September 13, 2023 - Jobs Guide

Jobs guide Fall 2023

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ORIGINAL TEXT BY:

Ela Jalil

Sam Jane

Lauren Bentley

Natalie Weger

Ilana Williams

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where to find Jobs and Internships

By Ela Jalil

The semester has just begun and students already have a lot to juggle. Between classes, extracurriculars and social life, it can be daunting to add another thing to the list, especially if it’s an internship. But internships are an integral part of your college experience–a time where you can build your professional skills and help guide your career path.

According to the University of Maryland Career Center, 75 percent of respondents from a 2022 graduation survey participated in at least one internship during their time at this university. It’s never too early to start thinking about internships. Erica Ely, the assistant director of career education at this university’s career center, offers some advice to students at this university on internship best practices.

Reflect on what your internship goals are

The first thing that you should do on your internship journey is to figure out what you are looking for. Do you want an in-person or remote position? What employers would you like to consider? Is there a specific location you’re interested in? These are just a few important questions you should ask yourself to narrow your search, according to Ely.

visit the career center

This university’s career center offers drop-by and appointment services for resume reviews and mock interviews. It also provides workshops on career topics and employer information sessions. The center’s website also offers career building modules for students during their internship searches, according to Ely.

“If somebody’s nervous about starting the process, then I would say immediately come into the career center,” Ely said. “We will help ease those nerves.”

Check your school’s advising centers

The majority of colleges on campus offer career advising services, which include resources students within the college can utilize. Check if your college sends out a listserv of internship opportunities, and visit the career advisor in your academic program to get targeted advice for your major. Some colleges offer services separate from this university’s career center, and these resources can be found on your colleges website.

Download handshake

Handshake launched this summer as this university’s new online platform for career man-

agement, marking a switch from Careers4Terps. Handshake provides students with access to thousands of internship and job postings students can sort through. Students can also follow their favorite employers to stay up-to-date on job listings or events.

go to career fairs

This university’s career center will hold their semesterly career fair from Sept. 26-28 in Stamp Student Union. The career fair’s first two days will be dedicated to STEM majors, while the final day is open to all majors. Students should also keep an eye out for career fairs held by their respective colleges, Ely said.

some words of advice

Ely suggests that if students are using ChatGPT or any other AI tool, they follow some best practices with their usage. She noted employers have told her many cover letters have started to look identical because they were clearly written with an AI tool.

“Put your own stamp on it,” Ely said. “Use [AI] as a tool, but don’t just submit whatever it spits out to you.”

Mckeldin mall on Sept. 4, 2023. (taneen momeni/the diamondback)

A Q&A with the University of Maryland Career Center

By Sam Jane | Staffwriter

How effective is the career center with helping students make connections and find jobs?

What is networking?

Powell: At its simplest, networking is connecting with other people. It’s being curious about who folks are, asking new questions to learn more about who they are as a person, maybe what they do as a profession, maybe their professional journey or career.

It’s an opportunity for the student to do the same. Share a little bit about who you are, what your interests or your journey may have been. And then find mutual points of connection.

How can students start to network?

Ely: It begins in the classroom and challenging yourself to go to professors’ office hours to get to know their background or their research. There’s also ways through the University Career Center that helps students with networking.

What is the best advice for students who are hesitant to reach out and unsure of how to network?

Powell: Start where you are, networking can happen anywhere. Find the space where you have comfort. Meeting with academic advisors, you’re doing networking there, the same with your faculty. So the skills that you practice in everyday life can be translated when you start to think about your career.

Powell: Each year we do a survey called our “First Destination Graduation Survey,” where we ask graduating students – bachelor’s students, in particular – to share with us their career outcomes. So six months post graduation, we collect data on where students have done.

For the class of 2021, we knew that 95% of those who responded to our survey were in place or employed.

How can undergraduate students begin to make important job connections?

Powell: Just staying curious. Any and everyone has a story to tell. You don’t have to be limited by your major – simply being curious and exploring and asking questions.

What’s the most common interview question students mess up?

Ely: Anticipate a question like “Tell me about yourself?” That is usually going to be an introductory way for the interview to start. What students can do is use the job description as a template of some of the things that they want to bring up about themselves. If that job description is talking a lot about customer service and working with people, the student should ahead of the interview be thinking about some sample stories of where they were working with the general public, maybe they dealt with a difficult customer or some success stories with customers.

Since there are so many students at this university, how does the center go about individualizing students?

