Lately, I have been working on my resume and establishing a career path. I feel as though time is ticking away and I am going to be graduating before I know it. And my greatest fear is that I won’t have a job right out of college. So, to make myself feel better, I have been building my resume, researching jobs, and internships. Although I am only a sophomore it is good to have experience and practice. It is also very beneficial to network with professionals.
I just made a LinkedIn profile and I didn’t realize how much I was missing out on! It is a wonderful app that allows you to friend people and connect to professionals around the world. For example, you can search Stonehill alumni and then research out to a person who has a career or job that may interest you. Employers can also search for you through this app. It is just another tool to represent yourself because you can include work experience and skills on your profile.
I have also been searching for internships and I use handshake for that. Every student at Stonehill College has a handshake account and it is very similar to LinkedIn. A cool feature about handshake is that you can upload your resume and a career advisor at Stonehill will approve it or decline it. So, then you know if your resume is up to par.
I have also been practicing writing cover letters. Many jobs and internships require a resume and a cover letter, they go hand in hand. A cover letter is a way for you to make yourself stand out to the employer.
All in all, I think the only way to improve is to practice. A career advisor once told me to practice pitching yourself to an employer who you don’t want to work for, so then if you mess up it doesn’t matter and you will be more prepared for the next time. I hope by sharing my experience I can be of help to someone out there.