It’s that time of the year again when all the what-am-I-going-to-do-with-my-life stressed seniors start to re-evaluate their past four years in college and think about what they should be doing with their futures. The process of finding a job can seem unbearably overwhelming, but with networking workshops, resume and cover letter samples and mock interviews, the Career Center has every resource students need to succeed in the real world.

Ask Ruth Prochnow, the Career and Internship Counselor who has worked at DU for 16 years. Besides seeing students of all ages and disciplines on a weekly basis, Prochnow’s side job is helping give seniors peace of mind.
“Senior year is one of the toughest times of your life. Everything up to this point has been fairly structured for what is normal. It is pretty logical to be a student up until you are 22, but all of a sudden it’s like, ‘wow here it is,’” said Prochnow. “Things are not laid out for you anymore like they used to be and it can be extremely overwhelming and scary, but it’s just that psychological ploy of re-framing and thinking of how exciting this next phase is.”

The Career Center is booked up for the next few weeks, busy meeting with eager freshmen and stressed seniors, but Prochnow says that networking is what this process is all about and there are so many resources to help students assess what they want to do and how they will obtain their goals.

“You’re all so skilled at doing research papers and… this is a huge research project and it’s your future,” said Prochnow.

Prochnow offers her expertise on the resume, the cover letter, the informational interview and the follow-up procedure.

The Resume

“The key thing you are always asking when you are putting your resume together is what will make me more marketable for this internship or for this job,” said Prochnow.

The resume should include contact information, a career objective, education, experience, accomplishments and references.

“I have had a lot of employers tell me they love to see that [students] have worked in a restaurant because they too have worked in a restaurant and they know how amazingly complex it can be in terms of keeping people happy and multi-tasking, or for students who have worked in retail,” said Prochnow. “We’ve all done those kinds of jobs and those jobs have provided us with a foundation of transferable skills.”

According to Prochnow, experience is not just what job someone has had. It includes internships, volunteering and service learning because that work is just as valuable.

The meticulousness of the font and the header in a resume might seem tedious; however, they do matter.
“You want things to literally jump out at the person reading it. It’s not always just about the content, but also the formatting because it could be incredible information but might be buried within the page. People look at a lot of resumes so you want them to see the key points,” said Prochnow.

Keeping it simple by avoiding overuse of bolding and italics and utilizing the white space of the page is recommended. The Career Center loves to look at student’s resumes and help critique them. Students can go online or make an appointment with any of the members in the Career Center. They also has office hours everyday of the week for an hour called “Quick Questions.” The times are posted online at their website.

The Cover Letter

The cover letter’s main purpose is to peak the readers interest. According to Prochnow, the cover letter is much more subjective, rather than objective like the resume. The subjectivity allows employers to see the real candidate and thus can work to one’s advantage.

The first paragraph of a cover letter is the attention grabber. Prochnow suggests making it stand out and to emphasize your career objective, what you are looking for and what you can bring to the table.

“Using a quote by what someone else has said about you, or a quote of something that seems relevant to what you are looking for and what you will be doing in that internship or job are ways to stand out,” said Prochnow.

The second paragraph leads to the sales pitch and can be one or two paragraphs but Prochnow recommends avoiding “I” sentences, especially at the beginning of a paragraph.

“In the sales pitch, letting them see a subjective side and to be more passionate as to who you are as a person and why you would be the best candidate for whatever you are going for,” said Prochnow. “If you look at job and internship descriptions you can look at the language and try and use that so they can see who you are.”

Info Interviews

The DU Pioneer Network is a network of more than 1800 people, including alums and friends of DU who have offered to get together with students to do informational interviews both in person and on the phone, nationally and internationally. These informational interviews allow students to get advice from current employers, network themselves and to gain a better understanding of the job they are considering.

To access the Pioneer Center Network, students log onto DU Pioneer Careers with their DU ID and Web Central Password. Students then email one of the 1,800 members and introduce themselves and ask to meet with them to get information about their job.

This network is not intended to be a lead for a job or internship but for advice about a job. It’s meant to help students identify what jobs they might want in the future and to talk to someone in the field.

According to Prochnow, this is the most underutilized resource of the Career Center.

“I think that doing the informational interview not only helps you recognize a career, but here it is, this person giving you incredible information, sharing what they like, the challenges, the suggestions and sharing their career paths,” said Prochnow. “It really puts students at ease to hear people’s stories.”

Interview

As for the real interview, Prochnow tells students to watch their body language and to dress for success.
“I really stress for students to do a mock interview where they are videotaped because as high as 80-90 percent of our communication is through our body language and often student’s will be surprised to see how tense they look or to see themselves doing some distracting gesture with their hands,” said Prochnow.

Dressing for success is key to an interview but Prochnow suggests dressing in a way that is most comfortable for the candidate, so they feel authentic.

Prochnow suggested suits for men but they shouldn’t feel like they have to just wear black or navy suits, they should wear something they are comfortable in.

According to Prochnow, if you are a woman, being traditional but adding your own flare, like a skirt or a colorful blouse with jewelry adds some color and personality.

Follow-up

After interviews, a follow-up is the best way to make sure the employer received everything and shows a responsibility and interest in the job or internship.

According to Prochnow, the best way to follow-up is with a handwritten note rather than an email.

“It not only shows you are a very kind, considerate person, but maybe there is something you want to add,” said Prochnow. “Thank you’s are so important and you don’t want to miss an opportunity because of something that might have happened with an email or because something fell between the crack. It could even be a test of theirs to see how interested you really are.”

The Career Center offers three Career and Internship Fairs every year. The next one is coming up on Feb. 20.
“The future is in good hands with you guys, I’m pleased to see what our students care about and what they are willing to do,” said Prochnow.