Beyond The Classroom: The Career Development Center’s Job Hunting Seminar #1
Going to graduate school to only take classes is a waste of time and money. When choosing where to continue your educational career, the best thing you can do is choose a graduate program that will give you opportunities beyond the classroom. Lucky for you, Newhouse is bursting with opportunities— which can sometimes feel overwhelming.
The Newhouse Career Development Center has seminars to show you how to easily take advantage of those opportunities, starting with their three Job Hunting Seminars. I’ll be talking about the first seminar in this post to give you an idea of how Newhouse can prepare you for the most daunting part of graduation: the ensuing job hunt.
The first session of the Job Hunting Seminar is for those who have no idea where to start, those who have done it in the past in a different field, or those who could use tips to further strengthen their skills. The CDC provides a booklet with dynamic exercises that they will guide you through during the seminar so you can do them on your own when looking at job opportunities. They’ll also discuss industry quirks, like when hiring usually occurs and what is required to land a communications job. I do want to make a disclaimer that if you’re a seasoned communications professional who has been in the workforce before, some of this information might be repetitive and not as useful for you.
I found the exercises you do during the seminar were especially helpful for those of us who are career changers. It might be hard to identify why a recruiter in communications would hire you if you have a STEM background, for example. The CDC can help you analyze what skills you bring to the table from another field that could translate into a great hire for a communications recruiter.
Although they ask you to budget an hour and a half for the session, it really takes about an hour and they manage to cram a lot of useful information in that timeframe. Afterward, the CDC makes itself available to answer questions. If there’s one thing the CDC is great at, it’s making itself accessible. The session also goes over multiple online resources that Newhouse makes available to students to help them connect with recruiters, including CareerShift. They’ll also give you some tips on how to maximize LinkedIn in other ways that aren’t through your profile.
As someone who often updates her resume and has worked with the CDC before to perfect it, a lot of the information they gave on resumes, I already knew. I found the most useful part of the session to be their breakdown on how to perfect your elevator pitch. Elevator pitches are perhaps the worst thing to ever be invented in job recruiting, but it is what it is and they are incredibly important. During the seminar, the CDC makes elevator pitches seem like a breeze and provide some great insight on how to build one. I may have already known a lot of what they shared, but if you’ve never given an elevator pitch, this will be a crucial part of the seminar. I wish they had given us live feedback on our pitches right then and there, but I understand that for the sake of time they cannot. The CDC did say they are happy to set up a time to work with you separately on your elevator pitch, which is helpful!
So, for those of us who have been in the workforce already before coming to graduate school, or who have been to similar seminars at other institutions, all the information won’t be new and maybe you can skip this one. However, if you’re a career changer, this seminar will be beneficial because you’ll understand how this new and daunting industry works. If you’ve never looked for a job, this seminar is a must-do. If you’re still on the fence, I’ll give you one solid reason for anyone to take advantage of it. Once you take the first two, seminars, you’ll be given access to The Newhouse Network. The Newhouse Network is a place to connect with our alumni, which is arguably one of the biggest assets Newhouse has. This could be a gateway toward a solid professional connection, an internship, or even a full-time job. So, if there’s one thing you can get out of this seminar, it’s The Newhouse Network and I highly encourage you do go after it.
