Introducing the 2016-2017 Career Fellows

Now in its second year, the Career Fellows program is once again bringing "by-students, for-students" service to the Tufts community! Career Fellows are professionally-trained students who have been hired by the Career Center to increase awareness of and participation in the programs and services offered by the Career Center. Fellows can meet one-on-one with students by appointment or during daily drop-in hours to discuss finding internships, resume/cover letter writing, and navigating Career Center resources. Career Fellows are an entry-point for Tufts students into the Career Center, and can provide guidance from a peer's perspective - they've been in your shoes before, meaning they can combine their personal experiences as a Tufts student with their professional training to provide unique and high-quality advice on your career journey! Here's a look at the Career Fellows team this year:

Drop-ins schedule:

Tufts Career Center, Dowling 740
Monday/Tuesday/Thursday/Friday: 12-2pm
Wednesday: 5-7pm

Name: Jorge Antón García

Class Year: 2017

Major: Computer Engineering

What’s the most exciting thing about being a Career Fellow?

Being able to talk to students about the awesome things they have been part of and have accomplished. I love digging into their experiences and listening to their amazing stories about what makes them passionate. In doing this, I begin to get to know them and they can also appreciate what they have achieved.

If you could give any advice to a Tufts Student, what would it be?

Have a good mix of classes within your major and some outside of it. Try out new things by joining clubs and realizing what work you like and do not like. This experience is very valuable personally when looking for jobs as you can get a clearer idea of what type of jobs you may be interested in. At the same time, within clubs you gain valuable work experience.

Name: Sean Boyden

Class Year: 2017

Major: Biopsychology, Community Health

What’s the most exciting thing about being a Career Fellow?

I love being able to spread awareness about the Career Center and its wealth of resources and services throughout the Tufts community.

If you could give any advice to a Tufts Student, what would it be?

You’ve only got four years here, and it goes by too fast. Take advantage of every opportunity, savor every moment, and make sure you leave here with no regrets.

Name: Sabrina Chishti

Class Year: 2017

Major: Biology and Political Science

What’s the most exciting thing about being a Career Fellow?

I’m really excited to meet and talk with so many different people!

If you could give any advice to a Tufts Student, what would it be?

Take advantage of everything that Tufts has to offer. From cool clubs, to interesting classes, to fun events—there is always something new and different happening on campus, and participating in them leads to a better Tufts experience.

Name: Anna Linton

Class Year: Senior, Class of 2017

Major: English, Psychology, Judaic Studies

What’s the most exciting thing about being a Career Fellow?

I am thrilled to have the chance to play even a small part in my peers’ professional journeys. Venturing outside the world of Tufts into the world of the professional can seem daunting, and totally overwhelming; but, as students set goals, make important career decisions, and take risks, I feel so lucky to have the resources and opportunity to help provide them with an approachable support system that can help break down intimidating goals into practical, manageable, steps.

If you could give any advice to a Tufts Student, what would it be?

It is so important that students know that we are here for them! No matter where someone is on his or her career journey, from prepping for a second round interview, to taking a first stab at putting together a resume, students should never hesitate to ask for help. Both at the Career Center and beyond, there is no pressure in asking for help, no expectations, and it is so critical to remember that no matter where you are, there are people who are willing and able to help out. There’s really nothing to lose!

Name: Shivani Shendye

Class Year: Senior

Major: International Relations and Economics

What’s the most exciting thing about being a Career Fellow?

I love that being a Career Fellow allows me to meet students that I may have never met before, and to offer them advice that helps demystify the internship or job search process. I truly believe in the importance of fostering student-to-student relationships especially in the realm of career planning because we have much that we can learn from each other.

If you could give any advice to a Tufts Student, what would it be?

My advice to a Tufts student would be to be a sponge. Not in the literal sense of course, but make it your goal to absorb as much as you can during your four years here. Take a class that you are curious about even if it has nothing to do with your major. Make it your goal to get to know all of your professors. Join as many student organizations as you can handle. Your experience here will truly shape what you decide to do after you graduate.

Be sure to like us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter (@TuftsCareer), and check our e-News and Calendar to stay up-to-date on what the Fellows are up to this semester!

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5 Things I Learned from Seeing 5 Resumes in One Day

Not my picture, but it was too pretty not to include.

Grab your shapeless cardigans, people, because fall is finally here! At the Career Center, the arrival of sweater weather and picturesque foliage is always accompanied by the arrival of students looking for resume critiques. Last week, I worked a few of our office's pre-Career Fair resume critique days, which are basically extended drop-in hours for students to get a quick 10-minute meeting with a Career Advisor or Career Fellow. I always love the energy of these days; usually a line forms before the critiques formally start, and the whole staff is on overdrive to make sure we see every student who comes in for a critique. In just over an hour, I saw five different students with five different resumes. While these resumes varied in content, format, and style, I found myself repeating similar phrases or themes to all five students. It seems like no matter what career someone is preparing for, there are some pieces of advice that everyone could benefit from hearing. Below are a few of my most popular tips for any resume:

1. Consistency is key. This might just be due to who I am as a person, but I often find that the first thing I address in a resume critique is format. Is everything properly aligned to the margins? Do all bullets begin with action verbs? Is every position structured in the same way? Students often answer questions like these with another question: what's the right way to format a resume? While there are certainly guidelines, a resume can be personalized to your preferences; so long as everything stays consistent, it will look great.

