<p>I started work this year as a student assistant in an undergraduate affairs office. I also am a research assistant (I do data entry and stuff). </p>
<p>Is this enough experience to impress a future employer?<br>
I'm a Business Econ major, and I will graduate in 2015, if that helps. </p>
<p>The fact that you are thinking about it is good. A resume does not build itself you have to work at it. You are not providing enough information to give us a full picture. Having a job, and a job in an office type setting, is definitely a good thing. However, no one student job is ever going to make you ‘marketable’ to employers. </p>
<p>Below are my list of ‘areas’ students should try to work on (in no particular order). Note that you don’t need all of these to succeed and get a great job, but they are areas for you to consider as you are trying to build your experiences to become a well rounded job candidate. </p>
<ol>
<li><p>School - You can set yourself apart from others by getting great grades, going to a well known school, taking challenging classes, potentially doing interesting projects, …etc. </p></li>
<li><p>Jobs - Having a job, even if it is low level stuff, always trumps not having one in my view - especially in an economy like this one. You build up a wide array of soft skills (communication, customer service, time management, teamwork, leadership (if promoted to a supervisor or involved with training new team members…etc). You can set yourself apart from others by having a job in the first place. Even moreso, you can have leadership positions (being promoted is a good thing!), have relevant experience (internships! - if you are graduating in 2015 and don’t have an internship lined up this summer - you should start looking pronto,…etc.), experience with excel & other software… </p></li>
<li><p>Extracurriculars - Similar to having a job, extracurriculars can help build softskills (leadership, teamwork, communication, networking…etc.) and, therefore, show that you are a well-rounded candidate. A lot of business students do business clubs, and that’s great. However, I think it is also great to do something outside of your ‘area/major’. For a business student, I’d suggest an toastmaster or acting/performing type club. It can really help show that you are into other things and make your resume pop because of it. Similarly if given the opportunity to give a presentation in one of your clubs, or as part of your jobs, try to jump at those opportunities - it is great interview fodder & shows you are not afraid to put yourself out there. </p></li>
<li><p>Resume writing & interview skills - Even if you get an A+ in each of the different categories, you are never going to get the job unless you are solid here. It is competitive out there. Resume writing is a lot easier if you are strong in the other areas, however, resume writing can also ‘hide’ deficiencies and make a less attractive candidate look better and vice versa. Use your career center - have the thing critiqued there, by family, and your uncle…etc. </p></li>
</ol>
<p>Interviewing is easier for some people than others. There are tons of interview tips online - go read them. Do mock interviews at your career center. Go to glassdoor.com to see what types of questions the companies you are targeting are asking. Pull your friend into a room and have him/her interview you with a common list of behavioral interview questions. Practice. Practice. Practice. </p>
<p>I know that is a lot but don’t stress too much. You don’t have to be perfect at everything - it is definitely a balancing act. Hopefully you’ve built up some of these areas a little - you already have two office jobs - which is great. If you can try to stretch those roles to do more (ask for a research project instead of just doing data entry - or make improvements to their data entry process/system…etc - or offer to train the new person) that is good. Definitely try to get good grades as many jobs have strict cut-offs. And also try to get a summer internship more directly (or indirectly) related to an area you want to work in. </p>
<p>The good thing, is that although you may not ever be perfect in any of these categories (you may not get that sought after prestigious internship, be captain of the debate club or have a 4.0 at Harvard), you can take specific steps to improve your ‘marketability’ in each (!) of these categories. You can start right now. </p>
<p>Wow, thank you so much for the advice.
I realize that I didn’t give much information. </p>
<p>I wish I could get an internship this summer, but I only started thinking about it, and I have a feeling it is way too late to sign up for any. Don’t many internships like at Chase or Fidelity start recruiting in the Fall itself?
