February 20, 2024 • 35 mins
On this episode of Speaking Of...College of Charleston, Julia Heslin, CofC senior majoring in communication, speaks with Jim Allison, executive director of the College's career center and Karen Fritchman, director of employer relations at the career center. Allison kicks off the conversation by talking about the various offerings at the career center for students of all ages.
"In higher education and student development, probably the areas that are most underutilized or areas that would be the most appropriate to emphasize, for soon to be graduates, are to please make sure to have your resume critiqued by someone in the Career Center before you graduate," says Allison. "The hardest thing for an undergraduate student to do is apply for a job after graduation cold."
Fritchman shares some of the most common questions students ask when they come to the center. She also talks about the upcoming Spring Career Exploration Fair that is curated for all students, including those just starting to take a peek into what career might fit their passions and interests and those who are graduating and ready to start their careers. The EXPLORATION format will encourage career exploration and discovery, as well as extensive networking options beyond the traditional career fair. The fair will have workshops and programming before and after to effectively prepare students for the fair – like writing a resume, planning professional attire and enhancing communication skills. The event is on Thursday, February 29, 202, from 12 p.m. to 4 p.m.
Most Frequently Asked Questions:
1. Does my resume have to be one page?
2. Do I need a cover letter?
3. Where do I start if I have no job experience?
Final Words of Career Center Wisdom:
"National data has shown for several decades that students who utilize their college career centers have a much higher percentage of securing an internship as well as securing an interview for a full time job."
Featured on this Episode:
Jim Allison, executive director career center, earned his Bachelor's degree in English from Wake Forest University and a second degree in Psychology from the University of North Carolina Greensboro. He earned his Master's degree in Counseling with a concentration in Student Development in Higher Education. When he is not busy in the Career Center, Jim enjoys spending time with his family, his dog, and his bird!
Karen Fritchman, director of employer relations , career center, earned her Bachelor’s degree in Communication and her Master of Education degree in the Art of Teaching from Cedar Crest College in Allentown, PA. Her previous experience within Higher Education includes alumni engagement, student advising, event planning, recruiting, and fundraising. She and her family love spending time at the beach with their dog, Ivy, a rescued German Shepherd, and at home with her twenty pound cat, Beefy!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Julia (00:05):
Hello, and Welcome to Speaking of College of
Charleston. I'm Julia Heslin, acommunications major at the
college. And on today's episode,I'm talking to Jim Allison,
Executive Director of the CareerCenter, and Karen freshman
director of employer relations.
Unknown (00:26):
Jim, I would love to hear a broad overview of the
different services and resourcesthat are offered by the Career
Center for Students.
Jim Allison (00:35):
Terrific, thank you for having us here. Today, we
offer a comprehensive list ofservices for students with
respect to Career Development,here at the College of
Charleston, I'm really proud ofthe fact that we're able to
merge career development withstudent employment, as well as
(00:55):
financial wellness, which is anewer initiative for the office.
Those three elements really cometogether nicely for any
individual student. But we dooffer a traditional list of
services for undergraduates, andtraditional by traditional I
mean, everything from resume andcover letter development to
LinkedIn development,interviewing skills, how to
(01:18):
write letters, how to writeemail, how to interact with
employers, how to apply forjobs, how to secure internships,
and more for me in the 23 and ahalf years and career
development and 25 years, and todo the math real quick. In
higher education and studentdevelopment, probably the areas
(01:41):
that are most underutilized orareas that would probably be the
most appropriate to emphasize,for soon to be graduate. So
those spring semester seniorsare, please make sure before you
graduate, to have your resumecritiqued by someone in the
Career Center. Number one,number two, don't, don't forget
(02:04):
to use our drop in hours, whichare Monday and Wednesday this
semester from 10 till noon, aswell as Tuesdays and Thursdays
from two to 4pm. The drop inhours are casual. They're
friendly, everything's friendlyin the career center. But these
are super friendly, becauseoftentimes, it's peer to peer
advice. And it's, we often findstudents in particular who maybe
(02:26):
have been neglecting coming intothe career center for whatever
reason. They really find thatfirst point of contact as a
fellow student comforting and aneasier entree into our services.
And then they can follow up withappointments with our staff as
needed. And the last thing I'dsay on that, just for that first
question from from my lens, isthat it's never too early or too
(02:50):
late to start. Because workingwith employers working with
graduate schools, talking toparents and just working with, I
think it's now 1000s and 1000sof undergraduate students, for
me, the main thing is to dosomething and get started before
you graduate, because thehardest thing for an
undergraduate student to dotypically, whether they have a
(03:12):
network or not, is to apply fora job after graduation, cold.
And by cold, I mean just sendingout resumes to openings that
they find online, havingcoaching early, understanding
keywords, understandingapplicant tracking systems,
having connections, meetingsomeone at a career fair who
could directly hire you orinterview you. All that and more
(03:35):
so essential. Prior to the massof college graduates who hit the
market between June 1 andNovember 1, any given year, if
those students aren't reallyprepared and don't have good
resumes or LinkedIn profiles,and more, those particular
seniors can really struggle onan individual basis to find that
(03:57):
first job. That's not just ajob, but it's more career
related. So I think that's theimportant thing is I could go on
and on about the differentservices and what to do and what
not to do. The main thing is todo something with our office
before graduation and connectwith us before graduating to
make life after college easier,and a lot less stressful, if you
(04:19):
will.
Unknown (04:20):
Absolutely. I know you touched on this a bit at the
end. Do you have any specificadvice that you would give to
students who feel like they'realready behind on that job
search?
It's very common to feel stressand anxiety around life after
college because our educationalsystem really the United States
and I believe in Canada isreally set up for you most of
(04:41):
this hemisphere set up foralmost like elementary school to
middle school to high school andthen unlike some countries that
require two years of militaryservice or have different things
that happened potentially aftergraduation, our culture
typically for maybe 100 years inthe United States has been, the
(05:02):
next thing you do is for a lotof students is go to college.
And the thing about that, in mymind is that parents and others
kind of help guide studentsthrough that, and get them to
college and really help them getthere. And oftentimes the first
time and as a traditional agecollege students the life right
(05:23):
around, let's say, age 21, or20, excuse me, 21 or 22 years
old, is that maybe the firsttime they've ever had to really
go out and do this completely bythemselves. And whether there's
a parental influence, or afriend influence or a family
influence or a connection,networking wise, that's always a
(05:46):
good thing in my mind. But ifthere's not, it can be extremely
stressful for students just toget started. So we have some
friendlier. When I say friendly,I mean, kind of open, meaning
open to anyone. And we're superexcited when folks come up to
our tables on Cougar mall,whether that's a pop up career
(06:07):
fair or a tabling event. We'refairly visible, I think, yeah,
hopefully not too visible forout there every day. Sometimes
it becomes like wallpaper orposter that you walk by every
day. But I think we have enoughthings going on with doughnuts
and bagels and employers andspinning wheels that it really
kind of, it's a nice thing tohave out there for students to
(06:29):
see that we're just kind of openand friendly people, because the
terms that we can write on thechalkboard so to speak, like
resume and interview and career,just those words by saying those
words. And by writing thosewords, there are studies that
show that the room isindividuals in the room, their
blood pressure automaticallygoes up, and their stress levels
(06:52):
automatically go up. So to thatpoint, my main message is it's
very common and very real. Andokay to be stressed about that.