2. Keep a master copy of your resume that you tailor to each position. It may seem like the best strategy is to include every job, leadership position, or internship you've ever had on a resume. For most high-achieving Tufts students (particularly the upperclassmen out there), you may find that you'll quickly run out of room on your page. Rather than curtailing your explanations for each position, consider listing only the most relevant experiences, and expanding on them in more detail. With a resume, it's quality over quantity. (This also means you might be sending out different resumes to different applications - and that's a good thing!)

What you (hopefully) do not want to look like after writing your resume.

3. Be mindful of white space. This goes hand in hand with customizing your resume to keep it on one page. White space is something that we typically don't think about in our resumes, but it can go a long way in terms of readability and aesthetics. Simply put, you want enough white space to prevent the "wall-of-text" look, but not so much that your resume looks more like your essay due in two weeks (translation: nothing written, if you're anything like me). Keep at least half-inch margins, and be sure to have at least one blank line between sections and positions. Play around with your formatting a little bit to find what you think looks good.

4. Put a number on it. A quick addition to any resume is numbers - wherever you can. If you tutored a study group, how many people were in the group? How long was each meeting? How frequently did you meet? Quantification is one of the best ways to paint a vivid picture of roles and responsibilities that you've handled, and this will allow employers to get a more complete idea of what you're capable of.

5. Proofread, proofread, proofread. The last thing you want is for your beautiful, aesthetically-pleasing, well-written resume to be thrown out over a misplaced comma or misspelled word. Before you hit print, give it one last read-through for nothing but proper spelling and grammar. Or, even better, have someone else read it too - I hear there are a lot of cool, resume-hungry people in the back of Dowling...


At the end of the day, your resume is always a work in progress, and you should continuously and frequently update it. With a few subtle changes, though, you can maximize its potential to get you in the door for that interview.


Until next time,
Sean Boyden
Class of 2017

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America's Next Top Resume: Man vs. Machine

I've been applying to several internships and of course they always ask for my resume. But then I got to thinking, how many resumes are they receiving and how many are they actually looking at? Usually for popular internship programs you submit your resume within an internet database, which somehow sorts out the good candidates from the bad candidates. Have you ever wondered how these recruiters find your resume out the thousands they receive everyday? How can you stand out among thousands of other candidates? Is it just luck? This post will explain how you can make your resume stand out in online resume drops and in person. Whether you want to demonstrate your creative side, or just learn simple steps to make your resume more likely to get in the actual hands of a recruiter, this post is for you!

Source
"Make sure your resume has the best chance of getting you an interview!"

Internet Resume Drops

A majority of companies today are using online databases as the primary way for candidates to apply for positions. What I find a little scary about this is that anyone can search for the job and apply and therefore have the same chances of their resume getting picked by a recruiter. Out of the millions of people around the world who can submit a resume for these jobs, how does the database work to get the best candidates to recruiters simply based off a text resume. I call this the "Machine to Human Bridge." 

Before your resume hopefully reaches human hands, a machine carefully scans it for keywords, education, skills, and experience that correlate with a certain algorithm set up by the company. What's unfortunate about this is that if you have a resume that is impressive but doesn't correlate at all with the job description, your resume will be cast aside immediately, and probably never looked at again. :(

According to this post, The Killer Resume: How to Get Hired by the Machines written by Cindy Perrman, there are several steps you can take to make sure this doesn't happen to you. Here is a list of some suggestions for making sure your digital resume reaches human eyes:

• List your professional skills
• Match the job requirements with your resume- Look at 10 job listings related to the same field and write down commonly used words that the resume machines might be looking for
• Use TagCrowd to see what words recruiters will associate your name with
• Use strictly Arial/Times New Roman- these are machines, don't confuse them with stylish fonts, or artistic bullets!

Saving Multiple Resumes

Make sure that you look over your resume to shape it to fit each internship/job you are applying for. This is vital, especially if you don't have a contact within the company who is looking out for application. I have a number of resumes saved on my computer by date. Often when submitting resumes to a database they ask for you to have it in a certain format, so make sure you're organized and label them correctly so you don't send the wrong resume to a company. 

Templates

So here is the fun stuff! While I want you to ensure you have the right vocabulary, this doesn't mean you can't have a visually appealing resume. Making your resume pop to recruiters can show your creativity and fun side rather than having a boring text resume for will only appeal to the machines. So let's get crafty! Here is a Buzzfeed article with links to resume templates that will give your resume the makeover it needs. I've yet to submit a resume with a design like this, but hey, you never know if one of these templates will give you a slight edge over other candidates, especially important if you are looking into creative fields such as media, architecture, graphic design, or other art-based industries.

