As a Career Advisor, I often work with students who are dismayed by the resume writing process. They don’t have experience directly relevant to their field of interest, and it seems like they need experience to get that experience. Before I learned about career development and targeting resumes to specific opportunities, I thought this way too. How do I get a job if I need a job to get a job?

But there are tons of ways to gain experience in your field or to develop transferable skills that you would use in almost any field. It’s all a matter of how to frame your experience to show potential employers that you have the skills you need to do the work. You can do internships, seasonal temporary jobs, on-campus jobs, and join student organizations. You can do undergraduate research or start your own small company. The avenue I’d like to advocate for today, in light of the upcoming holiday celebrating the incredible inspiration of Martin Luther King, Jr., is to volunteer.

Martin Luther King, Jr. once said, “Life’s most persistent and urgent question is, ‘What are you doing for others?’” With this statement, he was calling on all of us to step forward and serve. If you get involved in community service, you will help others. You will forge lasting and rewarding relationships. And others will teach you incredible lessons about their lives and what needs to change in this world to make it better.

Think about the skills you already have that you could offer. Are you great at designing websites? Organizing people? Planning events? Fundraising? Working with children? Do you have particular expertise that a nonprofit or human services organization would find useful? Offer that expertise up to an organization and commit some of your time to their work. Or, on the other hand, do you want to learn more about a specific area within human services or what environmental nonprofits do? Offer your volunteer hours to an organization in that field and commit to doing whatever the organization needs. I would be willing to bet that you will probably get more out of the experience than you ever thought possible. It will surprise you how much you will learn, about yourself and what you are capable of accomplishing, as well as the field you volunteer in. And you will be helping others and the world in the process.

The added bonus is that you can easily record this information on your resume, highlighting any transferrable skills or knowledge that relates to the positions you apply for. These volunteer experiences show employers a lot about you. They show a lot about your character and the values you hold. They show a ton about your work ethic and ability to multitask, juggling school and volunteering responsibilities. They also can show, dependent on the organization you work with and the work you do, relevant skills for your field of interest. In addition, you will build a network of people who can be a support to you in your job search and may offer referrals or connect you to colleagues. Finally, your volunteer experiences will teach you amazing things about how to work and communicate effectively with others who may be different from you, which is a skill you need in any workplace. You can write about those people skills on your resume.

I hope you will take a moment this coming 3 day weekend to reflect on the ways in which you serve and could serve others, in honor of an amazing man who called on us all to do so. And I hope once you reflect on that, you decide to volunteer. A couple of events are coming up around campus that can help you make this happen. First, participate in the MLK Day of Service, sponsored by the Center for Civic Engagement. In addition, February 6^th, Career Services and the Center for Civic Engagement are teaming up to sponsor the Nonprofit and Volunteering Fair. Also, Career Services has a page dedicated to finding volunteer opportunities, as does the Center for Civic Engagement.

You can make a difference in the lives of others by offering your time and your skills, and you will learn and grow and develop in the process. Try it!

Posted by Jessica Baron, Graduate Assistant Career Advisor in Career Services

Beaver JobNet

Beaver JobNet is OSU Career Services’ online career management system and it is a great way for students and alums to get started in their job/internship search. Students/alums can connect with employers from a variety of organizations as well as from locations around the country and around the world. Employers are seeking applicants for positions including full-time, co-ops and internships, summer camps, national parks employment, and volunteer organizations such as the Peace Corps. You can access Beaver JobNet 24 hours a day, 7 days a week

Career Fairs

Career Fairs are a place to find jobs and internships. This event offers you the chance to network with employers and explore a position or organization that you had not previously considered. These employers travel to Oregon State University just to see you. Take advantage of this opportunity to get started on your career!

Resume and Cover Letters

Drop-in sessions are approximately 15-minute sessions that do not require an appointment.  At the drop-in sessions, career services staff are on-call to critique your resume, cover letter, curriculum vitae, or graduate school application.  We can also help you with any Beaver JobNet questions.

Drop-in hours are: Monday through Thursday from 1:00 to 4:00 PM in Career Services (basement of Kerr Administration Building)

No appointment is necessary, simply come in and sign up for the next available time and a career assistant will help you with any questions you may have.

