Getting The Most Out Of Your Campus Career Center

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It's time for our annual tips for college and graduate students who will enter the workforce for the first time in 2022. That's right – this is for the Class of 2022.

Finding a job is a job. It is not prudent to wait until after your fun graduation trip across Europe to report for your first day. If you want to ease your transition from scholarship to work, you may consider thinking of the first-day-of-your-last-year of school as Day One of your job search, and your first stop should be your school's career center. 

To get the most out of your college or university's career center, you should treat it like any other relationship. The more you put in, the more you get out. A long-term relationship (i.e., Day One) is more advantageous than a short-term one (i.e., one week before graduation).

Here are seven great ways to leverage your university's career center's services:

1.    Start early. As mentioned, try and develop a long-term relationship with your career center. Over time, you will develop a more personal, in-depth relationship with career center staff than a student who pops in – maybe once – during their senior year. It's human nature to want to help those with whom you are the most familiar. If staff know more than your name and face, like your major, post-graduation goals, professional preferences, and personality, the aid you receive may be better and more forthright.

2.    Learn which career center serves you. Schools structure academics and student services in different ways, including the career center. For example, your small college may have the same career center for undergraduate and graduate students. Still, a large university may have a career center for each school in its umbrella - law, medical, engineering, computer science, business, etc. Save yourself some time and effort, and make sure you know where to go.

3.    Understand that career centers are not job placement agencies. They’ll help you along the job hunt journey, but the actual work is up to you. Do your homework by learning what resources your career center has, how it helps its students, and what resources you can effectively leverage. If offered, take advantage of resume services, introductions to recruiters and alumni, and events.

4.    Check out their calendar. Your career center should have a monthly calendar announcing events like workshops, resume writing classes, and career assessments. January through March is the height of campus recruitment "season," so space for some events may be limited, and registrations may have hard deadlines. Respect the career center's timelines, deadlines, registration dates, and policies. Make life easy for the career center staff, and they will reciprocate.

5.    Put your resume on file. If your career center offers a portal on which to your resume or will keep in "on file," do it. Private businesses contact colleges and universities and request resumes of upcoming graduates. Yours should be among them. Follow your career center's rules for resume format. A uniform, standardized resume format allows the career center to put every student on equal footing and post digital copies online.

6.    Play ball! Be nice. Career center staff are professionals. Treat them with respect, and you will earn it back. Students with a sense of entitlement or approach the center with a poor attitude may not end up with the full benefits they could otherwise.

7.    Don't rely on the career center. The career center is just one resource. Hunt for jobs on your own, scan the job boards, network directly and through LinkedIn, and send your resume to anyone who could potentially be a good contact.

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Philip Roufail contributed to this article.

Scott Singer is the President and Founder of Insider Career Strategies Resume Writing & Career Coaching, a firm dedicated to guiding job seekers and companies through the job search and hiring process. Insider Career Strategies provides resume writing, LinkedIn profile development, career coaching services, and outplacement services. You can email Scott Singer at scott.singer@insidercs.com, or via the website, www.insidercs.com.

Navigating Pre-Employment Assessments

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You may have noticed employers using pre-employment skills or personality assessments during the job application process. Why do employers use assessments, what role do they play, and how should you approach them?

Assessments from the Perspective of the Employer

At its most basic, a pre-employment assessment is used to gauge and predict a candidate’s personality, skills, and inclinations and help determine fit for the job or the company.

While Human Resources professionals would love to carefully go through each resume and meet each candidate in person, that is not a realistic expectation. In today’s market, a single job posting receives hundreds or thousands of applicants, and so many employers use technological tools to cut through the piles of applications. For better or worse, assessments often play an important role in the process.

Here are some reasons employers have stepped up their use of assessments to cut through the stacks of candidates:

• Assessments save time for everybody. During the hiring process, everyone involved on the employer side of the equation wants to save time and money by streamlining the process by determining fit. The candidate whose assessments determine they have the essential skills and traits will catapult to the top of the pile, letting recruiters focus on those individuals first.

• Assessments help the recruiter and hiring manager decide if a candidate is a good fit earlier in the process. Every company has its own way of determining “fit,” whether its personality traits or work history. A targeted assessment can help identify individuals who meet their unique culture.

• Assessments show how you deal with pressure. Most assessments are timed. Do not underestimate the power of that little clock counting down to zero while you try and remember an arcane formula in Excel. Job pressures are going to be more significant and more complex; for example, if you can't answer a question in an assessment within two minutes, maybe you can't meet the specific demands of the position.

• Assessments test your attention to detail. The clock is ticking, but if you don't take the time to read and understand the question, you may answer a whole series of questions wrong (just as a random example not based on personal experience). Read all instructions with care.

Assessments have drawbacks, too:

• Assessments are no substitute for human interaction. After the past year, this should already be on your mind. People are social animals who feed off each other's energy, professional settings included. No matter how many data points you can scrape together about a person, they're still just data points. 

