Leah, Hot Chocolate, and Resumes
Leah (Black) Rodriguez held a resume/career workshop for us on December 2nd 2015. We asked a few questions and then let her give us any advice that she thought we needed to hear. We had hot chocolate and cookies while we had questions answered and got read to gear up to study for finals.
How many internships are a good number?
2-3 internships is a good number; 4 would be a big number but on average 2-3 is a good number.
Job postings; where is a good place to look for a job/when is a good time to find a job?
Small companies usually don’t post until a few months before they start looking for someone to fill that position. Bigger companies start their postings sooner (for example Southwest has already begun looking for people to fill summer positions in November). If you want to see if a company has ever posted on Frog jobs and when the posting was posted, just send Leah a quick email, she has access to look up past postings.
Do you have any advice for those of us looking to enter into the job search?
Do not compare yourself to people who are business school students when looking for jobs. They can secure jobs months in advance, whereas, public relations is a field where companies don’t hire until they need someone on an account/client or have a position that was recently emptied.
Other than Frog Jobs where is/what are the best resources to find jobs?
There are websites that post positions for multiple companies but your best chances are to look at each company’s (that you are interested in) website. Online research is great but also check their websites. Make an excel sheet to compare companies, salaries, etc. Make a column for the company name, job position, whether or not they have an open position, people to contact, their contact information, where they post job openings, salaries (wage), website link, and notes (if/when you reached out, if they got back to you, who you talked to, etc.). Be talking to people, on social media, email, on the phone, in person, let them know you are interested and care enough to reach out more than once. NEVER forget to network, don’t wait until you need a job, start know, get advice, ask any question you have. If you have things in common like clubs, sorority/fraternity, university, hometown, internships, reach out and get to know them, what they do and their company. They will be more likely to help if you have common ground and you can even ask them to be a mentor. Find the recruiter (if they have one) and reach out to them, that way you have someone to contact inside the company.