Informational Interviews

One of the best sources for gathering information about what’s happening in an occupation or an industry is to talk to people working in the field. This process is called informational or research interviewing. An informational interview is an interview that you initiate – you ask the questions. The purpose is to obtain information and build your network! Find out more about how to go about doing an informational interview on our website or check out our blog post on informational interviewing.

How to Explore Majors and Careers

Explore what you can do with a certain major or degree. For example, what can you do with that history or English major?  Hint:  There’s more than just teaching! Check out the section on our website, “What Can I Do with This Degree” or learn more about yourself through SIGI3, a special tool that can help you to plan your career. Among the features offered on SIGI³ you will find tools to help you research occupations, choose, change, or clarify a major, and evaluate your interests, skills, values and personality.

Consider visiting OSU’s University Exploratory Studies Program, which provides outstanding advising and resources for students in the process of deciding on a major.  And consider taking ALS 114 (Career Decision-Making) for a structured and engaging career exploration experience.

Make an appointment with a Career Counselor to discuss your options.

These are just a few tips that can help you be successful in career development. If you need further help, call us at 541-737-4085 from Monday-Friday 8-5, we will gladly assist you with any career related needs.

Posted by Phi Vu, Career Services Assistant

The path may have many forks, bends, and waves, but the skies are clear!

Hi, OSU Career Beavers blog readers. It’s Finals Week of spring term 2012, and I’ve been writing to you all year about my changeable and wavy career path. I’ve taken many roads! Since graduating with my undergraduate degree, I’ve been an actor, a waiter, a receptionist, a creative writer, a college composition instructor, a gas station attendant, a high school drama coach, a substitute teacher, a real estate office manager, a writing workshop leader, a nonprofit program director, and now, while I’m in graduate school, I’m a career advisor! Imagine that, me with my wavy path, I get to help other folks figure out their paths, write their resumes and cover letters, prepare for their interviews, and search for jobs. One thing I’ve learned from helping students with these skills is that the better you’re able to articulate who you are and what your goals are, the easier it will be to explain those things to potential employers, through your resume, your cover letter, and in an interview situation. When I work with students that learn how to do this, they have the ability to land the jobs and opportunities they want.

If you’re still searching and your career path may be wavy like mine, you can still have goals and a strong sense of your identity. I needed to take the path I took in order to discover that advising at a college would be a great fit for my skills, my needs, my strengths, and my goals and priorities. But along the way, I was still able to tell others why the next experience, whatever it was, was the experience I needed to get me closer to my goal. Goals change, people change, but from where you sit right now, what is your goal? What is your dream job? If you could wave a magic wand, where would you work? Now, what do you need to do to get to that dream? If your dream changes in the process of getting there, that’s fine. The important thing is to have the dream and a plan.

In this swiftly changing economy, workers of the future will need to be adaptable. That is a given. So, why not look at change as opportunity, change as the ability to learn more, change as a way to explore another facet of who you can be in this life. I’ve always viewed change as positive and exciting. We only get one chance at this life thing; we might as well learn as much as we can!

Thanks for following my story this year. Good luck to you in your own path. May you be always learning more, about yourself and the world of work, so that you can create the place where the two meet and like each other a lot.

Jessica Baron is currently a Graduate Assistant in Career Services at OSU and a full time student in the College Student Services Administration Program.

Make Sure You Do Your Research to Find the Grad Program that Fits!

Week 9, can you believe it?? The Career Changer is back to tell the penultimate episode of her wavy career path, a career path that continues on in this moment, as I sit here at my desk in Career Services at OSU. But cutting right to it, when I left off last time, I was working as the Director for a nonprofit in Colorado. Yet no matter how much I enjoyed that work, I knew that I wanted to be in higher education, advising students, using some of the administrative, leadership, and team building skills that I was cultivating in my work as an office manager for a real estate agency and a nonprofit administrator, as well as my teaching and tutoring background. I realized, as I was applying for the jobs I really wanted at colleges and universities, that I might not have the degree that most applied to my field of interest. I was definitely competing against applicants who had a degree directly related to advising and educational administration.

