Winter Expo Surprises: Health Care, Real Estate, and Research

January 17, 2012

With 70+ organizations registered for this Wednesday’s Winter Career Expo it can be hard to sort through all the amazing opportunities. Follow along as we feature some of Expo’s hidden gems: organizations that might surprise you, unexpected positions and more…

If you’ve been to a career fair before you know it’s pretty easy to find the banking, consulting and retail organizations.  Tomorrow’s Expo includes some career fields that might surprise you:

Health Care
Cardinal Health is a global, dynamic Fortune 19 healthcare services and whole sale distribution company. We think of ourselves as the business behind healthcare because we focus on making it more cost-effective. We work with pharmacies, hospitals, doctor’s offices, surgery centers and clinical labs—basically anywhere healthcare services are offered. We offer internship and full-time employment opportunities across the organization.

CONMED Corporation is a global medical technology company that specializes in the development and sale of products and services that allow our physician customers to deliver high quality care and as a result, enhanced clinical outcomes for their patients. ConMed Patient Care will be hiring an Associate Territory Manager (ATM) for Michigan.

Real Estate
Landmark Commercial is a 22 year old commercial real estate brokerage company specializing in retail investment sales, site selection, land and property acquisition and shopping center leasing agencies.  We are going to hire a serious minded, ambitious, gregarious, entrepreneurial, tenacious individual that will work side by side with industry veterans of the highest level.
Rockwood Capital, LLC is a real estate investment firm which provides debt and equity capital combined with real estate expertise to select value-add office, residential, retail, hotel, and data center opportunities in key markets throughout the United States. Rockwood Capital is recruiting for internships

Research
Ben Venue Laboratories, Inc. was founded in 1938 and is a leading contract manufacturer of highly complex, sterile injectable drug products for the global pharmaceutical industry. Ben Venue Laboratories is recruiting for pharmaceutical technicians, chemists, microbiologists, production supervisors and more.

The Survey Research Center (SRC) is an international leader in interdisciplinary social science research involving the collection and analysis of data, especially data from scientific sample surveys. The SRC Summer Internship Program is a 10 week, 20 – 40 hour per week paid position for undergraduate and graduate students with an interest in social science research.

Visit the Winter Expo website for more information on all the organizations scheduled to attend.

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Posted by Sally Schueneman

Winter Expo Surprises: Environmental Organizations

January 16, 2012

With 70+ organizations registered for this Wednesday’s Winter Career Expo it can be hard to sort through all the amazing opportunities. Follow along as we feature some of Expo’s hidden gems: organizations that might surprise you, unexpected positions and more…

It’s less common to see environment-focused organizations at career fairs. This year, however, there are several new and returning environmental organizations.

Conservancy for Cuyahoga Valley National Park
A new organization to Winter Expo, the Conservancy’s mission is to engage public support for the park and enhance public use and enjoyment of the park. They are recruiting for Field Instructor-Teaching Internship (a 10-month teaching internship) and a variety of summer positions.

ENVIRON International Corp.
An international consultancy, ENVIRON works with clients to help resolve their most demanding environmental and human health issues. They are recruiting for Entry Level Associate with responsibilities that include conducting environmental assessments, evaluating environmental samples and reviewing regulatory requirements.

Clean Water Action
Since 1971, from Washington D.C. to the local level, Clean Water Action has led the fight to protect our nation’s waters.  They are recruiting for interns and full time organizers.

NSF
NSF International is an independent organization that certifies products and writes standards for food, water and consumer goods to minimize adverse health effects and protect the environment.  They are recruiting for: Certification Project Manager, Associate Toxicologist1 and Technician.

Visit the Winter Expo website for more information on all the organizations scheduled to attend.

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Posted by Sally Schueneman

Winter Expo Surprises: Non-Profit Organizations

January 12, 2012

With 70+ organizations registered for next week’s Winter Career Expo it can be hard to sort through all the amazing opportunities. Follow along as we feature some of Expo’s hidden gems: organizations that might surprise you, unexpected positions, and more…

You might think that non-profit organizations don’t attend career fairs. However, Winter Expo has 17 non-profit organizations registered to attend (almost 25%).  Here are some examples:

The Grandmont Rosedale Development Corporation
GRDC is a non-profit community organization in northwest Detroit representing a coalition of five neighborhood organizations, over 5,700 residents and 400 businesses. They are recruiting for Farmers’Market Intern, Community Security Program Intern and Vacant House Program Intern.