Do's and Don'ts

Alright don't get too crazy! Here are some suggestions to keep in mind when giving your resume that makeover it so desperately needs. Remember as the great Tyra once said, "Once you plant the tree of success your tree will bear FIERCE fruit."So be FIERCE y'all!

Source

• Dos
• Use a template for reference. Check out the Career Center for examples for specific industries!
• Leave some white space: Highlight job titles and locations with BOLD or Italics. Make sure you practice the same pattern throughout the entire document.
• Get creative, while staying professional
• If submitting online save your resume as a PDF, this ensures the formatting remains the same regardless of what program the recruiter's database uses
• Use action words! Current jobs/activities should be present tense and previous roles should be in the past tense
• Use numbers to measure your performance! This helps employers understand exactly how effective your performance was
• Don'ts
• Have typos. This goes without saying! Make sure someone proofreads your resume, whether it's a roommate or a parent. Check out the Tufts Career Center calendar for resume critiques and drop in hours
• Don't be too bland, set yourself apart from other applicants
• Don't emphasize skills you have that you aren't interested in using
• Don't fluff! Be succinct in your word selection, and make sure it is exactly what you did at that job
• Don't use personal pronouns

Alright guys, that's about all I can cover to make sure that you have America's Next Top Resume. Remember that it's not all about the looks, but also your ability to communicate your personal brand that will set you apart from other applicants. Good luck out there! 

Carpe Diem,

Nicole Brooks

Class of 2016

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Creating a Map: The Sophomore Career Seminar

Last Friday, the Career Center held its annual Sophomore Career Seminar, a 3-part lecture series that targets, as you might have guessed by the title, sophomore students. As I mentioned in my introductory post, sophomore year is a critical time for Tufts students – between choosing a major, keeping up with classes, trying to avoid the infamous sophomore slump, and attempting to relax once in a while, it can be hard to pay attention to career development. But, one of the main themes throughout the seminar was that it is never too early to start the planning process. Through workshops in self-assessment, resumes and cover letters, and internships and networking, the Sophomore Career Seminar helped the dozens of sophomores that actually got up on a Friday morning for a reason other than class (wait, what?) to put this whole “career” thing into perspective. Here’s a quick run-down of the day:

Self-Assessment

The first hour of the seminar, led by Nicole Anderson, was dedicated to self-assessment and its applications to choosing a major and exploring possible careers. Most of the sophomores in the room raised their hands when Nicole asked if anyone had declared yet, but a good portion of us (yes, I include myself) still had yet to do so. Nicole showed us the many resources that the Career Center offers for students who are unsure of their major or career path. These resources, many of which are based in psychology, analyze your personality traits and provide lists of careers in which people similar to you have reported job satisfaction. (Check out Nicole [Brooks]’s recent post for more details on self-assessment!) The most important piece of advice that Nicole gave, I thought, was the importance of reflection and discussion after receiving the results of these assessments. Whether it’s a career counselor, friend, parent, or alum, talking to people can give you a lot of information. It’s also important to process the results and give them ample consideration. In many cases, these tests will reaffirm things you already knew about yourself, but some results may surprise you. After completing a section of Focus 2, a Career Center self-assessment tool, some of the results I received included clinical psychologist, aerospace engineer, and attorney. Although I’ve never really considered any of these careers, I’m going to think about what connects them, and how they match my personality. I might discover an entirely new career that’s perfect for me!

Resumes and Cover Letters

The next section focused on resume building and cover letters. Led by Chris DiFronzo, a well-hydrated career counselor with experience as a hiring manager, I found this portion of the seminar to be the most informative, mainly because I never knew how much thought can really go into a resume. Chris elaborated on resume/CV do’s and don’t’s that I never would have even considered, but have dramatic effects on the fate of your application. These do's and don't's included:

·         -Think results, not responsibilities. Chris encouraged quantification of job descriptions. It’s great that you answered phones at your job as an assistant in the Career Center, but how does an employer know if you answered the phone 4 times a day or 40 times an hour? It’s much more descriptive and impressive to say “handled 400 customer inquiries”.

·         -Ask yourself, “So what?” after each bullet you write. It’s important to keep relevant information on your resume that highlights your skills and leaves a lasting impression on the reader. Cut out unnecessary information to make room for more tantalizing details!

·        - Don’t be too generic. This is a major piece of feedback the Career Center receives from employers when it comes to writing cover letters. Giving specific examples that prove your abilities instead of simply listing your characteristics will go a long way. Keep this in mind the next time you’re struggling with the scary idea of a cover letter.

Chris gave the example of "went to Antarctica to save the penguins" as clearly demonstrating
your determination and devotion to purpose, which is much more effective that simply saying that
you're "determined and devoted".

