A Student’s Guide to Professional Development
The key is to fight your instincts. They’re telling you to pretend that searching for a job, writing your resume, interviewing, and entering the workforce is a long way off— But the truth is that these things are all just around the corner. So it’s time to jump out ahead of them, ready to face the challenges ahead.
There are tons of tools and resources at your disposal at Hopkins, designed specifically to make the whole job search process less intimidating. Perhaps the most obvious place to begin is the Career Center, where you’ll find trained professionals whose entire goal is to help you find the job of your dreams. In a one-on-one setting, you’ll find someone willing to listen to you and to help you explore your options as you ramble on about your passions, fears and goals.
To make an appointment with one of these job-finding gurus, just log onto Handshake, the Career Center’s new online portal. You can sign up for a career counseling appointment for that step-by-step guidance you need. If you don’t need a full-fledged counseling appointment, you can also sign up for a “rapid response resume review.” During these 15-minute sessions, you and a trained peer can quickly overhaul your resume, CV or cover letter, making you application-ready.
So one-on-one meetings kind of freaks you out? Fair enough. If you’d rather tackle this yourself, log onto Handshake to explore a variety of tools, like a resume builder and a job search engine, to help guide you. Guides on all topics, like writing cover letters, resumes and even emails, will you prepare for the professional world.
The career center also offers tons of events that are designed to teach students valuable career lessons and skills. Seminars on resume building, lectures on career paths and workshops on developing interview skills are a few of the things the Career Center offers. Check the website and Today’s Announcements to know when these opportunities occur. Right now, you can find tons of upcoming events, from a webinar on networking to a lecture on interviewing skills . Taking advantage of opportunities like these can give you the push you need.
The opportunities don’t end there. Stay tuned for even more ways to start getting your career on track today, which this blog will help you do. It’s best that you start to figure the future out, but you don’t have to do it alone.
Photo: https://www.isba.org/career