By Verla Roberts
Students walking into the University’s Career Center for the first time can be amazed by what is offered for all University students and alumni.
The University Career Center building has been around for almost nine years but it has actually been 40 years that its services been offering aid to University students. The Career Center offers advisement for all students attending the University and alumni. Most students at the University feel the center is only for seniors graduating looking for a job, but it can also provide help to every student on campus.
“We want to provide Hofstra students with the greatest opportunities in the region,” Suzanne Dagger, associate director of the career center, said. “Also we want the student to feel comfortable when doing interviews.”
The center provides many helpful resources to help students figure out what they want to do with their life. For freshmen and sophomores who are still unsure what they want to major in, they take an assessment test to figure out different activities that interest them. After that, the student and a counselor go a little more in depth into the things that really interest that student. For seniors, the career center helps them with cover letters, critiques on resumes and portfolios and also do mock interviews with that student.
“In a mock interview we video tape them and make it as through they were going for a real internship or job interview,” Dagger said. “Then we give them feedback on the things they did wrong and how to improve on them.”
The Career Center has a resource library that provides computers to do online searches for jobs. The library also provides students with an up to date listing of full-time jobs, internships and part-time positions. Besides that, the resources library also offers periodicals for all career fields, reference materials on job search strategies and career fields and occupations, employer and professional organization directors and information on graduate and professional schools. Also they have bulletins for registration on the GMAT, GRE, LSAT and MCAT. There also C.H.A.M.P.S volunteers that are around the center to help students with any questions they may have.
“I wanted help with my resume and they were amazingly helpful,” Mark Denny, a junior vice-president of information and social event coordinator for the Financial Management Association, said. “I had the bases of resume but it needed to be organized. The spent the time to help me and make it more professional.”
For students looking for internships, career offers the same help if that student was looking for a job. The Career Center advisers help a student plan out the right internship that would work for them. The adviser gets the student to understand the internships they want to make and arrange their own internship. The counselors also help the student set up a resume and write a cover letter. A student can even be put on the career center e-mail address and get e-mails almost daily about different internship possibilities that are paying and non-paying. To make sure the internship a student picks they receive credit for it, the student must have it approved by their major department.
In addition, the Career Center also holds different workshops and career forums that are taught by different organizations. The workshops are held weekly, but depending on the time of year, the center could hold up to one a day. Workshops range from internship search, Dress for Success, resume writing, interview techniques and even planning for Graduate schools to name a few. Along with holding different workshops, the career center holds different career fairs. More than 85 companies participate in the career and graduate fairs and about 1,000 University students and alumni attend the different functions. The center used to only hold one fair a year, but this year they have been able to set up three different ones to give students more opportunities to get a head. The first one of the year will be held on Nov. 17. This fair is a job, career internships and graduate schools fair. The February fair is just for students looking for sales positions and the third one in April will be for job, internships and summer jobs. The career fair that is held during the fall semester offers graduate schools through the Northeast.
“I haven’t been to any of the career fairs or the workshops because I have been fortunate enough to have four of my own internships because of the networking I have done,” Denny said. “But I will defiantly going soon to some of the workshops. I am actually having a representative to come into one of the FMA meetings to talk to the group.”
On a yearly bases, the University has several thousand companies looking for University students for full, part-time jobs and internships. Different companies on a daily bases call or send e-mails to the career center looking for University students to fill the positions that they are offering. Since they are trying to fulfill so many positions they contact the center to help them out. This is where the career centers recruitment program comes in handy.
The Career Center offers two different recruiting programs for graduating seniors to help them get in touch with employers.
One in particular is PrideRecruiting or the Campus Interview Program. In this program, a student can submit resumes to employers through the center’s online recruiting software. From there, students are selected for interviews by different employers. These interviews occur at the University. A student can even just submit their resumes to the career center’s online resume book and have them sent to different employers. With PrideRecruiting, the student can be set up with a business position, a government and a non-profit organization. Before a student can even participate in PrideRecruting they have to attend an orientation into the program that is offered the beginning of each semester. The second recruiting program they have is for education majors. This program is offered in the spring semester for all undergraduate, graduate and alumni who has or will receive a New York State Certificate. Many school districts on Long Island take resumes and then interview the selected students on campus. With this program in particular the online services are not available.
Not only the counselors at the career center can help students with varies questions. The students that work at the center help students if they have questions that do not always need the help of a counselor. The students that work there help the counselors with whatever things they may need done, such as making copies, answering the phones and keeping the resource library in order. Just from working there the students also receiving help with different career choices.
“I have gotten help from the counselors, not formally but they did help me with my resume,” Amie Cornelius, a junior who has worked for the center for almost a year, said. “Also I’ve gotten help with questions about school in general.”
Many students agree that the staff at the career center is very helpful in giving advisement to all students that come through their doors. The advisors want nothing but the best for the students and provide them with the best aid that they can offer.
“They gave me the sense to know that I can do anything,” Cornelius said. “The staff really is amazing.”
The Career Center counselors at the University help students find a profession they would like to pursue through advisement. (Harry Tanielyan/The Chronicle)