Internships and Networking

The last part of the seminar was all about internships and networking, possibly two of the scariest words ever for young college students. Networking? Talking to adults? Being a functional human being? Who would ever want to do any of that when Netflix exists? But, as Jim McCarthy, the director of this workshop, explained, the more effort you put into an internship search, the higher payoff you’ll get. You’ll find far more meaningful results if you try to network with alumni, family friends, or other professionals than if you simply Google the word “internship”. If you’re utterly lost and confused, the Career Center website is, as always, a great place to start. Resources like Jumbo Jobs, LACN, and the Tufts Alumni Network are invaluable resources in finding internship listings and networking with alumni. Another important point in the presentation was staying organized – don’t let application deadlines sneak up on you, and don’t let opportunities pass you by. Most of all, don’t lose track of where you’ve applied and accept an internship, only to have an even better offer come along.

They'll be there for youuu.... (If you don't know by now, I'm a
huge Friends fan.)

Although this is the “1000 words or less” version of the day, the Sophomore Career Seminar was, as you can see, a hugely informative experience. If nothing else, it definitely got me thinking about my plans for next semester, the summer, and my life after I leave the hill. If you’re a current freshman, be sure to check out the seminar next year. Or, if you’re an upperclassman and you already missed the seminar, don’t fret – the Career Center is ALWAYS there for you!

Until next time,

Sean Boyden

Class of 2017

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The Compass: Writing Your Resume

When we're not trying to claw each other's faces off, we
occasionally pose for nice pictures. I'm the significantly
better-looking one on the right.

Last week, I went home for the long holiday weekend.  It was a wonderful vacation from campus, filled with reunions with old friends and plenty of those classic fall-in-New-England activities, and I also got to see my twin brother. Our relationship isn’t exactly the best; I like to think of it as your typical dysfunctional sibling rivalry with an unspoken but mutually agreed-upon ignorance of the other’s existence. During one of the two forced conversations we had all weekend, he mentioned that he had missed the application deadline for an internship he really wanted because he had no idea how to write a resume. The combination of my shock at this notion (perhaps intensified because of my employment at the Career Center) and my not-so-subconscious desire to prove myself more knowledgeable than him caused me to offer him a few quick tips about writing a resume. A quick poll of my friends back at Tufts made me realize, however, that a decent amount of college students struggle with this. So, this post will cover the basics of resume-writing, and is dedicated to my brother Ryan.

The resume is the main weapon in a job-seeker’s arsenal—it’s what gets you in the door for an interview. When done well, your resume can be a succinct, organized self-advertisement that highlights your key skills and experiences. It’s an intimidating concept to many young adults: summarizing your accomplishments on a single sheet of paper is daunting, to say the least. However, the following tips can help your resume stand out among others and ensure that you are presented to employers in a clear and professional manner.

Quick tips for writing a resume:

Format matters. Most employers will only devote 6 seconds (!!!) to scanning your resume, which means readability and visual appeal are key. It’s important to use an easy-to-read font and include headings to separate the different sections of the resume. These sections should include contact information, education, experience, and skills (this is not an exhaustive list—other sections can be present). Also, for most undergraduates, it’s best to stick to one page. Put the most recent (which are usually the most relevant) jobs and leadership roles first, and continue in reverse chronological order. You can check out some sample formats from the Career Center here.

Highlight your skills. Even if you don’t think you have significant skills, it’s important to demonstrate to your employers that you’ve done more with your life than watch all ten seasons of Friends six times over (my personal record as of summer 2014—I’m still going too). If you’re a first- or second-year college student, it’s okay to include activities you participated in during high school, especially if they illustrate the transferable skills that all employers seek. Talk with a Career Counselor if you need help articulating these skills—they’re happy to help!

Use action verbs. When discussing your roles and responsibilities in prior jobs, internships, and extracurricular activities, use action verbs in your descriptions and avoid complete sentences. This way, the employer can formulate an image of you performing these duties in a professional setting. It makes a much more lasting impression to say “managed budget of Pre-Medical Society for the 2013-2014 academic year” than “I served as the treasurer for the 2013-2014 academic year, which entailed managing the club’s budget and attending TCU Senate meetings”. See a list of action verbs here if you’re struggling with the proper word choice.

Make it special. Not all jobs are created equal. For the most part, your resume will have the same basic format for every job you apply for, but it might be helpful to tailor your resume to each different position. Read the job description first, and understand what the employer is looking for. Then, try to show that you meet these qualifications through your experiences and skills. If a job calls for strong leadership abilities, you might want to include any positions on club executive boards or in Greek organizations you’ve held; at the same time, it might not be as important to mention that you’re a four-year Math Olympiad. This is a great thing to put on your resume, but it takes a back seat to other experiences that more closely resemble the job description. Take this into account before you email the same resume to 10 different job openings!

Yikes.