If for some reason, way up inthe Lightsey center, second
floor is a almost like ablocker. Like some folks will
say, Well, I worked at a schoolone time 1/3 our size, and I had
(07:14):
a student drive from theirresidence hall to the Career
Center, like park like theydrove their car. But this
remember the school was 1/3 oursize. So it wasn't a very far
drive. It was literally like oneparking lot over. But there was
a barrier there. Like that's toofar, I don't really want to go
way over there. And now St.
Philip and Calhoun, there couldbe a barrier there like mentally
(07:36):
I don't want to go way overthere. Or it could be
psychologically those terms Imentioned like career interview
and resume are a barrier. So ifyou're, if you're in that space,
I used to call it in my life,quote, being in denial. But I've
changed that since then. Becausethat's not a fair statement. I
used to, I used tocompartmentalize and say I don't
(07:56):
want to do that because I'meither procrastinating or I'm in
denial. Nowadays, especiallypost COVID. I say, you know,
what that individual reallyneeds is some human being most
likely, probably not AI,probably not a robot, but a
person to welcome them into thisconversation. So for you as a
student, it could be a familymember, it could be a professor,
(08:17):
it could be a career centermember, anyone that can kind of
get you started on the processof writing a resume talking
about your life after college,just get that conversation
started, preferably beforeMarch, which I guess is next
month of your senior year, sothat then you might feel more
(08:38):
comfortable engaging with theCareer Center before graduation.
Let's restart that conversationwith someone because it's
extremely hard to do if youstart after graduation.
Absolutely. Thank you, Jim. AndI love that intimate personal
feel that you guys seem to havein the Career Center. To go off
of that once those students whoget past that barrier. Karen, I
(09:01):
would love to hear how theCareer Center works with
students to connect them withpotential employers. Sure,
Karen Fritchman (09:08):
it's my favorite thing to talk about.
I'm always trying to bringemployers to campus the I guess
most popular one is our careerfair. We have each semester
spring and fall. That brings alot of employers at a really big
fun recruiting event, a lot ofgood energy. But all through the
semester, we're also doing popup fairs where we have anywhere
(09:31):
from eight to 10 to 12 employersout on Cougar Mall. I've asked
some students about it. I'veasked some employers about it.
And it kind of replaced thetraditional Tabeling on campus
where we might have one or twoemployers coming. Now when we
have the buzz on Cougar mallstudents are like oh, what's
that swag over there. Let me gocheck that out or I always
(09:54):
encourage them to bring snacks.
We've had coffee out there andthen it ends up being a
beautiful 67 A great day and youdon't really need it. Doughnuts
snacks we've had people bring, Idon't even know candy, easy Mac,
they've got everything outthere. It's less intimidating
for the students that way,because they're just kind of
wondering what this fun tableis. And then they can openly
(10:15):
share their elevator pitcheswithout really knowing that
they're doing it. And then theemployers kind of like it too,
because they're able to learnmore about the students. And if
they are coming to a veryspecific recruiting event where
they might be nervous or shy, orthey don't want to screw up
their elevator pitch, becausethey practice and practice and
(10:36):
practice and now they're on thespot, and they don't really want
to mess that up. So then it kindof works both ways, we often
find a lot of opportunities evenfor part time jobs. Sometimes
they are just made this reallygreat offer to work some hours
and they learn about aninternship or even just a career
field they didn't know about. Sothat's kind of like our main
(10:57):
goals throughout. But then we dohave some key events too. We're
doing a headshot and handshakeevent where we're going to help
students learn about how theycan build their online presence
and learn directly fromemployers on what they want. If
you meet with me, or any of ourcareer advisors in the office,
more times than not a lot ofpeople are like met with a
(11:19):
student looking to write newsarticles, who do you know, and I
know a lot because I work withall the employers. So we always
are trying to find new fun ways.
We get employers intoclassrooms, we have them just
hanging out doing resumes withus every now and then. We've
tried some mock interviews, andI feel like that's kind of a
(11:41):
little irrelevant lately. A lotof them are doing zoom now. So
they don't really need to comein as much. But we're trying to
bring that back to anytime wecan bring them in more casual,
fun, intimate settings to hasseemed to be really beneficial
for both.
Unknown (11:57):
Absolutely those sounds like amazing opportunities.
Thank you so much, Karen forsharing.
You should come to someabsolutely. You
will be seeing me there. Jim,you mentioned earlier and
initiative about financialwellness. Can we hear a little
bit a little more about that?
Oh,sure. We're lucky enough to have
a donor supported program hereat the college. So we want to
(12:20):
thank our advancement office, aswell as student affairs and Dr.
Alicia Cadell for making thatcome to fruition. Here to
college. I know it's also aninitiative that is important to
President Chu, for instance, inthe most recent town hall for
faculty, staff, parents andstudents, the President
(12:41):
mentioned the 58 George Streetproject as being one of the top
initiatives for the next 1218months with respect to
construction on campus. Andwe're looking forward into
moving into that new facility,ideally in the spring of 2025.
So within 12 to 18 months, theCareer Center and financial
(13:04):
wellness will move in theretogether. And what that means is
we have had the opportunity thepast two years to hire a
graduate assistant to run thatprogram for the college. And
we've had some good success thusfar. It's really taken off this
year because we have the fundingfor a full time employee. And
that employee works within theCareer Center. And the main, the
main goal is to engage studentswith a platform called high
(13:28):
grad, high grad is for all ofour students. It's really user
friendly. I think it does a nicejob of helping our
undergraduates understandbudgeting has some link to
scholarship information as well.
And essentially, it just teachesour students the importance of
(13:52):
budgeting. And that can extendall the way out to credit card
usage or not usage of creditcards. And for some students,
it's the first time they've everreally thought about money
management. But it's done so ina user friendly capacity. And
we're very lucky to have thatplatform here. It does provide
reports to students andrecommendations on how they can
(14:14):
manage their budget and managetheir money. And our full time
employee in that space. LizCooper does a nice job of doing
workshops as well as individualconversations about money and
how to plan. The most importantthing there usually is paying
down loans and considering howto manage money after college
(14:34):
and really just not overspending while you're a college
student. fromeither of you. I would love to
hear about any online resourcesthat are provided by the Career
Center for students to utilizeindependently.
During COVID. We went fullyremote with all of our services,
and we're really proud of thefact that the summer 2020 We had
(14:55):
a statewide job fair with over1300 Students He's in the state
of South Carolina signed up andabout 800 participated. And what
we learned is that right through2020 into 2021, we almost had to
mimic our in person serviceswith online. And right now are
our top online resourcesprobably going to be handshake,
(15:17):
although we have selfassessments for students to
learn more about their majorsand life after college, I
mentioned I grad earlier forfinancial wellness. There's
going global for studentslooking to work abroad or for
international students lookingfor opportunities in the States,
and more, but the main wasprobably handshake and handshake
has really been a game changerfor us. I'll let Karen share her
(15:40):
thoughts on handshake. But forme, I think it's really really a
good thing when you have aplatform that has over 650,000
companies, of whom at least15,000 of those companies are
attempting to recruit ourstudents at any given time. So
I'd like to frame it as there'smore than one company trying to
recruit our individual students,there's more than a one to one
(16:01):
ratio there, which is reallytremendous. And that's for
internships and jobs. So ifstudents do have an accountant
handshake, I ask them tocontinue using that revisit the
site, work with your careercenter advisor, or counselor or
coach to learn how to usehandshake, because that is a
national program that has reallyleveled the playing field, as
(16:22):
well. So for decades, one of thegreatest challenges for any
school that was not, let's say,a top 20 school, or an Ivy
League school, let's say for anyschool, one of the greatest
challenges for a career centerwould be how do we get the
employers to hire our studentsfor jobs after college, maybe
not internships, but jobs. Andwhat a handshake is allow us to
(16:44):
do is absolutely level that thatplaying field, right now, any
company can post a handshake,and they do. And we now have
connections to all of theseinternational companies, some of
whom do come to our campus, noquestion. We have really strong
campus recruiters, I couldrattle off those names. But I
think the most important thingto keep in mind is that it
really is meant to allow everystudent the opportunity to apply
(17:09):
for any job or any internship.
