Career services staff members help students find their niches
By Sharita Forrest, Assistant Editor 217-244-1072; slforres@illinois.edu
“It’s tough out there,” is the consensus about the job market these days. However, an expanded network of career services and online tools are helping students on the Urbana campus make successful transitions from learning to earning. The Graduate College Career Services Office, which opened its doors the first day of the fall semester, was established as a comprehensive, interdisciplinary resource for graduate students. Director Rebecca Bryant and Amy Martin, visiting assistant director, provide individual advising, coordinate programs and provide information tailored to the professional development of graduate students.
A series of six core workshops and various ad hoc workshops are being offered each semester covering topics such as negotiating skills; writing resumes, curricula vitae and cover letters; non-academic job searches; and interviewing for jobs in academia and other sectors. A workshop on transferable skills helps scholars with nebulous occupational paths identify their skill sets and correlate them with nonacademic jobs.
“A historian with expertise on ancient Egypt may not be terribly important to a foundation, a company or a government agency, but that historian’s ability to do research, to conceptualize a very big problem, to organize data can be tremendously useful,” said Richard Wheeler, dean of the Graduate College.
GCCSO offers dual versions of every workshop, with one section tailored to students in science, technology, engineering and mathematics and the other section to scholars in the humanities, arts and social sciences.
Ten workshops were held during the fall semester and drew 420 participants. GCCSO’s Web page (www.grad.uiuc.edu/CarererServices/) offers job search links, self-assessment tools and a comprehensive listing of professional-development events. Students can register for workshops online and receive confirmations and reminders by e-mail. A bi-weekly newsletter apprises students of upcoming events, non-academic career options and job postings, and provides links to career-related articles. Wheeler got the idea to found the career services program after learning about a peer institution’s successful program and after examining the limited services available to Urbana’s graduate students. The Graduate College Career Advisory Committee, which was appointed by Wheeler, examined advising programs at peer institutions, gathered input from graduate students and faculty members and recommended that the program be established after a symposium and a series of pilot programs and services offered last spring received resounding approval. “The committee really assessed the kinds of resources available to graduate students, particularly those in the humanities, social sciences and fine and applied arts, and found there was generally very little support for students who were not seeking jobs as tenured faculty,” Bryant said. “Our office was created to fill that gap. Academe is one option, but there are other ways to find fulfillment and serve the community and the world beyond as well.” Since the office’s Aug. 27 opening, the response from students, particularly those in the humanities, has been “overwhelmingly favorable,” Bryant said. Staff have provided more than 186 counseling contacts through office visits and e-mail reviews of documents. More than 370 students also have subscribed to GCCSO’s listserv. “After only about four months, I think we’re approaching the kind of capacity that I think we can sanely serve,” Bryant said. “But that’s OK. I’m thrilled, and we’ll find a way to make it work.” GCCSO will hold its second annual Symposium on Graduate Education Feb. 10 at the Illini Union. “It gives us a chance to bring together graduate students, faculty, staff and experts from the outside world to talk about issues very fundamental to graduate education: why it exists, what its purposes are and what its goals and problems are,” Wheeler said. “We need that kind of conversation to keep abreast of our students’ needs and what they’re thinking. I also think it’s important for them to hear from us that people are working hard to try to understand the needs of grad students.” A career services office geared to the unique needs of students in the College of Fine and Applied Arts also opened its doors during the fall semester. Sara Jane Patterson, coordinator of career services, is a former music student and arts administrator. While conservatories and design schools have offered career services for many years, only a handful of collegiate offices exist in the United States, Patterson said. Typical career services such as job fairs are not applicable in the arts; therefore, FAA’s programming will facilitate students’ exploration of occupational possibilities as opposed to linking them with potential employers. “We certainly want to help them find jobs, but right now our mission is to help them figure out how to find their career paths and explore all the options so they don’t leave here saying, ‘I’m going to be a dancer and that’s it,” Patterson said. “In five years, if they’ve broken their legs and can’t dance anymore, they won’t know what to do. We want them to start thinking about those possibilities in advance so that they’ve got a broader skill set. So, it’s not just students learning how to play the piano but they’re also learning how to teach and do administrative work, for example.” Patterson is surveying a select group of alumni from each department in the college and developing a database of profiles so that students can go online and read about alumni’s academic careers and professional pathways. Patterson also plans to host events that bring alumni back to campus to talk with students. GCCSO and the FAA career services office are among a network of 27 career-services units on campus, including the Career Center, which offers counseling and advising, assessment tools and workshops primarily for undergraduates. The center recently implemented the Discover Career Exploration Information System, giving students online, 24-hour access to interest assessments, a skills survey and occupational and educational information. Gail Rooney, Career Center director, noted that many students feel discouraged about their prospects of finding jobs in the current economic climate. “What I like to tell students is there are companies that are hiring new grads, and those students who get the jobs are generally those who are best prepared to do the job search, have a good sense of what they’re looking for and what they want, have prepared themselves well in terms of marketable, transferable skills and can articulate those to potential employers,” Rooney said. In March, the Career Center and GCCSO are co-sponsoring a new workshop on government jobs and a component on government jobs has been added to the annual career fair for nonprofit organizations. A booming job market in the government sector is predicted over the next decade as half of all current government workers become eligible for retirement, Rooney said. During the fall semester, Business Career Services implemented Compass, an online searchable resume database and information system for College of Business students and recruiters. Lois Meerdink, assistant dean of business career services, said the college also plans to develop a mentoring or job shadowing program that will debut next fall and link students with alums.
Symposium to focus on career choices “Challenges, Choices, Careers” will be the theme of the second annual Symposium on Graduate Education to be held from 1 to 5 p.m. Feb. 10 in Illini Rooms A, B and C of the Illini Union. The keynote speaker will be Maresi Nerad, the director of the Center of Innovation and Research in Graduate Education and associate dean of the University of Washington, Seattle, Graduate School. Nerad, co-author of the study “Ph.D.s – Ten Years Later,” will share her ongoing research on career outcomes and opportunities for people with advanced degrees. During a panel discussion following the keynote address, UI graduate alumni will talk about their diverse career paths in the corporate and not-for-profit sectors. Three concurrent focus sessions will cover topics such as the challenges faced by dual-career couples, the transitions and stages of academic life from graduate school through tenure, and resources available to support graduate students. All UI graduate students, faculty and staff members, alumni and interested members of the community may attend. Although the event is free, registration is required by Feb. 6 and may be done online.
Additional information about speakers and the symposium program also is available on the Web. The symposium is sponsored by the Graduate College.
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