The Greater Flint Health Coalition
GFHC is a non-profit healthcare coalition – a true partnership between healthcare providers and purchasers, consumers and committed citizens, government leaders, insurers, educators and all those concerned about the well-being of our community and its residents.  They are recruiting for Project Managers, Health & Wellness Professionals, and Special Project positions.

Playworks
Playworks is a national nonprofit organization that supports learning by providing safe, healthy and inclusive play and physical activity to schools at recess and throughout the entire school day.  They are recruiting for coaches

Summer in the City
Summer in the City is a super fun, super flexible, super fulfilling Detroit-centric community service organization. There’s very little we won’t do for our community once we put our (and your!) minds and imaginations to it. This is the place to be for a crazy cool collectively creative Summer in the City!  We’re looking for Crew Members!

Visit the Winter Expo website for more information on all the organizations scheduled to attend.

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Posted by Sally Schueneman

Senior Struggles: Use a spreadsheet template to organize your job search

December 7, 2011

messy stack of papersFollow each week as we present step-by-step suggestions to achieve post-college success with less senior year stress.

We all know the feeling: lying awake in bed at night going over your list of worries: “when’s the deadline for that analyst job application?” “Did I remember to send in my referrals??” “I have an interview next week and I can’t even remember what the job description said!” That feeling is terrible, and once again, the best thing you can do to prevent it is to stay organized.

It seems like we’re ALWAYS telling you to stay organized, and now we’re going to show you exactly how to do that. We’ve selected a great Excel spreadsheet, downloaded free from Microsoft’s Office website, which will be extremely helpful for managing your job applications, contacts, and interviews. Use these sheets as a tool to record your job search activity and your quest for employment will seem far more manageable, giving you the confidence to be successful.

Click here to visit the download page for the helpful Job Search Log.

Photo credit: Kate Ter Haar / CC BY 2.0

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Posted by Nell Gable

Freshman Friday: Thanksgiving Break Questions

November 18, 2011

table at thanksgiving dinnerEvery Friday, we’ll be highlighting some helpful information specifically for first-year students. Today we have some tips for the Thanksgiving break. You can take a look at all the Freshman Friday posts here.

Thanksgiving break starts next week, and for some students that means a trip home to spend time with friends and family. Hopefully you’ll get in plenty of food and relaxation, but it’s likely that you’ll also be faced with answering a lot of questions from inquisitive people that you haven’t seen since the summer. If you’re at all stressed about that, here’s some suggestions on how to handle a couple different types of questions:

General questions about college

e.g. “How’s Michigan/your first semester?”

These questions aren’t too bad, but you might start to hear them over and over again. Try to keep it interesting for yourself by varying your answers, discussing things you’re passionate about. Mention your favorite class so far, and what you’re considering as a major. Or talk about the time you’ve spent exploring some student organizations. This is a great opportunity to fill people in on what you’re interested in and why — a skill that will come in handy later as you start looking for internships and jobs.

Questions about your future

e.g. “Have you decided on a major/career yet?”

Sometimes these questions are warranted, but they can be frustrating if they involve answers you haven’t had time to come up with yet. As a first-semester freshman, you’re not expected to have your major yet, or know exactly what you want to do after graduation — but that might not stop people from asking! Try to focus the conversation on what you are doing, rather than what you haven’t done yet. Talk about how you’ve narrowed down your academic or career interests, or began exploring new options since you got to campus. You might have taken a class that helped you decide not to pursue a particular major, which is also valuable knowledge.

If you’re feeling too peppered with questions, turn things around and ask some questions of your own. Chances are, they’re asking those questions out of care and concern (even if it doesn’t seem that way). By asking for advice, you’re acknowledging that concern and providing an opportunity for them to actually help you.

Photo credit: Zeetz Jones / CC BY 2.0

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Posted by Scott Tsuchiyama

Freshman Friday: Things I wish I knew as a freshman

November 11, 2011

Every Friday, we’ll be highlighting some helpful information specifically for first-year students. Today Nell, our Communications Intern and a UM senior, provides some advice she wishes she had as a first-year student. You can take a look at all the Freshman Friday posts here.
"advice" booth
I’ve had some of the best years of my life at this school, and I can’t believe how quickly the time has gone by. I remember my first night in the dorm, first time in a dining hall, first college exam, and first frat party. Now that I’m a senior, I can reflect on the things I wish I knew, or would have done differently. Here’s my list — feel free to learn from my mistakes, but be sure to make plenty of your own!

