Applying for jobs and internships can be hard, but it doesn’t have to be! Especially as a Duck, the University of Oregon is here to provide you with all the resources you need to be successful both during college and after college. Today we got to talk with University Career Center’s Holly Tate and ask her about the secrets to career success.
To start this off Holly, Where and how do I even get started with getting jobs and internships?
Before you start looking anywhere, it's important to think about some of your goals & non-negotiables—Are you wanting to build up a specific skill set? Get job experience in a particular industry? Are you open to moving to a different city? What expenses do I need it to cover or am I willing to lose money instead of making money? Are there specific companies of interest or are you open to new places?
It can actually be very overwhelming to just say "I'll do anything!" Having some focus will help you narrow down and focus on a handful of things you'd be really excited about. When I hear a student say they applied for 100 jobs/internships, it's a red flag to me—I know it's a tough market, but if you had taken that energy towards 20 and really prepared with a Career Readiness Coach, you'd probably have a better outcome.
Once you have a better idea of what you're looking for, Handshake is a great place to do a targeted search OR if you are interested in a specific company, go to their career page on their website. Some top internships hire farther out than you might anticipate so if you don't see something posted, see if you can find last year's application deadline and know it'll be due around that same time for next year. Lots of companies post about their internships on their LinkedIn company pages, so following them there might give you an inside scoop!
There are also campus career readiness events like the Career & Internship Expo every term that has 100s of recruiters looking for early talent—bring your resume and build up your networking skills. It's never too early to start building relationships with recruiters and learning more about how to stand out as a future candidate.
Looking for more advice, or a list of UO-sponsored internships? check out https://career.uoregon.edu/internships
What should I include in my resume and cover letter that will set me apart from other candidates?
Resumes should be able to be scanned in 2 minutes or less, so make sure to lead with what's most important to the role you're pursuing. Take the time to tailor your resume and cover letter to the specific job you're applying for. Look for key words in the job description and make sure those are reflected in your documents. Even if you haven't done all the things on the job description, talk about how you're excited to learn in your cover letter. It's also important to make sure your resume is well organized and easy to read left to right—be cautious of fancy, overly stylized templates on Canva—keep it simple and easy to read from left to right—it's the content that's more important. For examples, check out https://career.uoregon.edu/jobs-and-internships/resumes-and-cover-letters
Need someone to look over your documents before you press send? The UO Career Center has drop-in reviews every day—we'll make sure you're putting your best foot forward!
What are employers looking for and how can I build those skills?
Communication, Critical Thinking, Leadership, Teamwork, Technology, Teamwork, Professionalism, Equity & Inclusion, and Career & Self Development. These are all career readiness skills that can be developed while you are in college that are necessary for you to be able to be adaptable to any industry. You have a lot of these skills already BUT you're not talking about it well on your resume or in interviews! Check out https://career.uoregon.edu/career-coaching/way-you-say-it for examples of how to upgrade your resume bullet points and LinkedIn learning courses you can take to build up these skills.
When it comes to interviews, how can I come prepared and what kind of questions should I ask?
Interviewing is stressful BUT you can prepare for it. In addition to being prepared for questions, you have to be able to present yourself in a way that demonstrates confidence, good listening and communication skills, eye contact, personal hygiene, and appropriate dress.
To predict questions I might be asked, I like to feed the job description into Chat-GPT and ask it to create 10 behavioral interview questions based on it and that's what I use to prepare. I write out some of my main talking points and the key takeaways I want them to learn about me and put them on a sticky note to put on my screen (if zoom interview) or in my notebook (if in person) so I can refer to it to make sure I'm representing myself well. It's good to have succinct stories that demonstrate your skill sets—Learn more about the S.T.A.R. Method at https://career.uoregon.edu/career-coaching/interviewing. Additionally, UO students have FREE access to Big Interview which is a virtual practice interviewing platform that has thousands of interview questions to try out and get feedback.
As for what kinds of questions to ask, I tend to ask about company culture and my fit with them OR if I feel like I haven't gotten to share something about myself that I think is really important to the role, how can I reverse engineer a question so I can tell them more about what's important to me as well. This is my chance to see if they're a good fit for me! I tend to learn a lot about a company during this part of the interview. If you don't ask questions, the interviewer definitely takes note of that!
- What's your favorite thing about working for X?" Helps me see what kinda culture is it...do people like their coworkers? Do they all seem to hate their job? Maybe I don't want to work there after all!
- "What kind of training/professional development/mentorship do you provide for employees?" Do they care about me as a growing professional? Or are they going to just throw me into the fire. Am I going to want to work here for a long time or are they going to burn me out?
- "If I were to start tomorrow, what projects/tasks would be my priorities for the first month?" Do they talk about onboarding, shadowing, building relationships with other employees? Or do they talk about a big problem they have that they want me to fix ASAP. If it's a problem, is that even a problem I want to fix?
What should I do after my interview to maximize my chance of getting a response back?
Write a thank you note! Ok, email! Thank them for their time, pick out one or two specific things that you really enjoyed about the experience, and express your continued interest. If it was a committee, you can just send it to your main contact and ask them to share. If you happened to write down everyone's name, even better! If you don't have an email address, try adding them on LinkedIn and writing a note there.
What does UCC have to offer regarding career search?
All kinds of things! Our website is FULL of free advice and links to resources and technology for UO students on the job search. We also have 1:1 career coaching for students up to one year after graduation, to help you with tailored support. Stop by Tykeson Hall-Garden Level anytime for a drop-in coaching session to help you with job search strategies, resumes, cover letters, Linkedin, and more!
https://career.uoregon.edu/jobs-and-internships
https://career.uoregon.edu/career-coaching
https://career.uoregon.edu/resources
How can I get in touch with you regarding further questions?
Feel free to email me, we can have a chat or I can connect you with a colleague who is an expert at your questions 🙂