 The Career Planning brochure provides students and graduates with information about how their career choices directly impact their ability to make payments on their student loans.
Earning a degree, certificate or taking courses after high school will not only build your knowledge, but also gives you stronger skills for your career. Working towards and completing an education is the biggest step in the path of achieving the career and salary you have always dreamed of. With a career and steady salary, you can budget for consistent, timely, loan payments and avoid defaulting on your student loan.
The information in this section is designed to give you tips and ideas for your career. This section guides you on how to choose the right career path as you navigate through your financial future.
Before you start your career search, it's best to organize everything you will need into a career portfolio. A portfolio is traditionally thought of as an organized set of examples, which might include written documents, visual elements, recommendations or work assessments that demonstrate your character, skills, and abilities to a prospective employer.
Here are some idea's to get started on your career portfolio:
- Career Plan which includes your career goals
- Work Experience (including dates, supervisors, contact information, salaries, job duties, and job descriptions for the positions you held)
- Previous job reviews
- School History
- Records of Community Involvement
- Professional Contacts and References
- Job Applications
- Resumes'
- Cover Letters
- Salary History
- Papers, Reports, Websites, Publications (Or any other graphic or written documents you created for jobs, school or other organizations that demonstrate your abilities)
- Letters of Recommendation
The purpose of a resume is straightforward: To tell your prospective employer about yourself. As a prospective employee, your resume' should identify your individual strengths and how those strengths will contribute to the organization or the company.
In your resume the elements to be included are:
- Career or work objective
- Work Experience - during college, summers, internships, student teaching, or related on-campus work experience
- Educational Experience - colleges attended, dates, degree earned or credit hours completed if a degree was not earned.
- Summary of accomplishments from your work and education experiences
- Personal Contact Information (include both your school address, permanent address and e-mail if you have one)
- Other relevant experience such as volunteering, leadership roles, and student government.
The three most traditionally accepted resume' formats are:
Click Here to view: Chronological Resume' Style
Click Here to view: Functional Resume' Style
Click Here to view: Imaginative or Creative Resume' style
Finding the right job for you!
- Know yourself and identify your interests, skills, values, and work preferences. Keep work-life balance in perspective.
- Perfect all your related job search materials; including your resume', cover letter, and interviewing skills. Use some of the websites below for helpful tips on interviewing.
- Identify sources for job openings. Use your internal "career services center" for online access to job openings that are published at your college.
- Use professional association websites to find open positions.
- Set weekly goals for yourself in the job search process. Such as "create a list of contacts", sending out both targeted and cold letters with your resume' to specific companies you have an interest in working for.
- Attend job fairs in your community and those sponsored by your Career Services Center.
- Review trade magazines or websites for job openings
- Take time for yourself! The job search process is time consuming and can be frustrating. Keep perspective and recognize for every 10,000 dollars your want in a salary it takes one month to find the right job. If you want to make 50,000 a year in salary, it will take 5 months to find the right position!
Additional Resources:
Click Here to view: "Assess Your Job Search Knowledge"
Click Here to view: Career Goal and Personal Skills Worksheet
Click Here to view: Cover Letter specific to an open position
Websites:
http://www.careeronestop.org - Makes it easy to post resumes, get employment information, explore careers, find local assistance, and access a help line for referrals. Think of it as your coach for writing a resume, negotiating your salary, and more.
http://www.careerbuilder.com - On this site you will find posted job openings with many government and private corporations. They allow posting of your resume, on-line school and campus searches, parents section that helps parents prepare for college, books to read and resume writing tips.
http://www.collegerecruiter.com/ - Post your resume, locate schools, on-line schools, campus schools, this site has a complete career center for your use.
http://www.collegegrad.com/ - This site has on-line job career site, interviewing preparation, how to handle job offers, on-line calculators, and job postings.
http://www.occupationaloutlookhandbook.com/ - Complete career and occupational outlook for the careers of the future, dept. of labor statistics about career growth and gives you other career development information.
http://www.10minuteresume.com/ - This site offers a resume builder and publisher that gives you the tools to create, print, e-mail, and fax your resume in multiple formats.
http://www.salary.com/ - This is an on-line salary wizard to give you a projected salary by job title, zip code , and state. There is also salary negotiation tips, job search 101, and salary basics.
|