Academic and Career Planning

  • Choosing your college major doesn’t necessarily mean choosing your life’s path. As you grow as a person, your interests and goals will change, and that’s ok. Study something that interests you, and figure out how to apply the skills you acquire to a career.
  • Don’t put off taking the classes you’re dreading. I dreaded Statistics, so I waited until I was a junior to take the class which is required for my major. By that time, I had lost most of my (minimal) math skills from high school, and I felt silly asking younger people for help.
  • Advising is a two-way street. Your assigned academic advisor is a great resource, however, they’re not going to come to you. We go to a huge university, so you need to be proactive in mapping out your academic plan. The same goes for career advising. Don’t wait until you’re a junior or senior to visit your advisor — go early and often.

Coursework and (Social-)Life

  • Sleep is as important as studying and shouldn’t be compromised. If I had known this as a freshman, I probably wouldn’t have spent so much time sleeping in the League,  nor would I have spent so much money on Redbull. 7 hours of sleep a night, you can do it.
  • You should never need to pull an all-nighter. Know when your exams and papers are and plan accordingly. Sleep is essential (see above).
  • Librarians can be an amazing resource for any type of research you need to do. They WANT to help you and they are some of the friendliest people you will encounter. If you need to find a book or online source, simply find an information desk and ask for help.
  • It’s always worth keeping in touch with a good friend. Your social circle will grow as you move through school, and some friends will get pushed to the edge of that circle. Regardless of how far apart you live or how busy you are, make time for the friends who matter.

Grades

  • One bad grade won’t ruin your life. If I could go back in time and tell my younger self one thing, it would be this: chill out. Bad grades happen.
  • On the other hand, too many bad grades will ruin your GPA, and that’s hard to fix. If I could go back in time and tell some of my friends one thing, it would be this: freshman year grades matter. Some people I know are still trying to raise their GPA after a lackluster freshman year performance.

The list could go on and on, but as long as you remember that college is all about balance, you’ll have some of the best years of your life; I certainly did.

Photo credit: laughlin/CC BY 2.0

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Posted by Nell Gable

Freshman Friday: Major Decisions

November 4, 2011

fortune cookie: "Any decision you have to make tomorrow is a good decision"Every Friday, we’ll be highlighting some helpful information specifically for first-year students. Today we’re talking about selecting a major. You can take a look at all the Freshman Friday posts here.

One of the most exciting things about being a first-year student at Michigan is the 200+ areas of study that are available to you as you get closer to selecting a major. On the other hand, one of the most stressful things about being a first-year student is picking one of the 200+ areas of study that are available!

Whether you find that variety exciting or overwhelming, two things are important to remember as you consider your Winter semester courses and eventual selection of a major somewhere down the road:

1. Your major does not necessarily = your career

2. The skills developed through your coursework can provide a great foundation for many different career paths

You can (and should!) meet with an academic advisor to talk through specifics about courses, requirements, majors, etc. Try to gain a better understanding of your fit with and interest in the coursework — not just in terms of subject, but in the type of work as well. For example, are you interested in courses that are mainly based on problem solving (e.g. Economics, Physics), or courses mainly based on research and evaluation of information/evidence (e.g. History, Psychology)?

We also have a host of ‘major to career’ resources on our website, such as our career guides which list ideas of skills and potential career paths based on specific majors. And you can always make an appointment with us to talk about how your current interests might lead to a variety of different careers after graduation.

Photo credit: Aqsa Hu/CC BY 2.0

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Posted by Scott Tsuchiyama

Senior Struggles: Managing Multiple Interviews

October 26, 2011

Follow each week as we present step-by-step suggestions to achieve post-college success with less senior year stress.

Interviewing for multiple companies is great — those interviews indicate that you’re doing something right with your application! However, prepping for all of those interviews can be stressful and time consuming. Why not make your life easier in one simple step? As with many issues of stress in the job search, organization can make the feeling feel manageable.

Prepping for an interview is like studying for an exam on yourself, and all of your past experiences. You’ll need to have a firm understanding of your past successes, failures, and achievements (both academic and work-related), and how they have provided you skills, and shaped your work ethic and future goals. First, take a look at some preparation resources organized by interview format (behavioral interviews are the most common). Then, create a word document where you type out sample questions and write your answer, with a supporting example. Examples will show interviewers that you are the real deal — try using the STAR technique to format your answers. Once you’ve covered all the basic interview questions, which you will inevitably be asked over and over again, save the document to your computer for future reference. Then, you can review the document before any future interviews as a refresher.

As always, The Career Center can offer you a host of online and in-person resources to help you prepare for you interviews. Follow these links to some helpful articles on interviewing, or schedule an appointment or mock interview at The Career Center.