I needed one of those degrees if I wanted one of those jobs. So, I began the search for my next graduate school. This time, my process of searching was much more intentional. I took note of the degrees that colleges and universities preferred their applicants to have. For instance, many of the job descriptions I looked at that sounded exciting to me would say, “Preferred Master’s in Higher Education, College Student Personnel, Educational Leadership, College Student Services, or Related”, so I was looking for one of these degrees. To search, I found professional organizations associated with higher education, several of which have databases that list graduate school programs in the field. I examined programs’ courses of study, their placement statistics, their requirements, and their mission statements and values. A priority for me in a school concerned location; I didn’t want to attend a school in a community in which I did not want to live. The opportunity for funding was a huge factor as well, as I did not want to graduate from a program with an enormous amount of debt in my mid-thirties, and I also wanted job experience to help me get my first position out of school. Graduate programs will often offer assistantships, for research, teaching, or administrative work, in exchange for a monthly stipend and a tuition remission. These assistantships are amazing opportunities for students to fund their own education.

In the end, I applied to just four institutions; four schools that I thought would give me the total package to graduate with the experience and knowledge to get the position of my dreams. When you are considering graduate school, it is important to do this level of research. Because graduate programs can last 2, 3, 5, or even 7 years of your life, you want to ensure that you will learn and grow in the ways that you intended and also in ways that may be surprising. Ask yourself what your goals are and how each program will help you achieve those goals. Also, talk to current students and faculty. Do you fit with the program and the campus culture? In my case, it was clear to me after my interviews that I wanted to be at OSU. This worked out well, since here I am, blogging to you all!

Have a great end of the term, and I’ll be back finals week with some closing thoughts about what it means to forge your own wavy path through your vocational life. There isn’t a right way, just a right way for you!

Jessica Baron is currently a Graduate Assistant in Career Services at OSU and a full time student in the College Student Services Administration Program. Before making her way to Oregon State, Jessica worked as an actor, waiter, online tutor, receptionist, college composition instructor, creative writer, gas station attendant, nonprofit program director, writing workshop leader, high school drama coach, Hallmark card straightener, substitute teacher, real estate office manager, and SAT tutor, not necessarily in that order. Her “Confessions of a Career Changer” will focus on her wavy career path and the challenges and joys of wanting to do everything.

In the small town of Creede, the arts are very important. So important, in fact, that in addition to the Creede Repertory Theatre, there is a local nonprofit arts organization that sponsors gallery shows, arts education, art in public spaces, and other arts related events. The Creede Arts Council’s director was leaving after many years of building a set of programs that added value to the community, events that people had come to expect and count on to sustain them year after year. The Council needed a new Director.

With my background in writing and theatre and because I had completed an internship in nonprofit development while in graduate school, I was chosen to direct this organization of very dedicated volunteers as they worked hard to provide arts programming for their community. This opportunity may not have happened in a big city, but the available candidate pool was small, so I got lucky! Because it was part time, I continued working in the real estate office while taking on grant writing, volunteer organizing, event planning, and marketing.

Some of these tasks were brand new to me. Some of these tasks were new facets of skills I was already comfortable with. All of these tasks were a challenge, so I learned as I went, asked the board and the previous director lots of questions, and tried things out to see if they would work. I learned so many useful skills in this job that there isn’t the space to list them all. Looking back on it, I’m so glad I took a chance in applying, and they took a chance by hiring me!

The most valuable skills I cultivated regarded working on a team while leading that team. A volunteer board hired me to manage them but also to serve their needs. I needed to balance my leadership style with the goals and purpose of my position, supporting everyone’s ideas and acting as a facilitator for conversations to decide the direction of the organization. So, many of the skills I cultivated in that job are skills I use today and skills I will continue to use in the future. However, I still knew I wanted to work in higher education. In Week 9, I will tell you about my next steps in achieving that goal. Have a great week!

Jessica Baron is currently a Graduate Assistant in Career Services at OSU and a full time student in the College Student Services Administration Program. Before making her way to Oregon State, Jessica worked as an actor, waiter, online tutor, receptionist, college composition instructor, creative writer, gas station attendant, nonprofit program director, writing workshop leader, high school drama coach, Hallmark card straightener, substitute teacher, real estate office manager, and SAT tutor, not necessarily in that order. Her “Confessions of a Career Changer” will focus on her wavy career path and the challenges and joys of wanting to do everything.