SPELL CHECK. You’ve put in real effort and time into crafting your beautiful resume. The last thing you want to do is have your good impression ruined by something as simple and avoidable as a spelling or grammatical error. Have your roommate, friend, parent, or a career advisor give it a read so that as many eyes approve of your resume as possible. They’ll catch things you might not have noticed, and could really save you in the long run!

As always, here comes my weekly plug for the Career Center. Their website has a plethora of resources for students on how to write resumes, including a few educational videos and format samples. It may seem scary at first, but writing a resume doesn’t have to be as painful as it’s made out to be.

Until next time,
Sean Boyden
Class of 2017

P.S. Ryan, this counts as your Christmas present for this year.

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Midterm Season: 5 Simple Career Steps

My brain is fried. Is yours?

It's midterm season ladies and gents! That means it's time to retreat with the masses to Tisch, or if you're feeling extra classy, to fancy Ginn Library. It is finally time to catch up on those readings you were supposed to complete weeks ago, attempt to start and finish group projects, or memorize 50 formulas (when only 2 will be on the test). We've all been there.  Seems like yesterday it was just the first day of classes - when teachers were more interested in learning everyone's names and favorite colors rather than frying your brain with papers and exams. Time flies when you're having fun. 

In order to regain sanity in this current world of chaos I've decided to write a simple post listing some baby steps in your career search. The goal is simplicity. It's as simple as 2+2=4, but even that's not always so simple I hear. Well this list will be simpler, I promise!

1. LinkedIn Mobile App

I already spoke about the wonders of LinkedIn, the world's largest professional networking platform, in a past post. However, one of the ways to ensure that you are constantly aware of your LinkedIn presence and opportunities is by downloading the LinkedIn app! Getting notifications of potential connections, companies you are interested in, and networking with recruiters keeps you on top of improving your profile. We don't all have time to sit down and revamp our LinkedIn profile, but taking small, effortless steps each day will help to keep your page up-to-date and make you more aware of who's doing what on LinkedIn and in the real world.


2. Social Media Presence

As I stressed in a previous post, social media presence is extremely important, so, make sure your profiles are blemish free. If you're interested in using your media platforms to indicate your interests to employers, then you should demonstrate this through a retweet, a re-posting of someone else's tweet, and your following list, who you follow. Whether on Instagram, Facebook, or LinkedIn, liking and following companies you're interested in, or and applying to, is a small detail which demonstrates your commitment to the company. Also, following Influencers on LinkedIn such as Arianna Huffington and Bill Gates shows the people who look to for ideas and inspiration. Having companies' posts and influencers' opinions in your daily news feed will provide tips and advice as well as timely content for cover letters, informational interviews and actual interviews.

3. JumboJobs, LACN & engIN

Jumbo Jobs, LACN and engIN are three of the best resources available to Tufts students in the job and internship search. With a database of thousands of opportunities, Jumbo Jobs can actually be set to notify you (it's called a "job agent") about openings that match your search criteria. This makes it super easy to keep up with new listings. LACN (Liberal Arts Career Network) allows employers to broadcast to students at 35 top liberal arts colleges across the country, while engIN is 9 engineering schools sharing jobs and internships. This is particularly helpful, as the employers only want students from member schools to be able to see the job and internship opportunities, which means they're not being advertised to the rest of the world!

4. Update your resume

"Call the Career Center for an appointment!"
Source

OK, this may seem like a BIG step. Honestly, updating your resume does seem tedious, but with little effort, you can have a resume makeover in 15-30 minutes! Call the Career Center to set up an appointment with our amazing advisors, and they will look over your resume and cover letters. It's important to get as many perspectives on your resume as possible so it's polished and ready to send to employers and alumni. Career advisors are available during 15 minute drop-in appointments and 30 minute scheduled appointments (Robin Kahan, career advisor for engineers) meets with students in Anderson, Halligan and Sci-Tech!) to make it easy for students to get their resumes critiqued. "So call me, beep me, if you wanna reach me."


5. Follow Tufts Career Center!

"It's so easy a dog can do it!"
Source

It's as easy as a click! Seriously! What do you have to lose? Getting career advice and notifications of upcoming events on your Facebook and Twitter time lines is extremely helpful. Create reminders on your social media networks to alert you of upcoming events from the Tufts Career Center calendar. A simple step in career development is knowing about the various opportunities and resources for Tufts students. The Career Center is a great resource and is always ready to help, just like in this elephant family video. Help us help you!

Alright guys, hang in there! Midterm season is almost behind us, and Halloween and Thanksgiving are coming up. Talk about great incentives!  Soon enough, the midterm season fog will clear, and hope will appear on the horizon - full of fall sweater-weather days. But always remember, winter is coming.