And it really has given us a lotmore employer activity. I don't
know if there's something youwant to say about a character
that I didn't cover. Oh,there's a whole bunch I can say
about it. So this is my secondfavorite thing to talk about
after employers. Handshake justhas so much that we can do with
it even more than we'reutilizing yet, because we're
(17:31):
just kind of taking pieces tolearn from it. But Jim's right,
we have 15,000 plus employers inthere. We post anywhere between
60 and 70,000 jobs a year. Sothat can seem intimidating to
students. But it's a really cooltool if you're using it right.
So if you're filling out yourprofile, and your major relevant
(17:53):
courses, putting in your careerinterests, what types of jobs
you want, where you want thosejobs, the algorithm works really
quickly. Something I love aboutit is they have some collections
that I get to pick and choosewhich employers go in those. My
favorite collection is hiddengems. And anytime I'm having
really awesome conversations,and these are local and national
(18:16):
companies, I'll put those inthere. To be able to showcase
those first. The way it works isit will go through your profile,
and it will start recommendingjobs events. And then the second
thing it goes through is ourcollections. So then I get to
piecemeal some because it isreally hard to know what
(18:36):
companies are out there. Whatjobs should I look at. It also
is home to all those resourcesthat Jim mentioned. So if you
aren't really sure where to go,and you're not finding it on the
website, or you just have noclue you can go onto handshake,
there's a button calledresources. And that houses I
grabbed it houses big interview,which is a pretty cool platform
(19:01):
that you record yourselfanswering common questions and
then you get to watch yourselfand see it back. So it's a
little weird and awkward, butthen you feel better when you're
in the real thing. What can I dowith this major the assessments,
everything that Jim hadmentioned are all in one place
so it's easier to find. We alsohave all of our student
(19:21):
appointments in handshake. So ifyou wanted to meet with a career
advisor, if you're looking foran on campus job, that's through
handshake, too. We post all ofour all of our jobs from on
campus Federal Work Study, parttime jobs, internships,
volunteer opportunities, itreally is all there and all of
our events, so kind ofeverything. It's a one stop
(19:42):
shop, you can go in there tofind whatever you're looking
for. They have really nicefeatures if you're browsing
through some jobs or companies.
It will show you if anotherstudent is an alum that has
worked there or an intern there.
It gives you prompts to sendmessages if you don't really
They know what to say or how tostart a conversation. And a
common question I often get iswhy should I be in handshake,
(20:05):
and not LinkedIn or not indeed,and I have the pleasure of
reviewing every single job thatcomes in. There's a love hate
with that. But it is kind ofcomforting for students know
that somebody's looking at it,it's not going to be a scam. If
it seems unsafe, if you're goinginto a personal home, and it
just seems a little sketchy,like we're not allowing that
(20:26):
handshake does a great job upfront of vetting all of the
employers to make sure that theyactually have an employer
identification number thatthey're paying their taxes, and
it's not just some randomcompany in a garage that you're
gonna go work for. So there's alot of safety and trust that's
involved in that. Not that wedon't promote, I guess, LinkedIn
to and indeed, but when we'reasked that difference, it's just
(20:50):
kind of nice to know somebody'slooking at it. We have
internships, we definitelyrecommend paid, if you can find
paid, we give priority to thoseevery year. It's just kind of
anything you think you mightwant, it's in there. And if it's
not yet it's available. We'rejust maybe not using it yet. But
yeah, handshake is like our goto baby, just get in there, play
(21:14):
around with it oftentimes. Solike, I don't really know what
to put in there. And we're like,just go in and see. We do have
a, a prompted profilecompletion. So handshake will
ask you what are your interestsand they will give you topics to
choose from, they'll give youskills to add. So sometimes it's
like, I don't really know whatthat skill is, but you'll read
(21:35):
it and you're like, oh, yeah, Ihave that. And then you'll click
it. So it is very user friendlyto most of our students use the
desktop feed and not the mobilefeed. Mobile feed has some
really cool features. So I amtrying to plug that and get more
students to use it on theirphone. One of our students
yesterday told me that shedoesn't want to use data on her
(21:56):
phone for a handshake app whenshe can be on her computer. And
I was like, but look at all itcan do. And it's really nice to
share content, our resources popup, our events pop up. You can
see who's coming to the careerfair, I had a time research
those employers, it'll tell youthe size, the location, all
their jobs. So it's really,really awesome that we have it
(22:19):
does soundamazing. And as someone who has
the mobile app on my phone, Iwould definitely recommend
people to download that stuff. Ithink it's definitely worth the
data. And I love that youmentioned jobs as well as
internships. I think that's alsoapplicable for freshmen, even
freshmen, sophomores, juniors,absolutely qualities freshmen
(22:39):
are plugged into it. Yeah,pretty immediately good. They
shouldn't be around your addropped. They are plugged in.
Yeah, not all of them know whatit is. So we're trying to get
that word out. And that's reallycommon to with the Career
Center, we don't want you towait till your last semester. As
a senior I want to see youearly. We focus on exploring and
validating your career path andwhat your major is to help you
(23:03):
just know what you don't know.
Absolutely. To transition backto the in person aspect of the
Career Center. I would love tohear more about the career fair
from you, Karen. Right.
Third baby third favorite I canjust keep going on. So the
career fairs are super funstudents can expect a pretty, I
(23:26):
guess fast paced kind of dependson when you're there, we usually
have anywhere between 110 140employers, which sounds
intimidating, and for some itis, but all of our career fair
staff. And we've really awesomevolunteers are there. So if we
see somebody turning around andlike hightail it out of there,
we're like, wait, wait, wait,let us calm you down. Some
(23:47):
advice that we often give is togo to the employers you don't
really care about and practiceon them, talk to them share
about yourself. And then thatway, after you get all the bugs
out, you can just go up to thatemployer that you've had your
eye on. The employers often havereally good swag, again, just
like our pop up fairs, theybring pens, they bring flash
(24:09):
drives, cups, like if you needsome cups for your kitchen, you
can get a 12 pack of cups. Youcan stock up for a week or two
on snacks. There's pens, way toomany pens, but you can get some
pens there. They are really,really open. I mean, when the
recruiters are there, they'rehere to hire our students.
(24:29):
They're not there to just sitbehind the table on their phones
or laptops. Somebody once toldme that they didn't allow chairs
at their career fair becausethey wanted the employers to
stand and actually be engaged.