Working in real estate helped me to improve skills and abilities in different areas!

Welcome to week five!!! The Career Fair last week was a huge success, and we’re inching closer and closer to the end of this academic year.  As we do, I’m inching closer to the end of my story of a Career Changer. Or maybe not the end, but I’m definitely inching closer to my present moment, where my career path is right now; though it’s always a living and breathing thing that can morph and change.

Last time we talked, I had just graduated from my MFA program and realized that I didn’t want to teach; I wanted to advise. Because of this switch late in the game, I decided to take the summer “off” from thinking about the future by working as an actor at the Creede Repertory Theatre again. It was great fun to perform again, be with friends, and regroup.

As the fall and the end of the season neared, my time was taken up by wedding planning for a September date. After the wedding (A great party, you should’ve been there!), I started to ask around town for possible winter jobs. If I could find something, we could just hang tight, work in Creede for the year, and I would job search for my advising dream job from there. In a small town like Creede, it didn’t take long. A couple of people approached me about work they needed done. I got my substitute teacher’s license so that I could work at the school. I was asked to work part time as the high school drama club coach for a small stipend. Then, rumor had it that one of the local real estate offices was looking for an office manager.

Now, I’d worked in offices before, but not in a long time and never for real estate. But my skills in writing were unusual, as was my facility with different software programs. I brought a resume into Broken Arrow Ranch and Land Company and spoke with Anne, the owner and main broker. The following Monday, I started at an hourly wage.

One thing I want to stress was that I was able to sell my skills to Anne, letting her know that I would be comfortable with taking on marketing, writing up advertising, filing, phones, etc., and also that I would be comfortable learning everything I didn’t know about her business. She trusted that my previous experience as an instructor would translate to managing her office well. And although it took me some time to learn the procedures of real estate, I jumped in to learning about a brand new field with both feet. As you move into a new industry, it is important to acknowledge what you don’t know and what you need to know in order to do the job well. I spent much of my first week studying the file folders on the computer network, learning how to use Microsoft Publisher, and asking a lot of questions. Soon, I started offering small suggestions for streamlining some of her processes and improving her advertising. I was in a totally new field, and it was really fun!

So, all this is to say, be flexible, be open, be a learner, and you never know what doors will open. Although my job at Broken Arrow Ranch and Land Company was not in the industry I hoped to be in, I was learning skills and honing abilities that would help me get that dream job someday.

Have a great midterm season, and I’ll be back Week Seven with the next chapter in my Career Changer life!

Jessica Baron is currently a Graduate Assistant in Career Services at OSU and a full time student in the College Student Services Administration Program. Before making her way to Oregon State, Jessica worked as an actor, waiter, online tutor, receptionist, college composition instructor, creative writer, gas station attendant, nonprofit program director, writing workshop leader, high school drama coach, Hallmark card straightener, substitute teacher, real estate office manager, and SAT tutor, not necessarily in that order. Her “Confessions of a Career Changer” will focus on her wavy career path and the challenges and joys of wanting to do everything.

Me Near the Colorado Sand Dunes After Graduating

Welcome back, everyone! Can you believe that we are already in the third week of spring term? Hope your courses are going really well, and you’re enjoying warmer, sunnier weather every day.

So, I’m the Career Changer, Jessica, and I’ve been writing all year about my wavy career path to illustrate that the straight path isn’t always the right path to a rewarding life’s work. The last time I wrote, I told you about how I was teaching composition and creative writing in an MFA program, enjoying my students, and learning about myself every day. Although stressful and busy, these three years were an amazing period of my life!

As I was finishing my thesis, (a 120 page book of poetry!) I began to realize that the moments I most enjoyed with my students were one-on-one. As part of my writing course curriculum, I had several conferences set up over the course of the term with my students, and I loved when they would come into my office and tell me what was going on in their writing AND in their academic lives. It was exciting to hear about the diverse paths, interests, and goals of my students, almost like getting to experience all these things myself by learning about their strategies to find their way in the world. I began to provide my students with feedback and resources so that they could make more informed choices, and it was really fun!

