While about a third of graduating students go directly to graduate or professional schools, most of the rest are beginning — or beginning a search for — gainful employment.
The University’s Career Center is making every effort to ensure students have that right job waiting for them upon earning their degrees.
The first step was to reach out to as many students as possible who could benefit from the resources offered. To that end, in fall 2004, The Career Center opened its operations to all students on campus. Previously, the center catered to just Arts & Sciences students.
Then in March 2005, the center merged operations with the Engineering Career Center. The Career Center still maintains a presence in Lopata Hall with a number of career counselors and other advisers there.
“As a result of the merger, the engineering students have all the resources they had before, plus more,” said Mark W. Smith, assistant vice chancellor and director of The Career Center. “For example, we merged our two job banks, so now students only have to go to one place.
“All the programs of The Career Center — ‘Road Shows,’ career networking receptions — are open to engineering students.”
Another area will soon follow engineering’s lead: Architecture, which has a part-time adviser, also will join forces with The Career Center this summer. But undergraduate and graduate students from all schools are using the center in greater numbers than ever before.
Two years ago, the center booked about 1,400 advising appointments.
Last year, it was about 1,800. And this year? It’s doubled and then some, with more than 4,000 appointments either already taken place or scheduled.
“We have been very aggressive about marketing our services to students and trying to get them to use them,” Smith said. “We’re still collecting the placement numbers, but we should have pretty good numbers by graduation.
“We will then continue to follow up with students and grads over the summer.”
By visiting The Career Center either in person or via the Web site, students can find out how to get more information on a four-year career plan, individual career advising, career-development workshops and events, internship and full-time job resources, graduate school resources, transitional program resources, career peer advisers, the career library, recommendation files, career assessment and a list of Internet resources, among others.
On the Web site, there is a link to a calendar of scheduled workshops and events to help students build skills, explore interests, connect with employers and start job, co-op or internship searches.
“We have completely revised all of our programs and handouts,” Smith said. “We are focused on doing as much individual advising as possible and developing relationships with students during their searches.
“Last year, we started ‘Job Search Teams.’ They are groups of about 10-15 students who meet once a week to work on their job searches. They serve as support groups, places to share ideas and contacts, and as mechanisms to keep students focused on their searches. We have about 10 Job Search Teams this year and about five Internship Search Teams.”
Other new services include a spring career fair.
This year, the first year of the fair, saw 100 employers and about 1,000 students attend.
Also popular are the Road Shows, which feature the center taking 10-15 students to a city. Typically the students will first have dinner with some young alums, and the next day they will visit 5-6 employers.
An alum or someone else at the company will tell the students about what they do and how they hire employees.
The next day, The Career Center sets up actual or practice interviews for the students who participate. In 2003-04, the center had one Road Show.
In 2004-05, three. But since January 2005, the office has organized eight Road Shows.
“We added a New York Road Show for seniors in the spring of 2005,” Smith said. “Then we added three programs for seniors in the fall of 2005: a New York program, a Chicago program and a Washington, D.C., program.
The Chicago program contained two tracks: one for engineers and one for other students. This spring, the center did four Road Shows for sophomores and juniors with a focus on internship opportunities. New York and Washington, D.C., shows were in January, and Chicago and Los Angeles were in February.
As a result of the Road Shows, several students have landed high-quality internships for the upcoming summer.
Similar to the Chicago program, the New York program consisted of two tracks: one for finance and business opportunities and one for publishing and communications opportunities.
In addition to organizing Road Shows, The Career Center also hosted four student- and alumni- networking receptions over winter break and early in the spring semester in Chicago, Washington, D.C., New York and Los Angeles.
This summer, networking events will again take place in these four cities.
The receptions offer an opportunity for current students, recent graduates and alumni to meet and share ideas.
The Career Center is located in Umrath Hall, Room 157, and is open Monday-Friday, 8:30 a.m.-5 p.m.
For more information, go online to careers.wustl.edu or call 935-5930.