Powell: The reality is there are a lot of students with lots of different career interests, so we try to be pretty intentional in thinking about program offerings to represent a wide diversity of student interests. We’ve been really intentional about distributing members of our staff – we call them program directors – out into the schools and colleges, and so we have staff who set up the University Career Center in CMNS or in ARHU or in the School of Public Health or in AGNR.

Can the career center help format resumes?

Ely: On our website we have information about resumes. Also on YouTube we have some videos that were created about resume formatting. We have some self-paced online modules.

After they create their best effort resume, they can stop by our drop in hours on Monday through Friday, from [10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. according to the Career Center website]. They can meet with one of our undergraduate peer educators just to get it reviewed or a student can also schedule an appointment.

How should students approach an interview?

Powell: Interviews are an opportunity to share who you are, your experiences and your skills with an employer as it relates to what it is that they are seeking. So the process really is about practicing how to best articulate your career narrative in a way that aligns with what your potential employer is saying that they are looking for.

Photo via PEXELS

Allynn Powell is the University of Maryland Career Center’s director. Erica Ely is the career center’s assistant director.

What employers are looking for on your resume

By Lauren Bentley | Staffwriter

When starting a job search, it’s important to demonstrate your skills and highlight your experience to potential employers. Considering the average employer spends about seven seconds looking at a resume, making a good impression in a brief time period is crucial.

Many have trouble with building a brief yet effective resume, and its specifics can depend on what an employer is looking for as they often skim for keywords, skills or experience.

Your resume should ultimately be a marketing tool for you; it shows the employer why you’re right for the job. So, here are some tips to make your resume stand out.

First, it’s important to establish one thing that employers never want to see on your resume. A good first step is ensuring your writing is free of errors. Grammatical errors might be worrisome to future employers, but they are also easily avoidable.

Now, for what employers are actually looking for.

Make sure you have a summary at the top of the page. According to Harvard Business Review, the first 15-20 words are important because of how quickly employers review resumes.

The summary should demonstrate skills relevant to your employers. Then, that top paragraph gives you the chance to expand upon any relevant experience or special skills.

Another important step is being brief and selective. There are many different accomplishments and skills you might be tempted to add. However, writing all these things is actually against your best interest.

The experience you list on your resume needs to convince your potential employer to hire you. If it’s not going to do that, your employer will have to scan through things that are irrelevant to the hiring process.

Furthermore, make sure you list specific accomplishments when describing previous job experiences and not just tasks you had to perform.

Employers will be impressed by problem solving skills and how you grew within other companies.

Make sure the content is simple and readable. If you need more than one page, that is generally fine, especially if you have a lot of experience. Although, it is probably best not to go past two pages.

A simple font and basic layout is also the best option so a hiring manager can quickly read through what they find interesting and relevant.

Asking for a second opinion on your resume is always a good idea, especially since it can be hard to prioritize your own accomplishments and experience while remaining objective. Getting a little bit of help with organization could also be a step towards improvement.

Paying attention to the small details on your resume can truly help you stand out from other applicants and grab the attention of employers.

Here are some easy, yet effective tips to stand out during your job search.

Here’s what it’s like to work at some on-campus jobs at UMD

By Natalie Weger and Ilana Williams

Pay for hourly wage jobs for undergraduate students at the University of Maryland ranged from $12.50 per hour to $25 an hour, according to 2022 student wage records acquired by The Diamondback. Students work in different departments across this university, including at Eppley Recreation Center, The Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center and in department offices, among others. Here’s what some on-campus jobs look like.

Eppley Recreation Center

Facilities Worker

North Campus facilities staff at Eppley Recreation Center are the first faces people usually see when entering the building. These staff provide customer service, enforce admission policies and manage equipment, according to University Recreation and Wellness.

Junior microbiology major Makenzie Hopkins was a part of Eppley’s North Campus facilities staff, and her starting pay was $15.40 per hour. She said staff members work at least two shifts per week. Week shifts are two and a half hours long and weekend shifts are about four hours, Hopkins said.

“It’s just nice to work with people and work on my communication skills and customer service skills,” Hopkins said.

There are not many drawbacks to this position besides transportation and balancing it with other responsibilities, Hopkins said.

The Clarice ticket office representative

As a ticket office representative, students take count of everyone who walks into the Clarice and help usher for various events. This job was paid $13 per hour in 2022.

Sometimes, the Clarice can be quiet, but when there’s an event, ushers have the opportunity to sit in for the performances and experience the performing arts community, said Manny Fitsum, a senior kinesiology major.