But we've never really had thatproblem. We offer chairs and
most of them are standing andnot using them anyway. They
really love to just meet withthe students and they want to
hear about them. They want toshare opportunities. Our
(24:50):
students will probably learnabout 1245 We don't even know
more jobs that they wouldn'thave thought They were
interested in. A lot of times weask where asked who comes to
these career fairs, what majorsthey hiring for. And it's really
all majors, anyone can come. Wehave employers who want to hire
(25:12):
freshmen and sophomores. Sowe're encouraging them to come.
We have students who just wantsome job shadowing
opportunities. And that'ssomething that they can go talk
to these employers about. Ifthey're not quite ready to jump
into an internship or job. Wehave our staff doing a tip
table. So if you're just reallynot sure where to start, you
need to chat with somebody. Wehave mints for you, there's
(25:34):
water, we do headshots overthere, just to kind of boost
their confidence and get them inthe door. Once they're there,
they have a really great time.
It's down at the CharlestonGilly Art Center now, not that
far away, not as far as somethink it is. It's a nice, easy
(25:54):
walk. So we encourage everyoneto come on down. It's really a
time of networking and exploringto discover something new. It's
not really, although it's calledthe career fair. It's not
getting that job aftergraduation necessarily. For
spring, we have a lot that needssome summer jobs, or they're
(26:14):
looking for a fall internship,even they're ready, they have
their summer, whatever they'regonna do go home work, intern,
but now they're like, What am Igoing to do in the fall? And
then that's kind of what wewant. We want more students
doing more internships orexperiential learning
opportunities while they'rehere. And the career fairs a
great place to start for that.
Absolutely.
(26:35):
And definitely hearing you talkabout it seems much less and
have you gone to any of ourfairs? I have not yet but I am
fully locked in right now. Youwill see me at the next one.
Absolutely.
Do you know where the GIL yardcenters located?
I do. Do is hesitation I do.
(26:56):
You can get to a by CalhounStreet or George Street. You'll
run into it either way. It'sonly a block or two away. So
it's not that far. Iwonder sense in our beautiful
city? Definitely walk into thesunshine on the way. Yeah,
hopefully.
So about a block from TD arena.
Have you been a TD? Yes, Ihave. And everyone is probably
familiar with that. Yes, yes.
(27:17):
Did you go to the career fairwhen it was in the arena or
never? No career fairs? That'sokay, guys, this behind?
I'm logged in right now. This isconvincing me? And all of the
younger listeners, you should?
Yes. Over there before I do. Soto either of you. What are some
of the most common questionsthat you guys are asked about?
(27:40):
Career Fairs? The Career Centerin general? anything relating to
those? No, go ahead. No,I mean, I have the list. You MLS
we can both take turns minor,minor, usually the
outliers. So common questionsfor me are going to be vendors
(28:01):
who contact us and want us topartner or parents who maybe
have a student here who hasn'tgotten engaged, or an employer
who has had a really goodexperience, or maybe hasn't had
the experience they want? Or isthe staff members running into a
situation they need someassistance with? So a lot of
(28:22):
times is outliers. For me, it'sjust sort of the the emails or
the conversations that maybe noteverybody on the team knows how
or in what way to answer or allthe various resources at the
college that are available toanswer the question. But just on
the in the day to day, it'spretty standard. Where's your
(28:45):
office located? Once we moveinto 50, George Street, that
probably will be obvious.
Hopefully, we're gonna make itobvious. But where are you
located? What services do youoffer? What are your hours?
Because we did experiment withsome real flexible hours a
couple of years ago, stayingopen later, that kind of thing.
(29:06):
And I try to mainly encouragestudents in particular, just to
come in and use the senatorduring the eight, five hours
when possible, but there are aconsiderable number of emails
and things to answer after hoursas well. But most of them line
is going to be on the outlierrealm, beyond the day to day
(29:29):
around resume Career Fair andthat kind of thing. Absolutely.
CarrieYeah. I mean, in my job, I get
questions from students andemployers, most often it's
employers who want to be oncampus, which is great. And we
kind of do whatever we can tobring them in. We do have a lot
of Do you have Students in thismajor? Do you have students in
(29:52):
that major and it's kind of easyto just Google CFC insert major
here and they can find it butI'm happy to do that for them.
From the questions withstudents, they range all over
the place a very common one isdoes my resume have to be one
page? Depending on who you ask,there's mixed reviews on that.
(30:12):
Do I need a cover letter? Andwhat is it? And that's another
fun one, especially on my endworking with employers, some of
them hate them, some of themlove them. But we say is, if it
is required, then yes, do it,obviously, upload your resume
twice. Where do I start? If Ihave no experience is another
one. And that's always a fun oneto answer. Because then as
(30:36):
you're just chatting with, Hey,what are you involved with? Now?
Maybe you didn't have aninternship, but you're in a club
and you have a leadership role.
You might be in a sorority, orfraternity who's planning
fundraising events, and youdon't really know that that's
actual experience. So just waysfor them to think differently.
(30:57):
And most students who think theyhave no experience actually have
a lot, they're just not sure howto get it out. When employers
want to hire me, the answer isbasically everyone. Majors vary,
but employers, for the mostpart, need a little bit of
everything. Obviously, like someof our engineering, companies
(31:18):
want engineers but what studentsdon't think of is they also need
an accountant and somebody to dotheir marketing communications.
They may need somebody to whoknows HR just insert any job
they forget about the businessside. Another common question is
about salary. And how do I knowwhen they asked me what my
(31:41):
salary is. So we have tips andtricks to figure that out, kind
of based on cost of living andwhere you're going to be? No,
you're not going to get sixfigures and work remote from a
beach somewhere, not going tohappen fresh out of school, you
may work remote and make apretty decent salary depending
on where you go. But how tonavigate that. And in the fall,
we partner with our financialwellness team, and we do a
(32:04):
compensation one on one event,which is super fun. This will be
the fourth or fifth time we'redoing it. We have an alum who
comes and speaks he's acompensation analyst. So it's
what he does and what he knows.
And then we always follow thatup with a panel of employers,
summer alumni, some are not andwe usually curate questions, we
get to one or two, and then thestudents are just asking away.
(32:25):
And they take a lot out of that.
And it's a really fun thing forthem to learn. Oftentimes, we
joke and say that we can givethe same message but when an
employer and alum gives it theylisten. You might be guilty of
that you'll Yes, absolutely.
Yeah. And like those are thoseare just some of the common
(32:47):
ones. We get all differentquestions all the time. But
there definitely are those gotwos. Or they asked, like Jim
mentioned, what else do youoffer? Because they think that
we are just resumes and coverletters. But we are so much more
than that.
As we have learned today? Yes. Ithink those are all things that
are definitely on my mind as asecond semester senior but also
(33:10):
things that students should belearning about throughout their
college years.
Are you graduating this May?
Yes, I am. So as an alum, but Ifailed to mention earlier
another common one that we get,certainly get our alumni we
serve and help alumni up tothree years out, although
honestly, only we've turned awayany alumni in a while. I mean,
there's really the reason forthe up to three years out is
(33:33):
usually those students or thosealumni are still connected to
the college in some capacitythat either here in Charleston,
or they're working directly witha faculty member to apply to
grad school or something likethat. So that's just something I
think it's important to know isthat we do help our alumni.
Thank you both so much forcoming in to talk. Today. I
learned so much from both of youabout the career center. Are
(33:55):
there any last notes that eitherof you want to add in?