Carpe Diem,

Nicole Brooks
Class of 2016

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"Why do people buy Cheerios?", Part 1 of Prof. Jack Derby's advice on the job search

This past spring, I attended a workshop led by Jack Derby, a marketing professor in the Entrepreneurial Leadership Studies Department at Tufts. Jack has his own management consulting company and sits on the board of the investor network Common Angels. At Tufts, he teaches Entrepreneurial Marketing. Students in the class requested a lecture focused specifically on the job search.  In part 1 of this post, I thought I'd highlight Jack's advice for preparing your job search tools.  In part 2 of this post, I'll highlight his suggestions for the interview process.

PREPARING YOUR TOOLS

Targeting the best you

Look at your strengths and weaknesses, and work from there. One trick is to find someone on LinkedIn who has the job that you want, and look at their qualifications and strengths and how they present themselves - then aim for that as you build yourself. In the short term, you need to prepare for interviewers to ask about your weaknesses - have a response ready to counteract their concerns. To evaluate yourself, try using a SWOT analysis - a template frequently used in business to break down Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. You can find more on how to do a personal SWOT analysis from Forbes and Monster.com.

Resume

Your resume...is actually only “moderately important,” according to Jack. What’s more important is your CVP or Customer Value Proposition.  If you want more on resumes check out the Career Center’s links on resumes or schedule an appointment this summer to have someone look over your resume. (Yes, the Career Center is open 9am-5pm during the summer!)

CVP (Customer Value Proposition) trumps resume, aka, “Why Cheerios is the best-selling cereal” 

This is the part of Jack’s presentation that really stood out to me, and I think it’s an idea that I will keep in mind for the rest of my life. He took out a little box of Cheerios, and told us that Cheerios are the best selling cereal in the world - with twice the sales of any other cereal. He asked us why, and people said because they’re healthy, they’re good for your heart. And that is the Cheerios value proposition: that’s what they say they’ll do for you.

The nutrition facts on the side of the box? That’s your resume. It’s dry and boring, and it’s not important in the purchasing process. People don’t buy this product because it has 3 grams of fiber and the ingredients list has whole grain oats and trisodium phosphate. Yeah, 3 grams of fiber, so what? People buy Cheerios because Cheerios are pitched as being healthy and good for your heart. What does this tell us? Well, it’s not really about your specifications. It’s about the value you will deliver.

I think this mentality is the most important thing I’ve learned from Jack. Look at your resume (or any answer to an application/interview question) and ask yourself, “So what?” Okay, I did this internship and I completed these tasks. So what? I have experience in A and B area. So what? I can help your company improve in this area because I bring X and Y to the table. That's what you need to get to. What is your value? I don’t care about ingredients - what can you do for me?

LinkedIn

Employers really do search for you on LinkedIn - an interviewer has asked me about things mentioned on my profile. It’s a chance to flesh out your experience without the limits of a one-page resume. For example, my LI profile has links to blog posts I’ve written. Here is Jack’s list of LinkedIn best practices (because a badly done LinkedIn profile may be worse than none at all):

• Complete profile (i.e. fill things out)
• Professional-looking headshot 
• At least 150 connections 
• At least 5 recommendations (written positive reviews - not to be confused with endorsements, which are just a +1 for a particular skill) 

Email signature

Here’s what you should have in the automatic signature at the bottom of your email:

• Name 
• School & graduation year 
• Cell phone number 
• LinkedIn 
• Twitter 

This makes it easy for the recipient to remember you and to reply later. And perhaps most importantly, your LinkedIn allows them to effortlessly find more info on you.

References

Keep in contact with past employers so they remember you and retain a positive impression. Ask them to write you recommendations on LinkedIn and then potential employers who might not bother to spend time actually calling people will still get positive reviews of you.

Personal blog or website

Many people might claim to be really passionate and experienced with x topic, but with a blog, you’re putting your money where your mouth is. It’s an extra step that makes you stand out from your peers (more on that in our previous blog post on How To Get A Job With Fluffy Liberal Arts Skills)

Next time, I'll highlight Jack's thoughts on the interview process.

Reach out to Jack! 

I know this sounds cheesy, but Jack really is dedicated to helping students succeed in their careers. He stays in touch with his students, and one day in class he mentioned that he’d woken up early for a 4am phone call with a former student in Singapore (12 hour time difference). He has a very extensive network and frequently recommends students to his contacts. He's been giving me frequent advice on a tricky situation I've been dealing with, and connected me to his friend who had done a talk for our class. I met with him for an informational interview, and he's now going to forward my resume to some of his contacts. But don’t expect Jack to hand you a job on a silver platter. Do your homework and show him you’re worth it.

His email is on the last slide of the presentation (I don't want to write his email out because of spam bots), or you can find him on LinkedIn.

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Make the Most of your Spring Break

It’s just about spring break--finally. We’ve survived below-freezing temperatures, clobbering workloads, and near-death midterm weeks. Now here’s the chance bask in some glorious time off from grinding academia and the stresses of being the first-class students we are. But between sleep catch-ups and non-stop fiestas, it never hurts to allot some time off toward your career-finding agenda--whether it means solidifying summer plans or tackling the fateful job hunt. Here’s some ways to mesh your relaxing spring break with some helpful steps forward. They’re not too brain-jarring…I promise!

