The Career Center – CHECK IT OUT

Whether you are about to graduate in May 2012 or in any other semester, one year or three years from now, you
should get to know and love the Career Center. You might as well consider it your home away from home. It’s already November, and as much as I’d like to tell you “don’t worry – things will work themselves out,” that would be a pure lie. You have to make an effort (welcome to the real world), and the Career Center will make the process of looking for a job, future, career or internship so much easier. It seems early, but this is the time to start applying for graduate programs, summer internships, and careers. That lovely office in the B. Jones Center can help students in a variety of ways:
 
Explore your interests.
The Career Center offers a “test” that will help you find your strengths and where your interests lie. And, if you
cannot spend the $30 on the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (the personality questionnaire designed to reveal your personality strengths and individual “type”) then simply meeting with your counselor will help you begin to formulate ideas about where to begin looking for a future career path. The center also offers:
Strong Interest Inventory (SII): evaluates how your interests match up with career men and women who are already successfully employed.
 
Motivated Skills Sort Exercise: identifies your proficiency and motivation in 48 transferable skills areas.
 
Career Values Sort Exercise: shows how you prioritize your values.
 
All these exercises and questionnaires will give you an idea of the kind of career and/or academic path that best suits you.
 
Discover potential academic paths.
The career counselors are trained professionals with vast knowledge. There are different counselors that
specialize in advising students in their particular major. You can look up the career counselors for each major on the Career Center website. So, if you’re looking for more information on pre-law, pre-med, or pre-grad schools, take a trip to the B. Jones Center! Each counselor has open “office hours” when they’re available even if you don’t have an appointment! I can’t stress enough – even if you think you know everything there is to know about pre-whatever, you do not. The counselors at the Career Center have helped students for years, and they’re bound to know about more opportunities than you could ever comprehend inside your smarty-pants, teacher’s-pet Emory brain.
 
Check out the online opportunities.
Even if you can’t make it to the Career Center until a later date, you can check out the website (see above). The site offers information for pre-everything, students looking for on-campus and/or off-campus job opportunities. Not to mention, there are sample cover letters, resumes, and interview questions. You can access Eagle Ops through the Career Center Website. This resource is a job opportunity-laden gold mine, from babysitting gigs to on-campus jobs (both work study and non-work study) to paralegal listings at nearby Atlanta firms.
 
Schedule a mock interview.
If you’re about to interview for med-school or even a job, make an appointment with the Career Center for a
mock interview. You can make all appointments online with a professional advisor, corporate representative, or career counselor.
 
Learn about career fairs.
The Career Center sponsors and organizes fairs throughout the year for various professional fields. Check out the website to see what’s coming up this month and GO!
 
Become a networking guru.
So what if you don’t have “connections?” The Career Center does. If you express your interest to your career
counselor, they will be more than happy – in fact they’ll probably feel elated – to put you in touch with an Emory alumni who can guide you in your future endeavors…. Maybe even help you land a job!
 
Learn to love the workshops.
From resume building to networking skills, the Career Center does it ALL. Again, check out the website’s calendar to find out about the coming-up workshops and panel discussions.
 
Peruse the resource library.
As soon as you make your first visit, you’ll realize the books, magazines, journals, and directories available (for free) to students. It’s almost like looking through a J. Crew catalogue… you get to “shop” for your career by major, location, or industry. The center also offers Internet access, computers, fax, and copy machines in case you want to send information you find to your email or make a copy of the pages in the magazines and books you peruse.
 
I can’t stress enough the importance of utilizing the Emory Career Center. We definitely take this resource for granted. I fully realize that the B. Jones Center is one heck of a trek to reach on foot… all the way across the quad?! (Sarcasm Collegiettes™, sarcasm.)
 
Sometimes students think they know exactly what they want for themselves and their future, but it’s most likely true that these students have a very narrow understanding of the options available to them. The Career Center offers new ideas for you to think about in terms of your career and/or post-graduate studies. In any case, what’s the harm? If you go and find that you already “knew that stuff,” then at least you know and will never wonder how your life could have been different, more adventurous, or massively more marvelous if you’d just gone to the Career Center ONCE. You might as well try it out. The services are FREE, after all, and these FREE services may just make you a million times more successful in your years after Emory.