<p>From the experience of those of you who work during college, what advice do you have regarding getting an on-campus job? Such as;</p>
<ul>
<li>Interview tips</li>
<li>Application tips</li>
<li>Using connections and how to do so</li>
<li>Etc.</li>
</ul>
<p>I feel since most on-campus jobs are relatively low-skill and each receive a crazy amount of applications, they are quite tough jobs to get. So from those of you who have succeeded, what advice do you have?</p>
<p>Thanks!</p>
<p>At my school even the high need students can’t get them. Thats how tough it is. </p>
<p>I talked with an upperclassmen about it and she said it was because there were too few jobs and too many students needing them.</p>
<p>Advice: Get everything in early as possible, chances are its too late to do anything now.</p>
<p>Make sure you follow up with them after turning in an application. When I sent mine in no one ever got back to me so I wrote to the office. Apparently they didn’t have any openings but offered a possible position somewhere else. Hopefully I’ll hear back…</p>
<p>Interview tips: When asked if you’re willing to do x, say yes.</p>
<p>Using connections: see if you have any friends that have a job. If they do, ask if they know their departments are hiring. That’s how I landed a job. Or check your schools finaid employment website. At some schools, they list which department are exclusively hiring work study students.
If you click with any particular professor, go to office hours often and talk to them about their research. At the end of the quarter, if you got the balls, see if they’re willing to take you on as an assistant. It might not be a paying job, but it’ll look nice on your resume should you apply for another job, and who knows, the work with your professor might be published.</p>
<p>Other advice: go to your student hub, ie where your bookstore, food to go, where students gather sorta like the university center and go ask the operations department if they’re hiring. I currently work for operations and we’re always hiring. (read: operations = janitorial) But don’t let “I’m going to be cleaning restrooms and taking out trash” stop you from applying. A job is a job and who knows, it might lead to bigger things. My job gave me a $250 scholarship to use at the bookstore because of grades and recommendation from my boss.</p>
<p>Once you’re a junior or senior you might be able to get a job grading papers for a professor. I had a pretty sweet deal going because I held 10 office hours a week but none of the students knew where my office was, so I just sat there and graded papers or did homework. Probably wouldn’t have been able to help them much anyway though; I’d never taken the class I was UTAing.</p>
<p>Eh it was easy at my school. They made us fill out an application and take it to the campus HR department…where they signed the application and referred us to the appropriate manager for the job we wanted. When I got there, he just asked a few questions (like which classes I was taking, what my major is, how much/when I want to work, and if I’m fine with the work they do). He didn’t really bother to look at my application haha. They took most people…no background check or drug test either O.o. But that does explain why my workplace had so many employees, that most of us couldn’t be scheduled to work more than 5-6 hours. Not that I wanted to work any more than that.</p>
<p>Get good grades and you might have a shot at your tutoring center after your first semester. Oftentimes, you can just study if there aren’t any students asking for help during your shift. It’s usually just an application as they are mostly concerned with your grades for the courses that you would be tutoring.</p>
<p>See if your school has an online job search, it’s a nice way to see the job description, hourly wage, and hours/week. Other than that I would consider what kind of job you want, if you’re very active and restless then maybe trying giving tours or working in the campus gym rather than an office job. As for interview tips, relax. Be polite, go over potential questions before hand, and answer clearly but don’t talk too much. Good luck!</p>
<p>It helps to be qualified for the job you are applying for. If you want to apply for jobs that require experience in areas that you lack, then involvement in campus clubs or senate may be your best route towards gaining experience to make yourself stand out. As others have mentioned, on-campus jobs tend to be competitive due to the small number of positions (especially for decent jobs) so knowing someone who currently works in that position is invaluable.</p>
<p>Also, not all jobs are low-skill. There are a number of skilled jobs on most college campuses, such as course tutoring and lab assistant work. Every university will have Residential Advisors (RA), and those jobs are extremely well-paid but are competitive. Right now, I am interning with the Chancellor’s Office as an University Relations intern, and my work involves being a liaison between the community and neighborhood groups. While this job does not pay as well as the RA job I had last year, it gives me more real-world experience. </p>
<p>Lastly, developing your resume and cover letter is going to depend on the position you are applying for. The key is to put yourself in the shoes of the hiring manager and ask yourself, after reading this resume, would you want to meet this person? That’s the standard you should be going for. If you need help with the resume and cover letter, this is the best cover letter and resume guide I have seen:</p>
<p><a href=“https://career.berkeley.edu/Guide/ResumeLetterWriting.pdf[/url]”>https://career.berkeley.edu/Guide/ResumeLetterWriting.pdf</a></p>
<p>Son just received emails from his department and they are looking for lab assistants. The jobs start a few weeks before classes. They just entail watching students in the lab and helping them with PC and Mac OS X issues. If your department has an email list server, get on it - my son gets a fair number of job postings sent through the department. It may be professors forwarding postings that they receive from industry, jobs in the department (research assistant, lab assistant, office work, etc.).</p>
<p>I had a job in college working for the Student Calling Center. It was a bit like telemarketing so you have to have a thick skin, but it was my experience that these centers are always looking for callers. It was great to be able to talk with alumni and I even made some job connections as I was calling my senior year.</p>