•  People are not necessarily what their survey says. Assessments do not provide a complete picture of a person and may miss the value, skills, experience, background, or subtleties a potential candidate may bring to a position. For example, an assessment may determine that someone has introverted tendencies, but they might still be able to do well in a job for an extrovert – such as sales – by mastering interpersonal skills. People are complex, and you can’t predict with full accuracy what type of assessment results will translate well to a specific role.

• The survey's application is only as good as the end-users training. After you click the "Submit" button, then what happens? Somebody on the other end receives your results. Depending on the type of assessment, or other unknown factors, there is no guarantee that the person received the proper training to understand and apply the assessment's results.

As a candidate, how do you deal with these assessments?

Let's answer the obvious question – yes, if asked, you must complete any assessment the employer requires as part of the application process. Assessments are not optional (if you want the job), and there are a lot of them – Enneagram, Attention to Detail, Working with Data, Time Management, Verbal Reasoning, Excel, JavaScript, Technical SEO, Microsoft Word, HTML5, and many others.

Here are some tips for approaching your Assessments:

• When taking assessments, budget the time and place for them. These things aren't easy. You should be free from distractions and interruptions.

• Be honest in how you answer the questions.

• Even if you draw a blank, don't leave a blank. It would be best if you answered every question. 

• You will never figure out the psychology behind the questions of a behavioral or personality type of assessment. Do not try to out-think the questions. Be the same person on paper as you are in person.

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Philip Roufail contributed to this article.

Scott Singer is the President and Founder of Insider Career Strategies Resume Writing & Career Coaching, a firm dedicated to guiding job seekers and companies through the job search and hiring process. Insider Career Strategies provides resume writing, LinkedIn profile development, career coaching services, and outplacement services. You can email Scott Singer at scott.singer@insidercs.com, or via the website, www.insidercs.com.

The "I Just Got A Job" Checklist

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Congratulations! You did it! You've accepted a job offer, your work clothes are at the dry cleaners, and you've circled your first workday on the calendar of your new life. It's time to celebrate – and tie up loose ends.

Do I add my new position to my resume? 

Unless you’re unhappy with your new job, you probably do not need to add your new position to your resume at the moment. Your resume serves you best when it focuses on your accomplishments and includes quantifiable metrics. Since you just started, it’s unlikely you have accomplished anything yet. With that in mind, don't forget to keep track of those accomplishments and metrics as they happen because at some point, you will add your current (current!) position to your resume, and if you have a bag of metrics to reach into and make it rain accomplishments, you will be happy you took the time to document your achievements.

What should I do about all the job boards (e.g., Indeed, Monster, Glassdoor, ZipRecruiter, etc.) where I have my resume posted?

It’s probably a good time to take down your old resume and make it not visible to employers. There is no reason to spend time deleting all these accounts, but make sure to change the visibility settings. You don’t want your current employer to risk seeing your resume still posted online and questioning if you’re already planning to jump ship. And you’ll probably want to go into your settings and deactivate the notifications and alerts about job opportunities.

What should I do about my LinkedIn profile?

LinkedIn is more than a job board, and your LinkedIn profile is more than a marketing brochure. Your profile should be much more in-depth than your resume. LinkedIn is a unique ecosystem with its own recommended changes to consider once you've started a new job.

• If you've activated any of LinkedIn's "Open to Work" features, time to shut them off. That way, your new employer doesn't think you're looking for a new job, and neither will recruiters and hiring managers on the hunt.

• Revise and/or remove any language you may have added to your profile about searching for a new job or anything that makes it seem like you're actively seeking employment.

• Add your new position to your LinkedIn profile. Since you don't have any accomplishments yet, you're okay with a one-liner about the new company and a general description of your position.

• LinkedIn Premium (the paid subscription) is a great tool when you're looking for a job, but it also has other benefits for the happily employed, such as training as well as search capabilities and InMail messages that may be helpful for those in sales and business development. If you find Premium to be an unnecessary expense, this is a good time as any to cancel.

What should I do about other jobs for which I interviewed or am in the process of interviewing?

Contact the appropriate people and close the loop on any other positions for which you are a candidate. That is the professional way to handle it, and it is what you are expected to do. Email is acceptable, but if you're at the final stage of an interview process, it is better to get on the phone with those involved.

Am I forgetting anything?

Send out your thank you notes! A formal “Thank You” is appropriate for anyone who referred you, or aided you in any way during your job search, whether or not it's the job you accepted. Expressing proper gratitude is a polite and civilized way of handling your professional relationships and investing in your future.

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Philip Roufail contributed to this article.

Scott Singer is the President and Founder of Insider Career Strategies Resume Writing & Career Coaching, a firm dedicated to guiding job seekers and companies through the job search and hiring process. Insider Career Strategies provides resume writing, LinkedIn profile development, career coaching services, and outplacement services. You can email Scott Singer at scott.singer@insidercs.com, or via the website, www.insidercs.com.