A campus resource that I recently took advantage of is the Career Services in Hitchcock Hall. I went to the Career Services Office to get help with my resume. I needed help deciding what high school experiences would be relevant to an employer, as those are the only experiences I have up to this point. I went into the office with a resume that was a little over two pages, because I didn’t want to miss anything important and I figured it would be easier to cut out information rather than add it.
The main reason I decided to seek this help was because I plan on attending most of the career fairs this year. I understand that most companies aren’t looking for first years, so I want to make myself look as valuable as possible for those who will consider my application. I heard about this service from a friend who was doing it for the exact same purpose. I want to be as competitive as possible so I went to the career center the very next day.
It wasn’t that hard to find someone to help me. The career services section is connected to the Diversity and Outreach center and the Undergraduate Student Services, but I simply asked someone to point me in the right direction of what I was looking for. Everyone was extremely helpful and I didn’t even have to wait in a line. I scheduled an appointment for later that week and decided to work on my resume a little bit more before the meeting.
The appointment went as good as it possible could have went. I was able to cut my resume down to one page without removing any information that I felt was important. The adviser told me about how I could provide less information in my resume so that I could explain it in the interview if I got one. She told me to stress my soft skills and my specific technical skills, like what programming languages I know. I now feel a lot more confident going into any of the career fairs and I hope that my new and improved resume will help me land the internship that I’m aiming for. I am confident in my achievements and my current abilities, but I wanted to make sure that other people would believe in me to that same extent.
The only thing I will say to keep in mind about the workshop is that each employer does have their own opinions about what is relevant to their company. Therefore, although I think that my resume says a lot about my best qualities I am sure that it won’t be the perfect resume for every application. They did stress this at the career service center, which is another good takeaway from going there. They even gave me some pointers for the career fair. They said to have a normal conversation and try to show off my soft skills and let my resume do the talking for my more technical skills. Overall, it was a good experience and I plan on going back for interviewing practice at some point. 