are easier to explore than others - obviously, you can't perform surgery to "test it out" before studying to be a surgeon, but you may be allowed to observe a surgery and experience other aspects of the job, working environment, or lifestyle.

NETWORKING

Your experience working alongside other professionals in your field of interest may be stepping stones to your future. Knowing the right people can help you get to the next step. This is especially true for some of the harder-to-break-into career fields such as broadcasting.

There are a number of ways to find internships:

1) MonsterTRAK.com - A nationwide database of job and internship listings. To access MonsterTRAK, you must register with Career Services.

2) On-Campus Recruiting (OCR) - OCR represents a segment of the job market for graduating students and those looking for internships. The opportunities available through OCR are driven by employer demand and budgetary considerations; some career fields and some types of employers are well-represented in OCR while others are not. Therefore, many business or technology-related companies participate in OCR, whereas school districts or human service agencies do not. Students interested in those areas are encouraged to adopt different job search strategies. An orientation is mandatory for participation in OCR, which is entirely managed online using a component of MonsterTRAK.com.

3) Faculty - Professors in your academic department may have knowledge of internship sites of previous students (as well as the student's satisfaction with the site), and may be able to make recommendations. The department or specific faculty may have an established relationship with particular organizations or companies.

4) Career Fairs - Many employers attend career fairs to recruit students for internships as well as full-time jobs.

5) Career Services Resources - Career Services has various publications on internships and company directories to help you identify an organization of particular interest. In addition, speaking with a counselor may help you to brainstorm and narrow down your interests and search strategies.

6) Design your own - If all else fails - you haven't been able to locate a vacancy or anything of interest, perhaps - you can start from scratch and create your own site. Simplify identify an organization of interest, decide what you are interested in learning during the internship, and discuss your needs and interests with someone at the site. Your advisor may be helpful in getting this set up, especially if it's something you wish to earn academic credit for.

The type of internship is completely up to you. Ideally, an internship you choose will match with your career goals and give you experience in your field of interest. You may wish to research your desired career field to determine the kind of experience or training a person needs to break into that field, and choose your internship accordingly. For example, if you are interested in going into broadcasting, you might intern at a radio or television station. If you are interested in writing careers, you might intern with a publishing company or magazine or newspaper.