Career Success

Career Success

Students often struggle to enter the workforce in today’s competitive job market.

Career Success gives students the confidence and skills they need to persist in the job hunt. The online course builds students’ job search skill set while showing that academic success is a stepping-stone to a rewarding career.

Effective Preparation

Career Success is a online course that teaches students to apply their skills to the job market. The course covers the whole job search, from writing a résumé and interviewing, to negotiating an offer and arriving for the first days on the job.

Career Success underlines the importance of thinking realistically and professionally, so that all students can maximize their potential.

Advantages

Career Success is an efficient, cost-effective tool for setting student sights on the horizon.

The course covers these key content areas:

• Effective job search methods
• Writing a professional resume
• The art of the interview
• Negotiating the job offer
• First days on the new job

Effective Job Search Methods

Finding a new job requires persistence, patience, and sustained focus.

The job search can take longer than new job seekers expect, leading to feelings of disillusionment and hopelessness. Finding a new job doesn’t typically happen overnight, and it requires a coordinated effort of multiple approaches.

Stay Hungry

Students see how to:

• Identify what they really want and go after jobs that can provide that.
• Build a strong network that leverages existing contacts as well as creates new ones.
• Build a web presence that says the right things about the job seeker and is not potentially embarrassing.
• Use all avenues—traditional, online, and social—to find a job.

Realism

Beginning job seekers often expect more than is reasonable. They don’t want to have to change any aspect of who they are to suit employers. They want employers to cater to them. Job seekers need to be more realistic and grounded to be professionally successful.

Stay Grounded

Students see how to:

• Set realistic and achievable job search goals that don’t create unnecessary job search goals.
• Match their own expectations to what employers need and expect.
• Separate what they need right now in a job from what they might simply want to have.

Professionalism

Many beginning job seekers do not realize that professionalism in behavior and appearance are requirements. They resent having to curtail their own individuality to suit employers. They don’t understand that these standards exist in part to separate the serious job seekers from those who are not serious enough.

Maintain Standards

Students see how to:

• Create a consistent and strong professional persona.
• Maintain that professional persona throughout every part of the job search process.
• Build professional character and reputation through how they act during the negotiation phase and in their first days on the new job.

Writing a Professional Resume

Beginning job seekers often struggle to represent their talents, skills, and achievements in a resume. They don’t model the resume to their needs and the needs of each new employer. They try to get by with a one-resume-fits-all approach that might not showcase their abilities to best advantage.

Write Targeted Resumes

Students see how to:

• Choose the type of resume that best showcases who they are and what they can do.
• Match their resumes to what employers want and need.
• Honestly present their skills and achievements in the best light.
• Create a professional resume document and cover letter that will get the right kind of attention.

The Art of the Interview

Interviews can be daunting for any job seeker. New job seekers often struggle to recognize the appropriate etiquette and how to dress and present themselves at interviews. They also often fail to recognize the enormous influence the attitude they project has on how successful they are in interviews.

Interview to Win

Students see how to:

• Recognize the different types of interviews they can expect to encounter.
• Follow the established rules of interview etiquette.
• Project an attitude to employers that shows they are a solution to problems, not problems themselves.
• Dress and present themselves appropriately.