News Archives
An Event You Won’t Want to Miss
Entry by Pam Norman, Indiana INTERNnet Executive Director
No matter how large or small, your company can benefit from hiring an intern. Now more than ever, today’s challenging business environment offers opportunity to access talented student interns willing to put their creative energy to work for your organization. Learn how easy it is to get an internship program designed and implemented!
On October 7th, Indiana INTERNnet joins forces with IndySHRM to present a workshop designed with you in mind. An interactive panel of experienced internship employers, former interns, and career services staff will highlight how to make a solid business case for hiring an intern.
Hiring managers, career services professionals, and students are invited to attend the event in downtown Indy which includes time for networking, six easy steps to creating an internships program, practical tools to help you get started and lively conversation from panelists with internship experience.
We …
Career Fairs 101: After the Career Fair
Entry by Pat Patterson
Students
After a career fair (From the 2010 September INTERNnetwork):
Jot down your notes and organize the information you collected (including contact information – it is a good idea to note where you met certain individuals and what you talked about), write thank you notes to those you met, apply for positions you are interested in, and follow up with employers about applications you submitted.
Remember, making a positive impression with people greatly influences your internship and career search. When recruiters sift through resumes and decide who they plan to interview, you are more likely to stand out if the recruiters remember who you are and the interest you showed in their particular organization.
Employers
After the Career Fair (From the National Association of Colleges and Employers NACE)
Post-fair activities do help with your recruiting efforts. Here are some ideas:
Host a networking …
Career Fairs 101: Selling Your Company to Potential Interns
Entry by Pat Patterson
From the 2010 September INTERNnetwork:
Now that you have established a need for interns in your organization, you need to make sure you have students that are interested in your internship opportunities. And although having too many interested candidates may not be a bad thing, it is important that the candidates you attract are qualified for your positions and are the right fit for your organization.
Conveying a clear, concise message about your organization and its mission is vital in attracting the type of talent you would like to fill your internships. Here are some tips on how to sell your company to interns, specifically at career fairs:
Have a section of your website dedicated to your internship opportunities, including detailed descriptions, which you can direct interns to visit (the link can be included on any literature students are provided before the career fair), attend those …
Career Services Team Building
Entry by Kristijonas Paltanavicius, Peer Career Advisor, Wabash College Career Services
My name is Kristijonas Paltanavicius. I am an international student from Lithuania at Wabash College. I am a junior theater major and aspire to have a career in theatrical directing. During my two years at Wabash I presented at a few scholarly events, received three grants to do research, did two major directing projects and found many other ways to express my creative self. This semester is particularly exciting to me because, besides all my projects and classes, I am a part of the peer career advisor team at the Career Services.
Just two months ago I was in Washington DC, and somebody at the airport asked me about my accent and where I was from. “I’m from Indiana,” I said. It came out unintentionally, and I immediately realized it was true in terms of how I felt about …
Students: Internship Experience May Increase Your Salary
Entry by Pat Patterson
As you may already know, there are many benefits of interning, including:
Enhancing your educational experience, testing out a new organization or industry, exposing yourself to multiple departments within an organization, discovering your talents and aspects of a job you find appealing, gaining real-world job experience, learning new skills, building your resumé, making new connections, and setting yourself up for full-time employment.
In addition, according to NACE’s 2010 Student Survey, students from the Class of 2010 who had internship experience received higher average starting salaries than students who had no internship experience:
In terms of starting salary offers, there is a definite financial advantage for students who have internship experience, according to results of NACE’s 2010 Student Survey. Overall, students in the Class of 2010 who had internships received an average salary offer of $41,580. Meanwhile, their classmates who didn’t take internships received an average starting …
Career Fair Game Plan
Entry by Pat Patterson
Last Friday I posted an entry about how to prepare for a career fair. You also need to lay out a game plan of the organizations you will visit and the order in which you will visit them. I would recommend visiting those organizations you are less interested in first to build up your confidence when you speak with those recruiters from organizations you are more excited about.
Here is some advice to help guide you during the career fair:
DURING a career fair:
Arrive early, dress professionally, have your resume, portfolio, and a pen ready, proceed to the organizations that you identified you are interested in, be aware of your posture and body language, relax, be confident, be approachable – SMILE, offer a firm, confident handshake to recruiters with eye contact, execute your *elevator speech, ask any questions you prepared, and make sure to collect …
College Touring: Don’t Forget the Career Services Office
Entry by Pat Patterson
In the current competitive job market, students need to begin thinking about and planning for their potential careers early on in their college experience. Since students go to college to attain an education that will eventually be used to secure a career, students (and parents) should explore each college’s career services office on their campus visits. A recent news release from Wake Forest University echoes this sentiment:
As high school students and their parents begin the annual fall ritual of campus visits, experts are recommending that families make the career office one of the first stops on any college tour. “In this competitive job market, the tools and resources that a career office provide have become nearly as important as academics when choosing a college or university,” said Patrick Sullivan, Associate Director of Experiential Education at Wake Forest University.
In fact, college internships can be one …
Students: Preparing for a Career Fair
Entry by Pat Patterson
Fall career fairs are beginning to take place as early as next week, and recruiters look positively on candidates who show up to career fairs prepared. But what does that mean exactly? Here is some advice to help guide you:
BEFORE a career fair you should prepare by:
Keeping up on industry/market trends, keeping up on current events in your areas of interest, pre-registering for the career fair, researching the participating employers and their opportunities,
– General company information: industry, market outlook, products and services, history and corporate culture, organizational mission and goals, key financial statistics, organizational structure (divisions, subsidiaries, etc.), and locations (main and branch).