When I graduated from the program, I knew that what I really wanted to do was advising of some sort. At first, this was disappointing because I had spent the past three years preparing for a career in writing instruction. But I valued the experience, and I felt that a lot of to skills I learned in those three years applied directly to advising. But since this was a shift in my plan, I needed some time to regroup. I decided to go back to the Creede Repertory Theatre to work as an actor for the summer again; I’d figure out what was next after that.

What was next was a wedding and a winter in a very cold house and a couple of new jobs that taught me a ton along the way. I’ll fill you in on these next time.

Jessica Baron is currently a Graduate Assistant in Career Services at OSU and a full time student in the College Student Services Administration Program. Before making her way to Oregon State, Jessica worked as an actor, waiter, online tutor, receptionist, college composition instructor, creative writer, gas station attendant, nonprofit program director, writing workshop leader, high school drama coach, Hallmark card straightener, substitute teacher, real estate office manager, and SAT tutor, not necessarily in that order. Her “Confessions of a Career Changer” focuses on her wavy career path and the challenges and joys of wanting to do everything.

Of course, sometimes conflict is inevitable. Stuff happens. But there are ways to minimize the likelihood of conflicts. If workers take responsibility to act professionally, conflicts are much less likely.

So, what does it mean to be a professional? How do you act like a professional if you’ve never had a professional experience? Or how do you determine what it means to be a professional in a new career field or industry? Here are 8 tips to consider as you move into the workforce, whether you are soon graduating and looking for full-time work, taking on a part-time or full-time job while you finish school, or starting an internship. Professionalism is central in order to make a positive impression on your co-workers and supervisors. Then, those people will become a helpful part of your network as your progress in your career.

Professional Tip 1: Be enthusiastic and passionate about the work.

No one wants to work with someone who doesn’t care about what they do. One way to show respect for your co-workers is through the interest and excitement you bring to the work that goes on in the industry.

Professional Tip 2: Keep learning and wanting to learn from others and on your own.

You will be seen as a professional if you exhibit the qualities of a lifelong learner, if you keeping developing yourself, and if you truly want to learn from all those around you. A little initiative goes a long way toward professionalism.

Professional Tip 3: Be humble.

Although you needed to exhibit your confidence to get the job and maintain that confidence to become a vital and engaged part of the team, stay in touch with your humility. Understand everyone starts somewhere, and we all have a long way to go.

Professional Tip 4: Be an agent for change.

Fresh ideas and creative solutions to problems are welcome in the professional world. Don’t complain when something isn’t working, offer a potential way to fix it. Your co-workers will thank you!

Professional Tip 5: Help others.

Does the office fridge need cleaning? Does the printer cartridge need to be changed? Then do it! Small acts of kindness show a sense of responsibility for the workplace as a shared venture. Everyone wants to feel like all members are pulling their weight.

Professional Tip 6: Be flexible.

Change happens; it’s inevitable. So roll with it! Your co-workers and supervisors will appreciate your adaptability to new conditions.

Professional Tip 7: Show up on time and work really hard!

People will be impressed with your professionalism if you take your work seriously, focus only on work related activities in the workplace (no personal distractions), and arrive early and stay late. This doesn’t mean become a workaholic; it’s important to maintain balance with your work and your home life, but devote the time needed to do your job really well. If that means coming in a half hour early to prepare for a meeting or working one evening to get a project done on a deadline, do it.

Professional Tip 8: Be honest.

Finally, when you are having any kind of workplace difficulty with a co-worker or a supervisor, the most professional way to deal with the situation is to respectfully tell them. If you need to, go through the proper channels – talking to a mentor or supervisor when you’re unsure how to handle the situation. Professional people are honest and transparent while being respectful.

As you move into professional positions and work to grow as a professional, these tips will help you avoid workplace conflict and, when conflict arises, handle it constructively. Although these tips sound simple, they are difficult to do every day, and workers who are consistently professional stand out. If we all want a little more peace in the working world this month, it would be a good idea to remind ourselves how to be a professional.