I would add that national datahas shown for several decades
that students who utilize theircollege career centers have a
much higher percentage ofsecuring an internship as well
as securing an interview for afull time job. And of course, in
(34:16):
order to get a full time job,you're most likely going to have
to have an interview. That wouldbe more incentive to utilize our
services at your convenience, aswell as thank you for your time
today.
Yes, thanks, Julia. And I'lljust, again shamelessly plug our
handshake it's there for you touse so it there's no harm in
(34:37):
doing it. Please get on there.
Fill out your profile. Lookaround. If you have questions
come to the career center andwe're happy to meet with you and
then we hope to see you at somepop up fairs or career fairs
again, you have nothing to losebut
you guys will both see me theresoon. Thank you Thank you for
(34:58):
listening to this episode ofSpeaking of College of
Charleston for more episodes andto read stories about our
guests, visit the College ofCharleston official news site,
the college today@today.cfc.edu.
You can also find this and pastepisodes on all major podcast
platforms. This episode wasproduced by Amy Stockwell from
(35:18):
university communications withrecording and sound engineering
by Jesse comes from the Divisionof Information Technology.
Thanks again and we'll see younext time.
Hello, and Welcome to Speaking of College of
Charleston. I'm Julia Heslin, acommunications major at the
college. And on today's episode,I'm talking to Jim Allison,
Executive Director of the CareerCenter, and Karen freshman
director of employer relations.
Unknown (00:26):
Jim, I would love to hear a broad overview of the
different services and resourcesthat are offered by the Career
Center for Students.
Jim Allison (00:35):
Terrific, thank you for having us here. Today, we
offer a comprehensive list ofservices for students with
respect to Career Development,here at the College of
Charleston, I'm really proud ofthe fact that we're able to
merge career development withstudent employment, as well as
(00:55):
financial wellness, which is anewer initiative for the office.
Those three elements really cometogether nicely for any
individual student. But we dooffer a traditional list of
services for undergraduates, andtraditional by traditional I
mean, everything from resume andcover letter development to
LinkedIn development,interviewing skills, how to
(01:18):
write letters, how to writeemail, how to interact with
employers, how to apply forjobs, how to secure internships,
and more for me in the 23 and ahalf years and career
development and 25 years, and todo the math real quick. In
higher education and studentdevelopment, probably the areas
(01:41):
that are most underutilized orareas that would probably be the
most appropriate to emphasize,for soon to be graduate. So
those spring semester seniorsare, please make sure before you
graduate, to have your resumecritiqued by someone in the
Career Center. Number one,number two, don't, don't forget
(02:04):
to use our drop in hours, whichare Monday and Wednesday this
semester from 10 till noon, aswell as Tuesdays and Thursdays
from two to 4pm. The drop inhours are casual. They're
friendly, everything's friendlyin the career center. But these
are super friendly, becauseoftentimes, it's peer to peer
advice. And it's, we often findstudents in particular who maybe
(02:26):
have been neglecting coming intothe career center for whatever
reason. They really find thatfirst point of contact as a
fellow student comforting and aneasier entree into our services.
And then they can follow up withappointments with our staff as
needed. And the last thing I'dsay on that, just for that first
question from from my lens, isthat it's never too early or too
(02:50):
late to start. Because workingwith employers working with
graduate schools, talking toparents and just working with, I
think it's now 1000s and 1000sof undergraduate students, for
me, the main thing is to dosomething and get started before
you graduate, because thehardest thing for an
undergraduate student to dotypically, whether they have a
(03:12):
network or not, is to apply fora job after graduation, cold.
And by cold, I mean just sendingout resumes to openings that
they find online, havingcoaching early, understanding
keywords, understandingapplicant tracking systems,
having connections, meetingsomeone at a career fair who
could directly hire you orinterview you. All that and more
(03:35):
so essential. Prior to the massof college graduates who hit the
market between June 1 andNovember 1, any given year, if
those students aren't reallyprepared and don't have good
resumes or LinkedIn profiles,and more, those particular
seniors can really struggle onan individual basis to find that
(03:57):
first job. That's not just ajob, but it's more career
related. So I think that's theimportant thing is I could go on
and on about the differentservices and what to do and what
not to do. The main thing is todo something with our office
before graduation and connectwith us before graduating to
make life after college easier,and a lot less stressful, if you
(04:19):
will.
Unknown (04:20):
Absolutely. I know you touched on this a bit at the
end. Do you have any specificadvice that you would give to
students who feel like they'realready behind on that job
search?
It's very common to feel stressand anxiety around life after
college because our educationalsystem really the United States
and I believe in Canada isreally set up for you most of
(04:41):
this hemisphere set up foralmost like elementary school to
middle school to high school andthen unlike some countries that
require two years of militaryservice or have different things
that happened potentially aftergraduation, our culture
typically for maybe 100 years inthe United States has been, the
(05:02):
next thing you do is for a lotof students is go to college.
And the thing about that, in mymind is that parents and others
kind of help guide studentsthrough that, and get them to
college and really help them getthere. And oftentimes the first
time and as a traditional agecollege students the life right
(05:23):
around, let's say, age 21, or20, excuse me, 21 or 22 years
old, is that maybe the firsttime they've ever had to really
go out and do this completely bythemselves. And whether there's
a parental influence, or afriend influence or a family
influence or a connection,networking wise, that's always a
(05:46):
good thing in my mind. But ifthere's not, it can be extremely
stressful for students just toget started. So we have some
friendlier. When I say friendly,I mean, kind of open, meaning
open to anyone. And we're superexcited when folks come up to
our tables on Cougar mall,whether that's a pop up career
(06:07):
fair or a tabling event. We'refairly visible, I think, yeah,
hopefully not too visible forout there every day. Sometimes
it becomes like wallpaper orposter that you walk by every
day. But I think we have enoughthings going on with doughnuts
and bagels and employers andspinning wheels that it really
kind of, it's a nice thing tohave out there for students to
(06:29):
see that we're just kind of openand friendly people, because the
terms that we can write on thechalkboard so to speak, like
resume and interview and career,just those words by saying those
words. And by writing thosewords, there are studies that
show that the room isindividuals in the room, their
blood pressure automaticallygoes up, and their stress levels
(06:52):
automatically go up. So to thatpoint, my main message is it's
very common and very real. Andokay to be stressed about that.
If for some reason, way up inthe Lightsey center, second
floor is a almost like ablocker. Like some folks will
say, Well, I worked at a schoolone time 1/3 our size, and I had
(07:14):
a student drive from theirresidence hall to the Career
Center, like park like theydrove their car. But this
remember the school was 1/3 oursize. So it wasn't a very far
drive. It was literally like oneparking lot over. But there was
a barrier there. Like that's toofar, I don't really want to go
way over there. And now St.
Philip and Calhoun, there couldbe a barrier there like mentally
(07:36):
I don't want to go way overthere. Or it could be
psychologically those terms Imentioned like career interview
and resume are a barrier. So ifyou're, if you're in that space,
I used to call it in my life,quote, being in denial. But I've
changed that since then. Becausethat's not a fair statement. I
used to, I used tocompartmentalize and say I don't
(07:56):
want to do that because I'meither procrastinating or I'm in
denial. Nowadays, especiallypost COVID. I say, you know,
what that individual reallyneeds is some human being most
likely, probably not AI,probably not a robot, but a
person to welcome them into thisconversation. So for you as a
student, it could be a familymember, it could be a professor,
(08:17):
it could be a career centermember, anyone that can kind of
get you started on the processof writing a resume talking
about your life after college,just get that conversation
started, preferably beforeMarch, which I guess is next
month of your senior year, sothat then you might feel more
(08:38):
comfortable engaging with theCareer Center before graduation.