– Employment: career paths and advancement opportunities, benefits, diversity initiatives, current internship and job opportunities. identifying the employers you plan on speaking with and the positions you plan on applying for, preparing resume(s) (creating specific, tailored resumes for different …
Call for Nominations/Indiana INTERNnet IMPACT Awards
Entry by Pam Norman, Indiana INTERNnet Executive Director
Today is your chance to recognize internship excellence as Indiana INTERNnet makes a call for nominations in the categories of Intern of the Year (both college and high school), Employer of the Year (both nonprofit and profit), and Career Professional of the Year. Last year’s winners were honored at the annual IMPACT Awards Luncheon and we’ll be doing the same this time around recognizing finalists and winners on February 10, 2011.
Nominations are open to interns, employers and educational institutions statewide. Share your story of internship success by nominating yourself, your organization or another who is making an impact on stemming the Indiana “Brain Drain” through internship connections. And, remember to mark your calendar for the luncheon in February. Registration for the luncheon will open in late November.
Students: Pay Attention to the Details
Entry by Pat Patterson
Just because you may not have landed the internship of your dreams in the past does not mean it’s not possible. Writing a great resume and cover letter and “looking the part” at a networking event or career fair are not the only determinants of whether or not you will get a call back. It is important to also pay attention to the details that may set you apart from other candidates.
Spell check your resume and cover letter over and over again. And then after you are done spell checking, have one of your peers spell check for you. A typo can say a lot of negative things about you – such as, you may not be able to spell, you don’t care enough to check for spelling errors, you are not organized or detail-oriented, etc.
Invest in professional resume paper. Although business stationary paper …
Career Services Professionals: Best Practices
Entry by Pat Patterson
Now that students are back to school and somewhat settled in, it is likely that more students will start visiting their campus career services office. As career services professionals, it is important to keep on top of the best practices in the current market to help students acquire internships and jobs.
The following is a list of advice from the Intern Bridge’s blog The Intern Advocate, which will help you help your students:
Get a RSS reader account. Find blogs that dole out daily or weekly advice pertaining to job searching and career centers. Add each blog to an RSS reader, such as Google Reader, and make a point to check it at least three times per week. If your career center has social media accounts, be sure to share helpful articles with your students directly!
Read new literature available. There are countless …
How Will You Be Remembered?
Entry by Pat Patterson
Regardless if you are at a networking event or a friend’s cookout, you are likely to meet new people, perhaps someone who will lead you to your next internship or job. Whether you will continue to keep in touch with new contacts depends on how favorably they remember you.
A great first impression will increase your chances of continuing a relationship with someone you meet. Especially for those internship and job seekers at career fairs, making a great first impression may determine whether or not a recruiter decides to toss your resume aside or keep it in the pile of potential candidates.
In Kevin Eikenberry’s blog, Leadership and Learning, he provides ten valuable tips on how to make a great first impression:
Relax. This comes first, especially if the situation is one where you feel you need to make a great first impression. You want the new …
Employers: Are You Effectively Branding Your Organization?
Entry by Pat Patterson
Your organization’s brand determines its reputation, which will in turn determine how well your organization will perform. Therefore, it is important to periodically ask yourself if you are effectively doing all you can to take charge of your brand. Even if you are not hiring interns or employees for the fall, consider attending campus career fairs to spread awareness of your organization and its future work opportunities.
Consider these results from NACE’s 2010 Recruiting Benchmarks Survey, citing career fairs as the most effective branding tool:
More than 90 percent of employers taking part in NACE’s 2010 Recruiting Benchmarks Survey cited branding to the campus as very important to their program. In addition, more than 90 percent cited career/job fairs, the corporate web site, and building relationships with key faculty as the tools and activities they use to build their brand. Nearly two-thirds of those using career/job …
Indiana INTERNnet: The Next Generation
Change is in the air for Indiana INTERNnet. We are designing a new website that will position the organization to utilize new media in serving our user database populations. The plan is to unveil the new site in 2011, and here’s what we have in store:
Email integration to deliver timely, automated communication to INTERNnet users, website integration of social media tools, higher level of search functions, including filtering mechanisms designed to zero in on search results, enhanced matching technologies to provide a robust solution intended to help people discover the best internship match, and improved visability of our blog, Indiana INTERNnation, intended to offer ease-of-use for contributing authors.
Overall, we know we are competing with every other communication channel for the attention of our users and we’re working to make Indiana INTERNnet: The Next Generation a destination site that will offer a dynamic, interactive, and more engaging experience for …
Always Remember to Say Thank You
Entry by Pat Patterson
Just as your mother had advised when you were growing up, it is important to always say please and thank you. More specifically, after your summer internship is over, don’t forget to send a thank you note to your host organization.
The Intern Queen has some great advice for Thank You notes in her blog, I AM INTERN:
If you work for a small company and have been introduced to the president at one time or another, I do think you should send him/her a thank-you note along with another note to your direct supervisor and any other executives that have helped you over the summer. Below are a few quick Thank You note tips:
Either purchase your own stationary or go the store and pick up professional looking Thank You notes in the card section. Get something basic that says Thank You on the front …