By Samantha Armstrong
Employment after college requires much more than personal motivation and a college degree. In fact, finding a job may feel like a job in itself, with applications to fill out, searches to sift through, and references to collect. Fortunately, Youngstown State University offers services that can help take the pressure off.
Samantha Davis, an office assistant at Career Services in Kilcawley, speaks very highly on what the career service office does for students.
“At Career Services we offer resume building, cover letter aid, mock interviews, and job searches, which would be job explorations where students can figure out what they can do within his or her major,” Davis said. “We also do something called MY Plan, which is a service for undecided students or students who are already in a major and want to switch but don’t know what to switch to.”
For some students, choosing a career is simple; for others, the path it is much more difficult. The “MY Plan” service allows the students to create a free account on myplan.com and take four different assessments, such as a career Personality Test and a Career and Interest Inventory.
“We also do academic advising for undecided students who are starting at the university such as incoming freshman,” Davis said.
Davis said that they offer services to all students but tend to focus on juniors and seniors who are closer to graduation.
Davis said that although the Career Services are not extremely advertised at Youngstown State University, most students hear about them through classroom presentations that her and fellow office assistants conduct.
“We also send out emails especially if the student is signed up for PenguinLink through banner; he or she can go in and fix the settings so they can receive job updates from us,” Davis said.
Career services also helps with the formatting of resumes or cover letters but if a student is interested in designing a resume he or she must come in with a partial design or rough draft.
“We don’t just make one for them. They have to come in with something on paper and we can format it or word it in a way that is more professional or applicable for his or her situation,” Davis said.
Depending on what a student’s major is, he or she can also visit Career Services for help finding internships. Science, technology, engineering, mathematics, business and health and human service majors can find advice and help for internships in Moser Hall or through assigned advisors.
Nick Torres, a senior mechanical engineering technology major at YSU, is currently interning as an engineer and is set to be a manufacturing engineer at a new company in June.
“I didn’t go to the Career Services in Kilcawley. Instead I went to the Career Service office in Moser Hall and I got my internship from the STEM Internship Expo,” Torres said.
Torres said that he designed his own resume in order to receive job opportunities. He did have professors review it and he made a couple of adjustments based on their thoughts.
The main advisement the Career Services helped Torres with was receiving certain grants.
“They helped me get a grant called the PICAM 2.” Torres said. “The grant paid my employer half of my wages up to 300 hours of work and I received a $1,200 scholarship at the end of the semester which was a huge help.”
Torres received quite a bit of aid from the Career Service and because of that help he already has a job lined up post-graduation.
Students close to graduating who may need help editing a resume or finding an internship should call the Career Service Center in Kilcawley at 330-941-3515.