Let's restart that conversationwith someone because it's
extremely hard to do if youstart after graduation.
Absolutely. Thank you, Jim. AndI love that intimate personal
feel that you guys seem to havein the Career Center. To go off
of that once those students whoget past that barrier. Karen, I
(09:01):
would love to hear how theCareer Center works with
students to connect them withpotential employers. Sure,
Karen Fritchman (09:08):
it's my favorite thing to talk about.
I'm always trying to bringemployers to campus the I guess
most popular one is our careerfair. We have each semester
spring and fall. That brings alot of employers at a really big
fun recruiting event, a lot ofgood energy. But all through the
semester, we're also doing popup fairs where we have anywhere
(09:31):
from eight to 10 to 12 employersout on Cougar Mall. I've asked
some students about it. I'veasked some employers about it.
And it kind of replaced thetraditional Tabeling on campus
where we might have one or twoemployers coming. Now when we
have the buzz on Cougar mallstudents are like oh, what's
that swag over there. Let me gocheck that out or I always
(09:54):
encourage them to bring snacks.
We've had coffee out there andthen it ends up being a
beautiful 67 A great day and youdon't really need it. Doughnuts
snacks we've had people bring, Idon't even know candy, easy Mac,
they've got everything outthere. It's less intimidating
for the students that way,because they're just kind of
wondering what this fun tableis. And then they can openly
(10:15):
share their elevator pitcheswithout really knowing that
they're doing it. And then theemployers kind of like it too,
because they're able to learnmore about the students. And if
they are coming to a veryspecific recruiting event where
they might be nervous or shy, orthey don't want to screw up
their elevator pitch, becausethey practice and practice and
(10:36):
practice and now they're on thespot, and they don't really want
to mess that up. So then it kindof works both ways, we often
find a lot of opportunities evenfor part time jobs. Sometimes
they are just made this reallygreat offer to work some hours
and they learn about aninternship or even just a career
field they didn't know about. Sothat's kind of like our main
(10:57):
goals throughout. But then we dohave some key events too. We're
doing a headshot and handshakeevent where we're going to help
students learn about how theycan build their online presence
and learn directly fromemployers on what they want. If
you meet with me, or any of ourcareer advisors in the office,
more times than not a lot ofpeople are like met with a
(11:19):
student looking to write newsarticles, who do you know, and I
know a lot because I work withall the employers. So we always
are trying to find new fun ways.
We get employers intoclassrooms, we have them just
hanging out doing resumes withus every now and then. We've
tried some mock interviews, andI feel like that's kind of a
(11:41):
little irrelevant lately. A lotof them are doing zoom now. So
they don't really need to comein as much. But we're trying to
bring that back to anytime wecan bring them in more casual,
fun, intimate settings to hasseemed to be really beneficial
for both.
Unknown (11:57):
Absolutely those sounds like amazing opportunities.
Thank you so much, Karen forsharing.
You should come to someabsolutely. You
will be seeing me there. Jim,you mentioned earlier and
initiative about financialwellness. Can we hear a little
bit a little more about that?
Oh,sure. We're lucky enough to have
a donor supported program hereat the college. So we want to
(12:20):
thank our advancement office, aswell as student affairs and Dr.
Alicia Cadell for making thatcome to fruition. Here to
college. I know it's also aninitiative that is important to
President Chu, for instance, inthe most recent town hall for
faculty, staff, parents andstudents, the President
(12:41):
mentioned the 58 George Streetproject as being one of the top
initiatives for the next 1218months with respect to
construction on campus. Andwe're looking forward into
moving into that new facility,ideally in the spring of 2025.
So within 12 to 18 months, theCareer Center and financial
(13:04):
wellness will move in theretogether. And what that means is
we have had the opportunity thepast two years to hire a
graduate assistant to run thatprogram for the college. And
we've had some good success thusfar. It's really taken off this
year because we have the fundingfor a full time employee. And
that employee works within theCareer Center. And the main, the
main goal is to engage studentswith a platform called high
(13:28):
grad, high grad is for all ofour students. It's really user
friendly. I think it does a nicejob of helping our
undergraduates understandbudgeting has some link to
scholarship information as well.
And essentially, it just teachesour students the importance of
(13:52):
budgeting. And that can extendall the way out to credit card
usage or not usage of creditcards. And for some students,
it's the first time they've everreally thought about money
management. But it's done so ina user friendly capacity. And
we're very lucky to have thatplatform here. It does provide
reports to students andrecommendations on how they can
(14:14):
manage their budget and managetheir money. And our full time
employee in that space. LizCooper does a nice job of doing
workshops as well as individualconversations about money and
how to plan. The most importantthing there usually is paying
down loans and considering howto manage money after college
(14:34):
and really just not overspending while you're a college
student. fromeither of you. I would love to
hear about any online resourcesthat are provided by the Career
Center for students to utilizeindependently.
During COVID. We went fullyremote with all of our services,
and we're really proud of thefact that the summer 2020 We had
(14:55):
a statewide job fair with over1300 Students He's in the state
of South Carolina signed up andabout 800 participated. And what
we learned is that right through2020 into 2021, we almost had to
mimic our in person serviceswith online. And right now are
our top online resourcesprobably going to be handshake,
(15:17):
although we have selfassessments for students to
learn more about their majorsand life after college, I
mentioned I grad earlier forfinancial wellness. There's
going global for studentslooking to work abroad or for
international students lookingfor opportunities in the States,
and more, but the main wasprobably handshake and handshake
has really been a game changerfor us. I'll let Karen share her
(15:40):
thoughts on handshake. But forme, I think it's really really a
good thing when you have aplatform that has over 650,000
companies, of whom at least15,000 of those companies are
attempting to recruit ourstudents at any given time. So
I'd like to frame it as there'smore than one company trying to
recruit our individual students,there's more than a one to one
(16:01):
ratio there, which is reallytremendous. And that's for
internships and jobs. So ifstudents do have an accountant
handshake, I ask them tocontinue using that revisit the
site, work with your careercenter advisor, or counselor or
coach to learn how to usehandshake, because that is a
national program that has reallyleveled the playing field, as
(16:22):
well. So for decades, one of thegreatest challenges for any
school that was not, let's say,a top 20 school, or an Ivy
League school, let's say for anyschool, one of the greatest
challenges for a career centerwould be how do we get the
employers to hire our studentsfor jobs after college, maybe
not internships, but jobs. Andwhat a handshake is allow us to
(16:44):
do is absolutely level that thatplaying field, right now, any
company can post a handshake,and they do. And we now have
connections to all of theseinternational companies, some of
whom do come to our campus, noquestion. We have really strong
campus recruiters, I couldrattle off those names. But I
think the most important thingto keep in mind is that it
really is meant to allow everystudent the opportunity to apply
(17:09):
for any job or any internship.
