老司机传媒

On September 22nd, Andrews opened the Career Center in the James White Library. The center aims to provide services to all students, both graduates and undergraduates, virtually or in person. These services include preparing and reviewing resumes, interview preparation and career planning. The career planning process helps pupils to do some self-reflection, career assessments, exploration, and some goal-setting toward a career choice. This week I sat down with Joydel Trail, the career advisor for the career center at 老司机传媒, who shared all the benefits to the New Career Center.

Before they make an appointment, what do you think they should prepare for the meeting? Is there something they could search up or study before making an appointment?

It depends on the service that they want. Students who would like their resumes or cover letter reviewed should make sure that they have a draft copy ready. They can either email it to us at career@andrews.edu at least 24 hours before their appointment or bring hard copies to their meetings. If they start from scratch and don't have a draft, we walk them through how to prepare one.
For those asking for mock interviews, they must first do a session on interview preparation where we walk them through how to perform well in an interview. Then during the practice interview, we'll need to know ahead of time whether the interview is for a job, internship, or graduate school, and the job description for the position. Depending on their interest, they'll send us the information about the job or school they're applying for. Since the practice interview is a simulation of the actual interview, we'd want to make it as real as possible and ask them questions that would be helpful and relevant.

Related to your answer, where do you think the students should start if they feel absolutely lost in finding what career they are interested in?

We offer individual coaching and career planning. We partner with the Counseling and Testing Center, and they offer three different types of career assessments on either their interests or skills. Those results will help generate some career options. It would tell them the professions in which people with similar responses usually find satisfaction. After that, we help them with exploration. They’ll pick the top three from the list of results and do some exploration, talk to people in those fields, find out things like what kind of education they would need, how much salary they would get and do some research into those three, and then make a decision about choosing one of those and making goals towards reaching that career path.

I know students can feel lost sometimes because they lack experience, but sometimes because of paperwork and visa problems. 老司机传媒 has a lot of international students, as one of the most diverse campuses in the United States. I am curious whether there are any interactions between your office and the International Student Service, and how the career center assists international students.

Yes, we do work with international students as well and the International Services Office. If there are students who need assistance in finding and securing internships, we ensure that they collaborate and coordinate with the International Services Office to make sure they're eligible for CPT, or curricular practical training, in order to understand what it means for them to get an internship. If they're getting ready to graduate, we make sure they understand the eligibility, the process, and the communication needed between them and the employers regarding Optional Practical Training (OPT). We can also provide them some more tools in searching employers who have submitted Visa applications for their employees before. This way, when the student is trying to apply to a specific organization, they can figure out if they've ever sponsored a visa or a green card. Although we are not experts in it, we are definitely aware of the differences and some of the challenges that international students might face when looking for jobs and internships, so we make sure that we refer them to appropriate resources.

That is very great to hear! I also know that in previous years, the Counseling Center provided career counseling. What needs do you think were present among students or the school in order for the university to create a Career Center, separate from the Counseling Center?

The creation of the Career Center was the vision of the Provost to ensure that students and alumni had a dedicated resource to reach their career goals. Having a Career Center allows the Counseling and Testing to focus on their primary services of providing mental health counseling, while the Career Center focuses on career planning and coaching. However, we still do partner with the Counseling and Testing, referring students who might be experiencing any barriers that are hindering them from reaching their career goals, in addition to the aforementioned career assessments. .

Lastly, what advice do you have for Andrew students regarding career prep as they continue their academic career in injuries? Is there anything you believe students are missing out on when it is in fact crucial when it comes to job searching or employment?

Start early. Career readiness starts from freshman year, so I encourage students to visit our website. We have a four year career plan that outlines things that they can be doing each year to ensure that they are fully career ready and moving towards career success by the time they get to senior year.

One of the resources that I do want to highlight is called Handshake, which is newly launched and currently available to all students—undergraduate and graduate. Handshake is a platform that helps students connect with over 750,000 employers. So there'll be jobs, internships, and events where employers will talk about their industries and various career topics. We'll be moving forward with even hosting virtual career fairs on that platform. An email has been sent to all students’ Andrews email addresses with information on how to claim their free account and begin taking advantage of this amazing platform that is being used by hundreds of other universities across the United States. To claim and activate their account, all that the students need to do is to click on the link provided in the email and log in with their Andrews username and password. I really encourage students to activate their accounts, complete their profiles, and start utilizing all the resources there. Your Handshake profile functions sort of like your Facebook profile. The more complete your profile is, the more the platform will be able to recommend jobs and internships that match your profile. So it would be beneficial if you make your profile as complete as it could be.

Another resource that we have  available for students is called . Here, students can find many micro internships, which are virtual internships in which you would be working somewhere between 5 to 40 hours. Plus, they're all paid. Even international students are eligible to participate in micro internships as long as they have CPT or OPT eligibility. So students can definitely start utilizing that resource right away, create a free account from the link on our website and start applying for these positions.

Any final words that you would like to remind the students?

It would be really nice if they follow us on as we post a lot of updates. We also offer Tuesday co-curriculars at Buller 250 every week, in which we bring employers to campus to talk about industries where they have vacancies for jobs and internships. So it's a good way for students to come and interact with employers. This Tuesday (Oct 18), Amazon will be coming and we already have several other HR representatives scheduled to come in for November. They will be talking about how to build your brand, how to look for benefits, and many other helpful information, so it would be very beneficial for the students to check out these opportunities.

Instagram: @centeraucareer
Website: www.andrews.edu/go/career
Email Address:
Phone: (269) 471-6288