1.Update your resume: As we all know, internship and job application opportunities pop up “anytime anywhere.” So dedicate brief spans of time toward plumping up your resume and tweaking content, organization, and presentation. You never know when the next spontaneous job opening or resume request might be.

2. Discover a favorite job and/or internship site: While curled up in bed engaged in the art of the Facebook stalk, why not turn your mouse toward some career searching? This time off is a great chance to both scour the resources you know and locate fresh sites that haven’t crossed your screen. But before plunging into the realms of Google, try your bets with the office’s handcrafted career resources, especially catered to Tufts students. Accessible through the Career Services homepage, Tufts Career Connect is helpful because it connects you with field-specific opportunities and employers connected to the Tufts name. A common Tufts alma-mater gives some employers an added incentive to hear you out, explore your interests, and take you under their professional wing.

Next to the catchy Tufts Career Connect logo await other resources. Both the Liberal Arts Career NetWORK (LACN) and engIN (for engineering students) list positions (primarily internships) shared among groups of schools.

While you’re at it, try perusing some field-specific career sites; while not particular to Tufts, they offer tons of opportunities targeted to different career fields. When it comes to general search sites, job aggregators like SimplyHired.com that draw from multiple places are worth a visit.

3. Check out our Career Resources on WebCenter-- a useful compilation of all Tufts’ career search and networking resources designed to focus our chaotic search lens. Simply sign into WebCenter, select Career Services Web Resources from the drop-down menu, and ta-dah! You’re face-to-face with a splattering of career tools. The site includes an employer search database called CareerSearch, Spotlight on Careers, a liberal arts career research tool, and the Vault Online Library, featuring downloadable guides on various career arenas--just to name a few. Connecting you to job openings, internship listings, and employers in mere clicks, the Career Services Resources menu on WebCenter is a fantastic place to catalyze the search process.

* Especially for SENIORS: Along with the above online resources, try your bets at job sites like www.onedayonejob.com, which lists a slew of entry-level jobs, and Current Jobs for Graduates, one of the subscription resources in WebCenter. Checking sites like these regularly will alert you to what’s out there job-wise and help direct you on your post-grad path.

* Especially for JUNIORS AND SENIORS: Reach out to Employers. Now that class agendas are cleared, take the time to exchange smart dialogue with that admirable someone in your profession-to-be. It might be someone from around town, a friend-recommended contact, or even someone you hit it off with at our recent Internship Fair. We all love word-spitting about ourselves, so chances are you’ll be eagerly invited into the office or some sleek coffee shop nestled nearby. Networking, as it's professionally known, doesn’t have to be so formal or dryly official. Consider these phone calls or meet-ups not so much a way to robotically push out the resume, but to garner applicable advice, timely suggestions, and insight into what the job entails.
* FRESHMEN AND SOPHOMORES: Though you may not be thinking about your post-grad plans quite yet, you can still use the above tips and think about chatting with family friends and others who have interesting jobs while you're home for break.

5. Schedule an Appointment with a Career Services Staff Member: Whether to plump the resume, prep the interview, or jump-start the search process, schedule an appointment with someone who can expertly guide you at all stages of the career-hunt. Simply call our front desk at 617 627 3299 to snatch a half-hour slot.

Practice planning in advance - you may not think you need an appointment right now, but odds are you'll think of questions in the days or week leading up to the appointment!

For last-minute questions, Career Services offers a M/W/F drop-in hour from 12-1pm as well as daily 20-minute Quick Question appointments (booked by calling day-of in the morning). In any case, a friendly catch-up chat is a perfect way to move this process along. And, added bonus: staff (most-often) come equipped with candy.

6. Become our Fan on Facebook!: Not just because we’re techy and totally fan-worthy, but for the range of extra career tools and tidbits designed for student eyes. Brimming with internship listings, cool links, and upcoming career events, the page is a forum for our amassing resources we want to pass, or in Facebook lingo, post along.

The above advice applies to all ambitious undergrads pining their way through the career search. Of course, the specific steps and advice you may choose vary across the board-- depending (among other things) on your class year, self-set goals, and specific stage in the job hunt. But we thought we might as well lay it all out on the table--leave it up to you to see what best complements your personal career motives and snazzy spring break agendas. Most importantly of all, though, relax! Between depleting my kitchen of snack food and deafening my parents' ears with my favorite HBO shows, I certainly will be. So make some dents in the career search, but first and foremost, take advantage of this much-needed break from it all. We all deserve it.

Have a great spring break!

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7 Resume Pitfalls

Does your resume suffer from any of the following maladies? If so, not to fear! First, review the Career Services resume packet and follow-up for a resume review with an advisor.

1. Too long
Undergraduates and most new graduates should restrict their resumes to one page. If you have trouble condensing, get help from a career counselor.

