As any college student beginning their undergraduate degrees would tell you, obtaining your degree in which ever field you desire could land you the job of your dreams after graduation.
Although this maybe true, it takes more than just a Bachelor degree to get your foot in the door. Other factors come into play. Months before graduation a number of students in all colleges begin submitting their resumes and cover letter to various companies just to get an interview. And they become tiresome of job ads that do not offer what they want. This could go on until after graduation and you are left with no job at all for a while. However, networking has been a very vital tool in job
searching in recent years. The whole point of college is to get a job after you are done, by joining groups such as the Business Club, Communication Arts Club, Drama, English and others are great ways to connect and meet new people who may share common career goals. An internship is also a very important thing to have under your belt while in college. This is a great way to test your skills in the professional world and give you a first hand experience of what you may be doing in the future. It maybe a downer to do an unpaid internship, but you can always make it work to your advantage. While spending your time there you can make new contacts that may know other people in other companies and hopefully they can put you in touch with them.
Another common network tool that often happens outside the school are Networking Events. These events have professional businessmen and women come in and talk about their past endeavors in their career fields and discuss how they started off. What all students now a days all have in common is our use of social media. This tool can also be used to our advantage in the business world. LinkedIn.com, a sort of professional version of Facebook, is a way that everyone could connect with friends and businesses they are interested and hear about job and internship opportunities. People with whom you connect with can endorse you with skills. And this makes applying for jobs easier. While looking for jobs you want, you can upload your resume and cover letter right on to your profile and apply for a job directly.
There are many different ways of connecting and one other way that could help is to visit the office of Career Development where they offer interview practices, resume workshops and more. Also to visit STAC Link on the career development link on the STAC website.
-Brendan Dolan
The Thoma 