“You might have some moments where there’ll be a big rush, a big crowd, but like almost everyone’s got your back,” Fitsum said. “Some of the best conversations I’ve had have been after going through a huge rush.”

When it comes to ushering events, the schedule is flexible, Fitsum said. A lot of shifts are dependent on what shows are available.

“It keeps [the job] interesting,” Fitsum said. “You don’t know what you’re going to work, you don’t know what it entails.”

Ushering an event at the Clarice is about hospitality and making people feel welcome, Fitsum said. It’s what someone would expect at any other performance arts hall.

Lizzy Blake, a senior operations management and business analytics and information systems major, was a ticket office representative at the Clarice. She also provided customer service for the people who enter the building.

Blake took a semester off for marching band and said her boss was welcoming when she wanted to work at the Clarice the following semester.

When asked what stands out about working at the Clarice, Blake said, “just the incredible community… we all kind of look out for each other.”

Student peer advisors at the behavioral and social sciences college

Student peer advisors who work at the Feller Center at the behavioral and social science college act as a mediator between students and advisors in the college. They work to understand and simplify problems students are looking to solve and translate that to advisors. This job paid $13 per hour in 2022.

Students often come in after or at the end of scheduling deadlines and need an appointment, which is difficult because advisors don’t always make exceptions, according to Steven Meadows, a senior psychology major.

“It’s definitely challenging at times,” Meadows said. “You have to deal with a lot of different student issues.”

If students come in three or four days past a deadline, senior peer advisors, like Meadows, have to figure out what the student can do if they can’t meet with an advisor.

“But on the flip side, it can be very rewarding,” Meadows said. “It’s nice to see that I am making a difference and helping students.”

As a student peer advisor, it’s very informative as a student to know how to register for classes and learn how to schedule classes for an academic plan, Nana Buachie, a junior psychology major, said.

Buachie also says the advising job has other benefits, like the ability to build connections.

“Being aware of all the advisors and the input they have in terms of [these majors is] a pretty good benefit,” Buachie said. “I work … closely to the people that I would need help with regardless of whether I worked here or not.”

Eppley Recreation Center

Personal Trainers

Eppley Recreation Center personal trainers provide coaching and exercise programs to individuals and small groups. They usually work about five to eight hours per week. Personal trainers for individuals make a starting pay of $21.75 per session and small group personal trainers make a starting pay of $25.25 per session, according to RecWell.

To qualify for the position, you must have a personal training certification from an NCCA-accredited organization, the ability to obtain a CPR and First Aid certification and the ability to lift 45 pounds, according to RecWell.

When senior kinesiology major and personal trainer Caroline Macdonald got a client, she created a schedule to meet the clients goals based on their fitness level.

Senior information systems major Manoel Fangmo, a personal trainer at Eppley, took his clients through a warm-up routine, lifting session, high intensity interval training workout and cool down stretch. The routine usually takes an hour, he said.

Working as an Eppley personal trainer is enlightening, Fangmo said. Fangmo has been lifting weights for eight years and said fitness has transformed his life.

“Not only are you sharing knowledge with your clients, you also learn a lot from them. And you learn how to talk to people, how to motivate people and how to be there for people,” Fangmo said.

Macdonald has experience in physical therapy and high-level strength conditioning. She trains clients who may have a specialized need, such as a problem with their overhead motion or a gait pattern.

“I really enjoy doing this,” Macdonald said. “Those benefits of being able to help people and them reaching their goals and gaining confidence is really rewarding.”

Terpzone -

JOBS ADVICE POLL

Where do you work on campus?

mvklochkova

The library -

saintcatissima

I’m a peer mentor! - Eppley -

camilllelc

The Clarice -

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Terps esports -

avokaito

ericaaaaxo

CommonsBig Ten Plus -

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4work -

beatrizwarnes

charfreedberg

Department of IT -

mia.yke

History department -

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The Terrapin -

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What advice do you have for students who want to work on campus?

Theres a job board on DBK; ask around the beginning of the semesters; and ask your friends -

Being a CA is the best job ever if you’re also living on campus - zoe.eveline

blencoco715 - viennacnguyen

Apply as early as possible!!

Work at eppley - _melissabitting

Instagram is a huge resource for finding open positions! -

gabriellehester

Find something that has hours that work for you. Don’t get forced into a situation that isn’t ideal just for cash -

jaartz

Keep applying - mia.yke

Drive that bus!! - lucywess3