Students and Alumni, Remember to Utilize The Career Services Available to You

Open door to the word Help in red letters. Photo courtesy of Shutterstock.

Colleges today seem to have no shortage of amenities for their students. They have fully-equipped gyms, state of the art computer labs and top of the line food courts. And while it may seem that students are taking full advantage of these and other offerings, there is one service many are completely overlooking. I’m referring to the career services department of colleges and universities across the country.

Schools everywhere these days offer a myriad of services and features through this department, yet few students utilize them to their full potential, if at all.  This makes no sense to me when our job market and economy is in the shape it’s in. Recent graduates are remaining jobless at an alarming rate like never before, so why are they, and current students NOT taking advantage of the help being offered to them? Perhaps they are unaware of what’s available to them?

While programs and offerings vary from school to school and campus to campus there are a few helpful features they all include. Read on to learn what you could be missing out on by NOT partaking in this assistance.

Aptitude Tests

An issue many college students face is the fear that they are not well suited for the career path they’ve been studying the past few years in college. Well, to help clear the air a bit and give students a bit more direction, many, if not all, career service departments offer students the opportunity to take aptitude and personality tests to pinpoint their professional strengths and interests. These assessments will help take the guesswork out of choosing a major and even more so when you are ready to start searching for that first big internship or job.

If you’re feeling lost and listless, consider giving this a try. It should point you in the right direction.

Job Postings

Another feature many of these career services offer is access to a continuously updated job board that features openings and positions from companies from across several industries. They usually offer students, and in some cases alumni, the opportunity to customize their search to only show them jobs that are relevant to their interests and experience.

This is a great asset to anyone looking for a job, because schools usually work out arrangements to have exclusive openings listed through their network, meaning that only students and alums from that institution have access to it—talk about having the odds in your favor!

Networking Events

In addition to all of the features mentioned thus far, university career service groups also usually put on special networking events and career fairs to give students and alumni a chance to interact with area professionals. This instantly gives participants an edge over other candidates outside of the university network, as it is generally a smaller, more intimate setting where candidates and employers really get a chance to meet, converse and make an impression on each other.

Overall, schools are really going above and beyond to give students an upper hand when it comes to finding the career of their dreams, but the system won’t work if no one uses it. Marketing efforts have been revved up at various schools to help get the word out, but there’s only so much they can do, the rest is up to you to make it happen.

Caroline Ross is a freelance writer for several education and career websites, including www.AccreditedOnlineUniversities.com. In order to inform people about the importance of education and seeking your calling in life, Caroline writes many articles about preparing for college, career planning and getting the right training for a job. She welcomes your comments and questions below!