And it really has given us a lotmore employer activity. I don't
know if there's something youwant to say about a character
that I didn't cover. Oh,there's a whole bunch I can say
about it. So this is my secondfavorite thing to talk about
after employers. Handshake justhas so much that we can do with
it even more than we'reutilizing yet, because we're
(17:31):
just kind of taking pieces tolearn from it. But Jim's right,
we have 15,000 plus employers inthere. We post anywhere between
60 and 70,000 jobs a year. Sothat can seem intimidating to
students. But it's a really cooltool if you're using it right.
So if you're filling out yourprofile, and your major relevant
(17:53):
courses, putting in your careerinterests, what types of jobs
you want, where you want thosejobs, the algorithm works really
quickly. Something I love aboutit is they have some collections
that I get to pick and choosewhich employers go in those. My
favorite collection is hiddengems. And anytime I'm having
really awesome conversations,and these are local and national
(18:16):
companies, I'll put those inthere. To be able to showcase
those first. The way it works isit will go through your profile,
and it will start recommendingjobs events. And then the second
thing it goes through is ourcollections. So then I get to
piecemeal some because it isreally hard to know what
(18:36):
companies are out there. Whatjobs should I look at. It also
is home to all those resourcesthat Jim mentioned. So if you
aren't really sure where to go,and you're not finding it on the
website, or you just have noclue you can go onto handshake,
there's a button calledresources. And that houses I
grabbed it houses big interview,which is a pretty cool platform
(19:01):
that you record yourselfanswering common questions and
then you get to watch yourselfand see it back. So it's a
little weird and awkward, butthen you feel better when you're
in the real thing. What can I dowith this major the assessments,
everything that Jim hadmentioned are all in one place
so it's easier to find. We alsohave all of our student
(19:21):
appointments in handshake. So ifyou wanted to meet with a career
advisor, if you're looking foran on campus job, that's through
handshake, too. We post all ofour all of our jobs from on
campus Federal Work Study, parttime jobs, internships,
volunteer opportunities, itreally is all there and all of
our events, so kind ofeverything. It's a one stop
(19:42):
shop, you can go in there tofind whatever you're looking
for. They have really nicefeatures if you're browsing
through some jobs or companies.
It will show you if anotherstudent is an alum that has
worked there or an intern there.
It gives you prompts to sendmessages if you don't really
They know what to say or how tostart a conversation. And a
common question I often get iswhy should I be in handshake,
(20:05):
and not LinkedIn or not indeed,and I have the pleasure of
reviewing every single job thatcomes in. There's a love hate
with that. But it is kind ofcomforting for students know
that somebody's looking at it,it's not going to be a scam. If
it seems unsafe, if you're goinginto a personal home, and it
just seems a little sketchy,like we're not allowing that
(20:26):
handshake does a great job upfront of vetting all of the
employers to make sure that theyactually have an employer
identification number thatthey're paying their taxes, and
it's not just some randomcompany in a garage that you're
gonna go work for. So there's alot of safety and trust that's
involved in that. Not that wedon't promote, I guess, LinkedIn
to and indeed, but when we'reasked that difference, it's just
(20:50):
kind of nice to know somebody'slooking at it. We have
internships, we definitelyrecommend paid, if you can find
paid, we give priority to thoseevery year. It's just kind of
anything you think you mightwant, it's in there. And if it's
not yet it's available. We'rejust maybe not using it yet. But
yeah, handshake is like our goto baby, just get in there, play
(21:14):
around with it oftentimes. Solike, I don't really know what
to put in there. And we're like,just go in and see. We do have
a, a prompted profilecompletion. So handshake will
ask you what are your interestsand they will give you topics to
choose from, they'll give youskills to add. So sometimes it's
like, I don't really know whatthat skill is, but you'll read
(21:35):
it and you're like, oh, yeah, Ihave that. And then you'll click
it. So it is very user friendlyto most of our students use the
desktop feed and not the mobilefeed. Mobile feed has some
really cool features. So I amtrying to plug that and get more
students to use it on theirphone. One of our students
yesterday told me that shedoesn't want to use data on her
(21:56):
phone for a handshake app whenshe can be on her computer. And
I was like, but look at all itcan do. And it's really nice to
share content, our resources popup, our events pop up. You can
see who's coming to the careerfair, I had a time research
those employers, it'll tell youthe size, the location, all
their jobs. So it's really,really awesome that we have it
(22:19):
does soundamazing. And as someone who has
the mobile app on my phone, Iwould definitely recommend
people to download that stuff. Ithink it's definitely worth the
data. And I love that youmentioned jobs as well as
internships. I think that's alsoapplicable for freshmen, even
freshmen, sophomores, juniors,absolutely qualities freshmen
(22:39):
are plugged into it. Yeah,pretty immediately good. They
shouldn't be around your addropped. They are plugged in.
Yeah, not all of them know whatit is. So we're trying to get
that word out. And that's reallycommon to with the Career
Center, we don't want you towait till your last semester. As
a senior I want to see youearly. We focus on exploring and
validating your career path andwhat your major is to help you
(23:03):
just know what you don't know.
Absolutely. To transition backto the in person aspect of the
Career Center. I would love tohear more about the career fair
from you, Karen. Right.
Third baby third favorite I canjust keep going on. So the
career fairs are super funstudents can expect a pretty, I
(23:26):
guess fast paced kind of dependson when you're there, we usually
have anywhere between 110 140employers, which sounds
intimidating, and for some itis, but all of our career fair
staff. And we've really awesomevolunteers are there. So if we
see somebody turning around andlike hightail it out of there,
we're like, wait, wait, wait,let us calm you down. Some
(23:47):
advice that we often give is togo to the employers you don't
really care about and practiceon them, talk to them share
about yourself. And then thatway, after you get all the bugs
out, you can just go up to thatemployer that you've had your
eye on. The employers often havereally good swag, again, just
like our pop up fairs, theybring pens, they bring flash
(24:09):
drives, cups, like if you needsome cups for your kitchen, you
can get a 12 pack of cups. Youcan stock up for a week or two
on snacks. There's pens, way toomany pens, but you can get some
pens there. They are really,really open. I mean, when the
recruiters are there, they'rehere to hire our students.
(24:29):
They're not there to just sitbehind the table on their phones
or laptops. Somebody once toldme that they didn't allow chairs
at their career fair becausethey wanted the employers to
stand and actually be engaged.
But we've never really had thatproblem. We offer chairs and
most of them are standing andnot using them anyway. They
really love to just meet withthe students and they want to
hear about them. They want toshare opportunities. Our
(24:50):
students will probably learnabout 1245 We don't even know
more jobs that they wouldn'thave thought They were
interested in. A lot of times weask where asked who comes to
these career fairs, what majorsthey hiring for. And it's really
all majors, anyone can come. Wehave employers who want to hire
(25:12):
freshmen and sophomores. Sowe're encouraging them to come.
We have students who just wantsome job shadowing
opportunities. And that'ssomething that they can go talk
to these employers about. Ifthey're not quite ready to jump
into an internship or job. Wehave our staff doing a tip
table. So if you're just reallynot sure where to start, you
need to chat with somebody. Wehave mints for you, there's
(25:34):
water, we do headshots overthere, just to kind of boost
their confidence and get them inthe door. Once they're there,
they have a really great time.
