All Posts Tagged With: "Campus Jobs"

How to make the most out of internships and placements

Savannah River Site/Flickr

I worked at least a dozen summer jobs and internships before landing a full-time job, so suffice it to say I’ve learned a few things about squeezing the most out of these fleeting experiences. I’ve also seen a whir of students come and go and noticed too many unwittingly break the unwritten office rules. Since these jobs are crucial for launching careers, I thought I’d share what I learned. Follow these seven rules to make the most out of your summer placement.

7. Cover up

Few bosses would point out inappropriate clothing, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t making mental notes about your choices. Men shouldn’t wear jeans or shorts on any day except casual Friday. For women, things are tougher, but the most common mistake is showing too much skin: open-toed shoes are out, mini-dresses are not approved and low-cut tops are frowned upon.

6. Don’t be late—ever

Sometimes traffic is bad, sometimes Starbucks has a long line and some days the boss herself saunters in at 9:45. It doesn’t matter; you need to be there at 9 a.m. sharp. Even after a true emergency (let’s say your apartment floods—this happened to a colleague) don’t just show up with soggy pants at 10:30. Call your boss so she can re-assign your work and not worry for your safety.

5. Keep that smart-phone hidden

Work time belongs to work, even if you’re an unpaid intern (I know right?). That means you shouldn’t be caught updating your status, Tweeting or having long text message conversations.

4. Don’t be afraid to ask for help

Bosses may assume you know how to do something unless you tell them otherwise. Although you should try to be resourceful and figure things out on your own, sometimes you just need to ask. It’s better to look dumb in front of your boss than to make her look dumb in front of clients.

3. Be sure to find a mentor

You may be passed around from project to project and boss to boss. While it’s great to meet plenty of new people, make sure at least one person gets to know you well. You will need that person to vouch for you when you’re asked for a reference. You also want them to think of you when a position opens up. I got my job because an editor with whom I worked closely recommended me.

2. Ask your boss for feedback

Go to your bosses before the summer is over and ask for constructive criticism. Tell them you want the truth, even if it hurts. You may be surprised by what you’re doing wrong. I certainly was.

1. Make sure to ask for what you want

I’ve seen interns come and go. The few who got hired full-time were those who made clear what they wanted to contribute. Consider Emma Teitel. While most interns would offer story ideas at our weekly meetings and then sit and wait, Teitel dared to propose opinion columns, something most interns feel too inexperienced to write. The bravery paid off. She was hired as a columnist.

Working for ‘exposure’ is sometimes a raw deal

marfis75/Flickr

Like so many other starry-eyed hopefuls, I started a band in my freshman year.

Starved for music venues and promoters that would give us the time of day, we naively agreed to play a show for a production company. These were the terms we accepted: the band was responsible for selling tickets to the “showcase” concert at $10 a piece. Twenty or so artists were crammed onto the same bill and asked to compete against each other for the most ticket sales. The incentive? Set times (both length and placement) would be determined by which band sold the most tickets. It was unpaid. In exchange for our trouble, we were promised only exposure .

Continue reading When to say no to unpaid gigs

Largest growth in Nfld., N.S. and Sask.

Statistics Canada says average weekly earnings of non-farm payroll employees rose to $909 in October, up 0.9 per cent from September.

On a year-over-year basis, earnings were up 2.8 per cent. That reflected a number of factors, including wage growth and changes in the composition of employment by industry as well as the average number of hours worked.

The average number of weekly hours worked in October was 33.2 — up from 33.1 in September and 33.0 in October 2011.

Accommodation and food services, construction, retail trade and public administration all saw year-over-year growth above the national average.

For example, average weekly earnings in accommodation and food services totalled $372 in October, up 5.8 per cent from the same month last year.

Average weekly earnings were higher in every province, but the largest wage growth was in Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia and Saskatchewan.

Students: Be proactive and prepare for The Hunger Games

(Photo: Johan Larsson on Flickr)

William Johnson is coordinator, off-campus outreach and engagement at Carleton University in Ottawa, Ont. where he’s responsible for event management, student engagement and communications.

When I speak to students about career development and social media, I want them to take away that they need to be proactive if they want to increase their chances of post-graduate career success. In 2012, there are far too many university graduates annually for current students to put off thinking about their post-grad life until the day after their convocation. If you want to make a smooth transition from pupil to professional, you must constantly be seeking ways to set yourself apart from the cohort.

1. Realize you’re still a hot commodity

You need to recover the pride and excitement you had when you were first accepted to university. While recent public sentiment might suggest that the degree is losing its value, there are over 600,000 more jobs for graduates in May 2012 than pre-2008 recession (a sharp increase in employment prospects). Despite this increase, employers are still paying individuals with degrees premium wages, according to Statistics Canada and the Boudarat, Lemieux and Riddell study. A university degree may not be for everyone, but higher employability and income can almost certainly be the result for everyone obtaining one.

Continue reading Six steps for cultivating a career in the digital age

Plus a top recruiter’s advice on how to stand out

A chocolate cake. A tea set. A Lego mosaic. These are just a few of the stand-out job applications that have landed on the desks of recruiters at Vancouver-based social media company HootSuite.

Applying for a new job is daunting. Throw in a dour economy and a lacklustre job market and it’s enough to make any recent grad want to throw in the towel. To get the attention of some of the most popular companies out there, it takes creativity, says Ambrosia Humphrey, HootSuite’s director of human resources. The cake, the tea set and the Lego mosaic “showed that the candidates were thinking outside of the box,” she says, “and all of those positions called for something like that.”

Not every company will appreciate a Lego mosaic, but that’s where Humphrey’s other advice comes into play. “Not tailoring your application is the biggest mistake we come across,” she says, adding, “when someone has just changed the title of the position and company, we can tell.”

Humphrey says it’s important to do your homework. Find out what the employer is looking for and make sure your application addresses that. For example, a video producer might create a video resume. “We get a lot of these,” she says. They can perfectly show off a video producer’s skills. Starting a social media campaign to apply for a social media role makes sense too.

But be careful. Make sure creative additions are backed up with research and experience. Otherwise, it can come across as gimmicky, says Humphrey. “Tell me what problem you’re going to solve for my company or tell me how you’re going to add value to the position you’re applying for.”

Here are five creative applications that impressed Humphrey with her comments on each:

Ontario and Quebec schools well-regarded by recruiters

Engineering students at the University of Toronto (Jessica Darmanin)

There’s a new piece of information to consider when applying to universities. A survey of 2,500 recruiters in 20 countries has found the 150 schools with the “most employable graduates.”

British and U.S. universities dominate, while only seven Canadian schools made the list. All of the Canadian entries are in Ontario and Quebec, despite the fact that western Canada’s schools fared well in the 2013 Maclean’s University Rankings. The University of British Columbia, for example, came second in the Maclean’s Medical Doctoral ranking but didn’t register here.

With that noted, here are the seven Canadian universities that made the 2012 Global Employability ranking, a list by from French firm Emerging and German pollster Trendence:

24. University of Toronto (3rd in Maclean’s Medical Doctoral ranking)
Continue reading Seven Canadian universities on “most employable” list