Starting this thing called "Career-Building"
30 Sep 2021
One piece of paper. One ticket for financial stability (hopefully).
Working toward a degree in college, the end game or end goal (aside from the unique experience of higher learning, of course) is to be hired for a good job, to lead you towards a good career – one that pays well, has nice benefits, has a pleasant work environment, has work that you’d want to do, and/or has you work with people who you’d want to work with. I feel like there are two factors to this: (1) applying for places to hire you, and (2) being prepared for places to hire you.
A potential employer, a potential employee. Trying to find a suitable fit.
To even obtain a job, you’d most likely need to apply – an employer is unlikely to reach out to you on their own, out of the blue. But, it can be difficult to know what employers are hiring or how to apply to them. It can also be difficult to find employers with entry-level positions that are a good fit for you (and likewise, positions where you’d be a good fit for them). For me, one of the biggest requirements is that I want to live and work on Oahu, here in Hawaii. People with experience in my field will often tell me that there are few opportunities for computer science / computer engineering majors here. At school, I was often advised to “keep my mind open” (which is, in fact, good advice that I don’t dispute); meanwhile, I didn’t receive much direction for finding those job opportunities here, other than that I’d have to keep an ear out or hear by word of mouth.
In my early years of college, I would often try to search for computer jobs in Hawaii through Google searches, just to see what’s out there. This didn’t give many results. In my later years of college, I had the confidence to try attending some of the College of Engineering’s Career Fairs, to try talking with local employers. I learned of many opportunities that I hadn’t known of before. Recently, I have also been told that LinkedIn is very helpful for professional networking, too.
If colleges could have a go-to website or something similar, where students could view and learn more about recommended employers in their fields, especially if there’s a filter option for localities (whether here or other home-states of students). The list of employers, filtered by engineering major, that the College of Engineering emails to students around Career Fair time is a great start, I feel. In fact, I found it sufficient for quite a while. The only reason I mention a “website or something similar” now is because I’ve recently caught wind of RadGrad, a project which is being worked on to aid students’ career pathway-building and help connect them to opportunities in their fields (ex. research project groups, competitions, community outreach programs).
“Opportunities”. A big word, a lovely idea, but where do we find them, and what are they good for?
On the topic of job-seeking as a college student/graduate, while finding places to hire you is one major concern, another major concern is being prepared for places to hire you. This is in terms of resume-building and interview preparedness, for example. They both involve a measure of communication skills, acquiring experiences that show great character-building and/or are relevant to your field, and demonstrating technical knowhow and interest related to your field.
For these, it can be difficult to know where to start. It can be daunting to try to find out. As a college student, especially around campus, you might hear of opportunities and events related to your field, but it’s still difficult to know what would be a good investment of your time, and time is something you won’t have a lot of.
RadGrad is a good example of an informational hub where students can view and read about opportunities related to their field. For example, I learned of research project groups, competitions, and other learning opportunities that I’d never heard of. I feel like these can be great for helping students build their resume of out-of-class learning and experiences.
Since RadGrad is tied to my school, it also shows my class schedule by semester so that I can schedule these opportunities throughout my time here. I think this can be a majorly helpful tool for students as long as it’s kept up-to-date in terms of the opportunities available. For example, at one point, I remember some pages on my school’s website were out-of-date, such as certain research project groups not being active anymore, and this made it difficult for students trying to find mentors to do their project credits with. I hope RadGrad helps students have better experiences.