Recent News
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 …
Employers: Recruiting Millennials
Entry by Pat Patterson
Before you pack up your materials to begin recruiting interns on college campuses, take some time to strategize how you will market your organization. More importantly, think about the characteristics of your target audience – Millennials, those born between 1977 and 1998. The more you know about Millennials, the more you can tailor your recruiting efforts to entice their interests. Here are some Key Characteristics of Today’s Adolescents:
Self-reliance – They believe that becoming successful is up to them, and they are not depending on others for help. Finding a good job is a priority. They are the young navigators. They must chart their own course and captain their own ship: “It’s up to me to create my own well-being.” They value personal experience and are prone to seek out critical thinkers. They are independent and emotionally and intellectually open. They strongly value individual rights: …
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 …
Employers: Market Your Internships via Social Media
Entry by Pat Patterson
We launched our blog in June, and every so often I will check our Google Analytics account to determine how many people visit our blog and how they find our blog in the first place. Today, I noticed a trend that somewhat surprised me – the majority of traffic to Indiana INTERNnation is directed from our social media marketing, more specifically Facebook.
This made me think – although all organizations and websites are different, if you are not using social media to market your organization, you are missing out on a large, free opportunity to increase your exposure. Specifically, I encourage all organizations to market your internship opportunities or at least links to your opportunities through your social media accounts.
Think about it – Facebook was created for university and college students, a majority of which use Facebook at least once a day. If you want …
Let Your Interests Guide Your College/Career Choices
Entry by Pat Patterson
If you have not declared your college major yet, try not to be persuaded to pursue a degree solely based on the current economic conditions. Statistically speaking, in our current economy, students with certain majors have landed more job offers after graduation than students with other degrees. However, it is important to pursue a major that you are interested in, and let your passions guide your career decisions. After all, you are more likely to perform well when you have an interest in what you are studying, and it is uncertain which courses of study may “increase your odds” of landing a job one, two, three, or four years from now.
A recent article in the Chicago Tribune echoes this sentiment:
The key is to think ahead about which jobs would also let you capitalize on your interests. And the earlier you start, the more opportunities …
Embracing the “Fairest” Things in Life
Entry by Courtney Sampson, Marketing and Communications Intern, Indiana State Fair
Let it be known to all! Here’s my new slogan…maybe I’ll suggest it to the “Head Fred” of the Indiana State Fair. Probably not. Anyway, here it goes – The 2010 Great Indiana State Fair – Making Memories Happen.
OK – but really, this one-line slogan sums up my entire summer! There’s been no shortage of things to do around here; I can’t say I’m surprised, though. The Indiana State Fair draws more than 900,000 visitors over 17 days. Here’s a taste of my favorite fair memories:
10 – Riding The Blizzard with my co-worker, Kris Karol…AFTER he ate 2 pieces of fried chicken, green beans, mashed potatoes, and water. Good thing he didn’t drink Pepsi. It might have put ‘em over the edge. Oh yeah, and he sat on the outside, so I got to slam …