Instead of spending the week with the usual spring break activities, three teams of 12 to 20 OSU students are going to spend their spring breaks serving others in several Pacific Northwest communities. The participants on the first trip go to Yakima, Washington to learn about the city and the local Native American Reservation, Yakama Nation, and help nonprofit organizations there serve residents. The participants in the second alternative spring break experience this year are headed to San Francisco to work with the local homeless population. Finally, the students on third trip are staying close to home to restore vital ecosystems near Newport, Oregon. The trips cost $120 to $350 for a week of lodging and most meals as well as all programming and transportation, pretty minimal.

Why would someone devote their spring break to learning about Native American culture in Washington, helping the homeless in California, or cleaning up the beaches in Oregon, you may ask? Well, for one thing, Alternative Spring Break is a great way to engage in a meaningful service experience while having fun and traveling. It’s a way to make a difference. Participants will challenge themselves and form lasting friendships. And as a bonus beyond the inherent value of the experience, Alternative Spring Break is a way to gain leadership experience that can go straight on to a resume in a compressed amount of time. In a week, with some preparation before and debrief time after, students will gain knowledge, insight, and leadership skills that an employer would be excited to hear about in an interview.

So, next year, ask your advisor about going on an Alternative Spring Break trip or apply directly through the Center for Civic Engagement, http://oregonstate.edu/cce/alternativebreaks. You’ll get more out of the experience than you ever thought possible.

It's me on a good teaching day!

Can you believe it is week ten? This term has flown by for me; I wonder if it has for you too. Terms didn’t fly by like this in my previous graduate degree. We were on semesters! Sixteen weeks to delve deep into subject matter or get tired of subject matter that no longer interested you. In my last Career Changer post, I started my graduate program at Colorado State University in Creative Writing. My first year, I spent tutoring in a writing center, but I really wanted to get a teaching assistantship, so that I could teach and try out my chosen career path. So, I worked really hard my first year and applied for my second year. And I got one! A graduate teaching assistantship meant that I would teach one or two sections of college composition (similar to OSU’s Writing 121 Course) each term, and I would receive a tuition remission and a monthly stipend.

At the beginning of my second year, I went through an intense training course for two weeks to prepare for my first class. We were given a syllabus, readings, and lesson plans to follow. We gave practice lessons to each other and wrote personal teaching philosophies. This experience, I decided, was going to be great fun. And it was fun. Looking back on my first semester teaching college composition, I truly enjoyed the interaction I got to have with my students, learning their stories, and working with them on their writing. Each day I was teaching, I geared up to seem confident and act like I knew what I was talking about. That is the crazy thing: a lot of the information I was teaching to my students was information I was learning along with them. Not to say that I wasn’t a good writer, I was. But I hadn’t learned the rhetorical strategies, the structures, the genres, the ways to learn how to write. I just knew writing was something I was good at, but I didn’t always know the best way to teach it to others.

This fact became especially difficult in dealing with one particular student in my first semester. I had one older than average student in my class. He was in his mid-50s, and for most of his life, he ran a successful photography shop. He could see the direction that the industry was moving, however, with more digital and online media, so he retired and closed the store. Now, he wanted to begin again in a new career. But sometimes it was difficult for him to take direction from a teacher more than 30 years younger than he, and sometimes it was difficult for me to have the confidence to teach someone with so much more life experience than me. It was also tricky for him to have patience with some of the traditionally aged students in the class, who sometimes came to class late or fell asleep in the back row or didn’t turn their work in on time or didn’t come prepared for a peer review day. I learned a lot from this student, and this learning is why I most enjoy teaching and working with college students. I end up learning more than I end up teaching, about myself and about other people.

Happy Week 10, Everyone! I’ll be back in the spring term with more episodes about my wavy career path. Have a great finals week and spring break!

Jessica Baron is currently a Graduate Assistant in Career Services at OSU and a full time student in the College Student Services Administration Program. Before making her way to Oregon State, Jessica worked as an actor, waiter, online tutor, receptionist, college composition instructor, creative writer, gas station attendant, nonprofit program director, writing workshop leader, high school drama coach, Hallmark card straightener, substitute teacher, real estate office manager, and SAT tutor, not necessarily in that order. Her “Confessions of a Career Changer” will focus on her wavy career path and the challenges and joys of wanting to do everything.