Thankfully, I have a clerical job lined up this summer, so I won’t be sitting idly. </p>
<p>The recruitment period for most internships geared toward rising seniors starts in January and ends in March, though some are earlier or later. If you already have a job lined up for the summer, that’s just fine.</p>
<p>Before my senior year, I waited tables, but I also did some research on the side (a lot of data entry, just like you). You can actually use the data entry job to learn how to make yourself more efficient with MS Office, which will make you much more marketable to employers - for example, if you find yourself entering people’s names into Excel as First, Middle, Last and Full, you can cut down some time by using formulas to fill in one or more of those fields automatically. Doing data entry allows you to work remotely, I would assume, so you would probably be able to do both.</p>
<p>As for actually getting a job, Whatdidyou’s advice is solid, and I would add a few points:</p>
<ul>
<li>From now until school starts again in August/September: Review your resume; update it and have counselors review/critique it; do research into the types of jobs you might want to get, and look at profiles of first year hires at those companies. If you do your homework ahead of time, it will make job hunting much smoother.</li>
<li>Starting in September: Look for job fairs around campus; look for companies coming on campus to recruit; attend information sessions and apply, apply, apply! You can never apply too early!</li>
</ul>
<p>You will want to brush up on interview skills. Use Glassdoor as a guide for interview processes; if you are using Glassdoor for company reviews, take them with a grain of salt (people are much more likely to write a bad review than a good review, so a company may have terrible reviews from disgruntled former employees even though it is actually a great place to work).</p>
<p>But for right now, worry about getting your resume up to snuff. Then learn how to write a good cover letter; you may apply to dozens (or even hundreds) of companies, but even so, you should write a new cover letter for each company; the personalization will show. </p>
<p>Good luck!</p>
<p>Thank you for the advice. </p>
<p>This is all very stressful; I feel like I am doing a lot at the moment, but when I sit down and put it on a resume, it doesn’t seem like much. </p>
<p>I now realize that I have a lot more things to do to spruce up my image and experience, and that includes everything you guys on this thread have said: joining clubs, doing more research on employers, attending career fairs and workshops, and all of that. </p>
<p>Thank you again! </p>
<p>whatdidyou does have some good points, but I would differ with a few:</p>
<p>Your choice of major is the single most important factor in landing a job.</p>
<p>Second and third, of equal importance, but less important than your major are: job experience and interviewing skills</p>
<p>Far less important are GPA, where you went to school, and extracurriculars .</p>
<p>Good luck.</p>
<p>JMU, I would argue that your choice of major is nearly meaningless in terms of finding a job. Outside of jobs that have specific requirements that practical majors (engineering, nursing, etc), many jobs will request a “technical background” but really will hire anyone who appears qualified.</p>
<p>GPA is less important after having experience, but coming straight out of school, your GPA matters a ton - it is the single most important factor used by companies deciding who to give interviews to during on campus interviewing.</p>
<p>Don’t ever write off extracurricular experience - it can be as good as work experience. For example, I was vice president of a student group, and that gave me experience delegating responsibility, “leading from behind” as a more experienced person than the president himself, and organizing large scale events. While it was not paid work, it was nevertheless good experience!</p>
<p>Employers are looking closely at this new crop of workers. A collegegrad.com survey reported on what employers want most in examining the talent pool of recent grads. It featured 500 top entry-level employers for 2008 and notes the following factors as the criteria that entry-level employers rank as most important:</p>
<ol>
<li>The student’s major (44%)</li>
<li>Their interviewing skills (18%) </li>
<li>The student’s internship/experience (17%) </li>
<li>The college the student graduated from (10%)</li>
<li>Other miscellaneous qualifications (5%)</li>
<li>The student’s GPA (4%)</li>
<li>Their personal appearance (1%)</li>
<li>The student’s computer skills (1%)</li>
</ol>
<p>A student’s major will only matter so much in applied areas, such as computer science. The survey you reference provides vague details that does not necessarily support the conclusion that one’s major is the most important factor in all cases. For example - for which fields is it important? And who is doing the ranking? Recruiters/HR? The direct manager? The data is also 6 years old, and times have changed. It does not even address network connections, which is increasingly important today. </p>
<p>And who is doing the ranking? Recruiters/HR? The direct manager?</p>
<p>Monkeys, it’s all done by monkeys.</p>