It's down at the CharlestonGilly Art Center now, not that
far away, not as far as somethink it is. It's a nice, easy
(25:54):
walk. So we encourage everyoneto come on down. It's really a
time of networking and exploringto discover something new. It's
not really, although it's calledthe career fair. It's not
getting that job aftergraduation necessarily. For
spring, we have a lot that needssome summer jobs, or they're
(26:14):
looking for a fall internship,even they're ready, they have
their summer, whatever they'regonna do go home work, intern,
but now they're like, What am Igoing to do in the fall? And
then that's kind of what wewant. We want more students
doing more internships orexperiential learning
opportunities while they'rehere. And the career fairs a
great place to start for that.
Absolutely.
(26:35):
And definitely hearing you talkabout it seems much less and
have you gone to any of ourfairs? I have not yet but I am
fully locked in right now. Youwill see me at the next one.
Absolutely.
Do you know where the GIL yardcenters located?
I do. Do is hesitation I do.
(26:56):
You can get to a by CalhounStreet or George Street. You'll
run into it either way. It'sonly a block or two away. So
it's not that far. Iwonder sense in our beautiful
city? Definitely walk into thesunshine on the way. Yeah,
hopefully.
So about a block from TD arena.
Have you been a TD? Yes, Ihave. And everyone is probably
familiar with that. Yes, yes.
(27:17):
Did you go to the career fairwhen it was in the arena or
never? No career fairs? That'sokay, guys, this behind?
I'm logged in right now. This isconvincing me? And all of the
younger listeners, you should?
Yes. Over there before I do. Soto either of you. What are some
of the most common questionsthat you guys are asked about?
(27:40):
Career Fairs? The Career Centerin general? anything relating to
those? No, go ahead. No,I mean, I have the list. You MLS
we can both take turns minor,minor, usually the
outliers. So common questionsfor me are going to be vendors
(28:01):
who contact us and want us topartner or parents who maybe
have a student here who hasn'tgotten engaged, or an employer
who has had a really goodexperience, or maybe hasn't had
the experience they want? Or isthe staff members running into a
situation they need someassistance with? So a lot of
(28:22):
times is outliers. For me, it'sjust sort of the the emails or
the conversations that maybe noteverybody on the team knows how
or in what way to answer or allthe various resources at the
college that are available toanswer the question. But just on
the in the day to day, it'spretty standard. Where's your
(28:45):
office located? Once we moveinto 50, George Street, that
probably will be obvious.
Hopefully, we're gonna make itobvious. But where are you
located? What services do youoffer? What are your hours?
Because we did experiment withsome real flexible hours a
couple of years ago, stayingopen later, that kind of thing.
(29:06):
And I try to mainly encouragestudents in particular, just to
come in and use the senatorduring the eight, five hours
when possible, but there are aconsiderable number of emails
and things to answer after hoursas well. But most of them line
is going to be on the outlierrealm, beyond the day to day
(29:29):
around resume Career Fair andthat kind of thing. Absolutely.
CarrieYeah. I mean, in my job, I get
questions from students andemployers, most often it's
employers who want to be oncampus, which is great. And we
kind of do whatever we can tobring them in. We do have a lot
of Do you have Students in thismajor? Do you have students in
(29:52):
that major and it's kind of easyto just Google CFC insert major
here and they can find it butI'm happy to do that for them.
From the questions withstudents, they range all over
the place a very common one isdoes my resume have to be one
page? Depending on who you ask,there's mixed reviews on that.
(30:12):
Do I need a cover letter? Andwhat is it? And that's another
fun one, especially on my endworking with employers, some of
them hate them, some of themlove them. But we say is, if it
is required, then yes, do it,obviously, upload your resume
twice. Where do I start? If Ihave no experience is another
one. And that's always a fun oneto answer. Because then as
(30:36):
you're just chatting with, Hey,what are you involved with? Now?
Maybe you didn't have aninternship, but you're in a club
and you have a leadership role.
You might be in a sorority, orfraternity who's planning
fundraising events, and youdon't really know that that's
actual experience. So just waysfor them to think differently.
(30:57):
And most students who think theyhave no experience actually have
a lot, they're just not sure howto get it out. When employers
want to hire me, the answer isbasically everyone. Majors vary,
but employers, for the mostpart, need a little bit of
everything. Obviously, like someof our engineering, companies
(31:18):
want engineers but what studentsdon't think of is they also need
an accountant and somebody to dotheir marketing communications.
They may need somebody to whoknows HR just insert any job
they forget about the businessside. Another common question is
about salary. And how do I knowwhen they asked me what my
(31:41):
salary is. So we have tips andtricks to figure that out, kind
of based on cost of living andwhere you're going to be? No,
you're not going to get sixfigures and work remote from a
beach somewhere, not going tohappen fresh out of school, you
may work remote and make apretty decent salary depending
on where you go. But how tonavigate that. And in the fall,
we partner with our financialwellness team, and we do a
(32:04):
compensation one on one event,which is super fun. This will be
the fourth or fifth time we'redoing it. We have an alum who
comes and speaks he's acompensation analyst. So it's
what he does and what he knows.
And then we always follow thatup with a panel of employers,
summer alumni, some are not andwe usually curate questions, we
get to one or two, and then thestudents are just asking away.
(32:25):
And they take a lot out of that.
And it's a really fun thing forthem to learn. Oftentimes, we
joke and say that we can givethe same message but when an
employer and alum gives it theylisten. You might be guilty of
that you'll Yes, absolutely.
Yeah. And like those are thoseare just some of the common
(32:47):
ones. We get all differentquestions all the time. But
there definitely are those gotwos. Or they asked, like Jim
mentioned, what else do youoffer? Because they think that
we are just resumes and coverletters. But we are so much more
than that.
As we have learned today? Yes. Ithink those are all things that
are definitely on my mind as asecond semester senior but also
(33:10):
things that students should belearning about throughout their
college years.
Are you graduating this May?
Yes, I am. So as an alum, but Ifailed to mention earlier
another common one that we get,certainly get our alumni we
serve and help alumni up tothree years out, although
honestly, only we've turned awayany alumni in a while. I mean,
there's really the reason forthe up to three years out is
(33:33):
usually those students or thosealumni are still connected to
the college in some capacitythat either here in Charleston,
or they're working directly witha faculty member to apply to
grad school or something likethat. So that's just something I
think it's important to know isthat we do help our alumni.
Thank you both so much forcoming in to talk. Today. I
learned so much from both of youabout the career center. Are
(33:55):
there any last notes that eitherof you want to add in?
I would add that national datahas shown for several decades
that students who utilize theircollege career centers have a
much higher percentage ofsecuring an internship as well
as securing an interview for afull time job. And of course, in
(34:16):
order to get a full time job,you're most likely going to have
to have an interview. That wouldbe more incentive to utilize our
services at your convenience, aswell as thank you for your time
today.
Yes, thanks, Julia. And I'lljust, again shamelessly plug our
handshake it's there for you touse so it there's no harm in
(34:37):
doing it. Please get on there.
Fill out your profile. Lookaround. If you have questions
come to the career center andwe're happy to meet with you and
then we hope to see you at somepop up fairs or career fairs
again, you have nothing to losebut
you guys will both see me theresoon. Thank you Thank you for
(34:58):
listening to this episode ofSpeaking of College of
Charleston for more episodes andto read stories about our
guests, visit the College ofCharleston official news site,
the college today@today.cfc.edu.
You can also find this and pastepisodes on all major podcast
platforms. This episode wasproduced by Amy Stockwell from
(35:18):
university communications withrecording and sound engineering
by Jesse comes from the Divisionof Information Technology.
Thanks again and we'll see younext time.
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