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Posted by Nell Gable

Career Guides: Link your major to career options

October 25, 2011

The Career Center’s Career Guides are a succinct attempt to answer a question on many students’ minds: what can I do with my major after I graduate? As it turns out, the answer is “quite a lot.” The guides list the primary skills developed by students in each concentration and then link those skills to actual careers undertaken by UM alumni and others in the field. They deliberately list both entry-level jobs that students may find immediately after graduation, as well as mid-career jobs that UM alumni hold 10 to 20 years after graduation. And they contain a number of possible next steps for students to get started building their skills and their community.

The guides’ intended audience is first and second year students (and their parents) debating which major to select, among choices like Linguistics, Anthropology or Psychology. The guides are also a tool for junior and senior students who have already chosen their concentration, and who are now looking ahead to life after graduation.

Our Communications Specialist, Kirsten Herold, recently completed a full-scale revision of more than forty Career Guides, some of which had not been revised in a number of years. Here are some of her interesting thoughts and tidbits after completing the project:

Changes in the field:
“The really interesting thing about the revision was how much some fields have changed in ten or so years,” says Kirsten. “It was not surprising that, say, Computer Science has changed. Ten years ago, no one thought about mobile app development as a serious area of study. But even a discipline like History is extremely different now. The previous guide described the study of fixed objects and landmark events in the past. Today’s guide captures a discipline much more concerned with the way we ourselves construct and reconstruct our historical past.”

Changes to departments, new majors:
“Then there were other changes: Some departments had moved, others had changed their name, in some cases multiple times. And there were some obvious gaps – either because a program had not developed a guide in the first place, or because of new majors that did not exist back then. International Studies and Informatics are two examples of new concentrations that draw large number of students, which didn’t even exist ten years ago.”

How education at UM has changed:
“So if I can just make a few huge generalizations based on this survey of forty-some of our most popular majors, I would say that in the last ten years study at the UM has become a lot more interdisciplinary, a lot more technologically driven, a lot more experiential, a lot more international, and a lot more exciting, frankly. Over and over again, as I worked on a guide, I found myself thinking, ‘wow, I would love to major in THAT!’”

You can grab any of the career guides on our website, or make an appointment with a career coach to help consider how your major might impact your career. And a big thank you to Kirsten, for helping us revise the guides to their new and improved form!

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Posted by Scott Tsuchiyama

What you love may be the key…

April 13, 2011

Photo of LOVE, a sculpture by Robert Indiana.We’re in an era where there are less and less completely pre-determined “career paths.”  For the most part, people don’t leave college and work for just one company for 45 years straight. The constellation of companies and opportunities is constantly shifting. This can feel both liberating and a bit scary.

Whether you find this a little worry-inducing or instead, exciting, it’s critical to think about the ways in which the things you already love and are passionate about may end up being exactly those things that differentiate you as you move into your future.

This is not just some idealistic cliche about “following your bliss.” If your bliss is eating Doritos and laying on the couch, then I’m not sure you can use that to your advantage in your job hunt. However, I think that most of us have things that we find intriguing, fascinating, even — and those things continue to motivate and engage us whether they are “officially” related to the domain of our career area or not.

Do you tend to notice things that others don’t?  Are you somewhat of a techie or a political junkie? Is the evolution of crafting or the local-food movement something that you can’t imagine not being a part of your life? As you move into your career, these things may give you clues to your direction as well as helping you build a wider set of skills.

This interview with Jessica Hische (creator of  the “Should I Work for Free” flowchart and “Mom, this is how Twitter works.”) touches upon how her passion for design isn’t only used in work for clients.

In fact, she mentions that it was precisely this drive to work on her own personal projects that really benefitted her in acquiring a high number of large clients:

Once I started doing these self-authored projects, everyone kind of knew who I was because of them…the biggest thing that has helped me… has just been creating personal work.

Anyone who’s anyone that’s under 30 or under 40…is where they are because they made that personal piece or self-authored project that just got spread everywhere on the internet. I think those projects are so important because client work only says so much about what you’re interested in and what you want to do…the work that you do personally really says a lot about your personality and how committed you are to your craft.

If you’re doing this stuff for fun, too, it automatically says ‘I am obsessed with what I am doing.”

What are the things that you will always do, whether on-the-clock or off? Take a quick inventory of those activities or interests that get you particularly passionate, and keep doing them.  You never know where those skills and interests could be just the right thing to differentiate you from the rest of your peers.

Photo credit: jmscottIMD/CC BY 2.0

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Posted by mcherem

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