2. Typographical, grammatical, or spelling errors
For a reader who has never met you, these errors suggest carelessness, or worse, lack of intelligence. Have at least two people proofread your resume. Don't rely on spell check to catch errors.

3. Hard to read
Use a plain, easy-to-read font and at least a 10 pt font size. Underlining, boldface type and italics should be used sparingly.

4. Too sparse
Give more than the bare essentials, especially when describing work experience, skills, accomplishments, and activities that employers will find relevant.

5. Too verbose
While scarcity of information can be a problem, so can too much detail. Readers aren't looking for 4-line bullets! Think about how you want to describe your experiences. What information will be most important to your reader? How can you convey this information in a succinct way - eliminating extra "fluff?"

6. Irrelevant information
Customize your resume to each position you seek (when possible). You'll always include education and work experience, but you may emphasize different experiences, skills, accomplishments and activities for a different reader.

7. Boring
Make your resume dynamic. Begin every bulleted statement with an action verb, not "Responsible for..." Describe both tasks and notable achievements, and quantify your accomplishments when appropriate. For example, "Raised $1500 for..." "Created a 30-page report..." "Organized an event for 200 people..."

Interested in seeing a sample of how we can turn a lackluster resume into a compelling document? Check out this Extreme Makeover: Resume Edition.

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My Experience with the Internship Search, Part I

Oh…the days when finalizing summer plans was as easy as sprawling green sleep-away camps and elaborate beach get-aways. As we near the pinnacle of our academic paths, many ambitious students choose to fill their time-offs with fancy summer internships, valuable opportunities to experience a professional job-site first-hand. Summer internships encourage students to transfer their classroom skills to a professional, real-world environment, one that might mirror their landing, post-college destination. They’re the students’ chance to start tying together their career aspirations, even before they put on that cap and gown.

As parents and career counselors would strongly agree, the value of the summer internship can’t be underestimated. Perhaps this is why, between cramming for tomorrow’s test, student are in a frenzy about finding this golden internship, that blessed chance to bolster the resume and shed light on a future career. Of course, I continue to be among you. That fear of being swamped in rejection letters and “maybe next summer’s” is constantly boiling in my brain, always firmly etched among my other list of stubborn career-related stressors. But, what I’m here to remind you (and what I’ve realized myself) is that landing a summer internship is far from the tearful impossible. It’s stressful, sure, but if you invest sufficient energy into the process, completely and entirely do-able.

Take my experience of locating a summer internship. It all catalyzed last spring around mid-March, after a series of impossible-to-repress versions of “Uh oh, I should start finding an internship, shouldn’t I?” And there were my parents, never hesitant to inform me of yet another college kid with an opportunity up his sleeve. Frantic and without a clue where to start, I did what I considered most reasonable: I phoned Career Services and sought out a career counselor, in hindsight the best decision I could have made. After leaving counselor Donna’s office for the first time, my reaction was this: why on earth hadn’t I done this before? Meeting with Donna alerted me to the ins and outs of this seemingly impenetrable process, one that I had instinctively shied away from. I learned that landing an internship doesn’t happen overnight, or by crossing your fingers for an out-of-the-blue call. It takes being forthright, dedicated, and always-on-your-game--even in the face of obstacle and rejection.

To start, Donna spoke to me in length about my interests and fortes---and how I hope to transfer them to a concrete professional field. That part was easy; I ticked off my academic and personal loves: reading (loads of genres), writing (journalistically, creatively), and interacting with people. I told her of my budding aspirations to write--ideally for a hip, glossy-covered magazine--and use the written word to absorb what’s around me. I also clued her in to my burgeoning interest in publishing, of bringing an author’s personal words to the public light. With my basic fields of interest set-in-stone, Dona sent me home with a host of internship sites: medibistro.com, journalismjobs.com, bookjobs.com, and more. She told me to peruse each site and come back with a list of opportunities that most pique these very interests.

I returned to Donna with a long typed list of professional opportunities that seemed professionally relevant, personally stimulating, and convenient in terms of time frame. A bulk of my red circles came from bookjobs.com, a media site that offers numerous internship opps at top-name publishing companies and literary agencies. Donna and I discussed that I should try my best at some big-name publishing brands, like Kaplan Publishing and Scholastic Inc, along with some smaller agencies, including a small, NY-based agency, Don Congdon Associates.

Then, of course, came the hardest part: prepping my applications. After re-constructing my out-of-date resume and handcrafting a base cover letter, I ran back to Donna’s office for some much-needed criticism. Immediately, my once-white documents transformed into a sea of red scribbles, Xs, and cross-outs. It was exactly what I needed. After a week or so of scouring perfect cover letter openings, (and yelling at Word for misaligning my resume margins), I got Donna’s final seal of approval. Slowly but surely, I started individualizing my cover letters, finalizing my email messages, and pressing the daunting send button.

Stay tuned for Part II of Cara's experience with internship searching...coming soon!

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