Meghan Welcome went to college on a soccer scholarship and graduated with good grades. Her one regret, she said, is not doing an internship, even two, as an undergrad, and not spending more time in her college’s career planning office.
“Being proactive is important,” said Welcome, a former recruiter who is now the Director of Internship for Northwestern Mutual. Besides the many interns the company hires each year, Welcome said Northwestern Mutual hires between 10 and 15 full-time entry-level staff annually.
“You should know your career service people,” she said. “I do a lot of work with them and those career service people, they know the employers.”
One of the career services people Welcome works with is Jennifer Landon, Career Consultant at the UNH Manchester Internship & Career Planning Center. Her office, located at 88 Commercial Street, room 119, is open Monday through Friday at 9 a.m. Walk-in services are available on Tuesdays and Wednesday from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Whether students are looking for help choosing the right graduate school, applying for their first job out of college, or just general career advice, Landon has the resources, knowledge and connections to point students in the right direction.
“In my perfect world, every student will have some kind of an offer letter in their hand, whether it’s for a job or grad school, or a year of service, prior to receiving their diploma in the mail,” said Landon. “There is so much talk about return on investment of a college degree, I want to make sure students are making informed decisions about where they want to go and what they want to do.”
Jeremiah King, a recent UNH Manchester graduate in psychology, landed a job building websites for clients in the energy industry before he graduated. He said he turned to the Internship & Career Planning Center for help after his own job search turned up nothing.
“I didn’t make much progress until I reached out to career planning services. As much as I’m comfortable about what I know, there’s so much I would have never gotten from attending class,” said King. “They've got so many connections. Even getting me one phone call closer to an employer, that’s not something I can do myself.”
When Landon talks to prospective students, incoming freshmen and parents, she emphasizes the importance of coming into the Internship and Career Planning Center before the second semester of senior year. Landon said students benefit when they research the jobs that are out there and how the skills they’re gaining at school can be applied to a career. Doing informational interviews is a great way to do this, Landon said, and if possible a job shadow. This way, students can hear first-hand the pros and cons each career path offers, and get advice from people already working in the industry, she said.
Internships are another key factor in career planning, Landon said. Many UNH Manchester students plan to do an internship, either as a part of a class or as a capstone project, but for those who are still deciding, Landon said they should start looking now.
“Practical experience is the resume candy employers are looking for,” said Landon.
Welcome agreed that internships are a great experience for students, supplying not only experience, but also letting students test out a job and a company to see if it is the right fit. Students who do internships also have higher retention rates at companies, making them more attractive to employers, said Welcome.
Once students see what’s out there, Landon said can they begin job hunting. This isn’t just resume building and online job searches, though.
“They learn how to read a job description, to extract key words from a job description and how to incorporate those into their resume,” said Landon. “I tell them you have 8½ by 11 inches to get an employer to want to talk to you.”
Welcome said she looks at hundreds of resumes and cover letters each year and agreed it’s important to fine tune the documents before handing them over to an employer.
“I can’t tell you how many times someone sends a cover letter and they never changed the name of the employer from the last job,” said Welcome. “You really need to slow down before you apply.” Learn about the company and come up with a short list of questions before coming in to the interview, she added. “I like to see them show they are thinking about this seriously. With very few people I see that, both full-time and internship applicants.”
King said it was little tips like this that helped give him an edge over other applicants.
“It might be such a minute detail, but it might be something the hiring manager looked at and put my resume in the keep pile instead of the throwaway pile,” said King.
