Monday 27 April 2015

Internship Work Experience - The Benefits of Summer Internships

High school students are usually focused on sports, studying, and spending time with friends. They often do not think of obtaining summer work experience within their desired career field. This is a mistake, because summer internships can give a high school student an advantage later in life.
The benefits of summer internships are many and this structured opportunity to explore different careers can be priceless. Students can intern in areas that correspond with their academic and personal interests. They will learn how to communicate on a professional level, something that they are not exposed to in most high school environments. They will also learn how to work on a team, while at the same time having individual responsibilities. This builds interpersonal skills and a sense of accountability, two things necessary to succeed in life.
During the experience, the student will sometimes network and build contacts within the industry. They may also engage in a mentor relationship with a senior level employee. This allows them to learn from someone who is successful in the business, so they can see what it takes to achieve this status. Some of the lessons learned during this type of work experience are intangible, but they are no less important.
Internship work experience provides a high school student with the opportunity to gain skills relevant to the job and industry within which he or she wants to work in later years. Finding summer internships is not difficult, requiring only that students make inquiries in the high school guidance office, local government facilities, and companies within the area. Many employers would love the chance to show an intelligent young person the ropes within their operations.
Not all of the positions will be paid summer internships, but these do exist. Some larger companies and government agencies will pay minimum wage or a bit more to high schoolers who work for them over the summer. Unpaid opportunities are often more common, especially at the high school level. Though some of these jobs entail administrative work, they also provide the student with an opportunity to view a typical day in the workplace.
Starting summer internship while in high school will provide the student with an opportunity to explore several different career options. After doing this for a few summers, the student may discover a dream career. The work experience will look good on the students resume and the additional interpersonal and teamwork skills can help in other aspects of the student's life, including school.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/4714776

Friday 24 April 2015

Student Resumes Tips

Often you come across several resume writing tips. Most tips are generic and do not relate to every profile. The resume tips given to experienced candidates will always be different from the ones given to entry level candidates as there is a vast difference between the career profiles of both candidates. Hence the format of designing student resumes will be different from the usual format. Also, same is the case with resume website; the emphasis would be on highlighting the skills and capacities of student. Here are a few tips to create your own student resume website.

• Write a strong objective for the student resume. Include details of your career plans and how you will benefit the organization. Portray a strong career ambition and show signs that you are capable of achieving it.
• Highlight educational qualifications and skills more prominently than experience. As a student it is not expected for you to boast any experience. Hence, you can afford to keep this section small as long as you stress on your education and abilities.

• In resumes for students, experience will consist of internships, project work, voluntary work or summer jobs details. Try to put in as much details of your experience as possible.

• Maintain an order of objective, key skills, educational qualifications, certification, internship and work experience. It is ideal to put experience details in later part.

• While writing responsibilities, explain each duty in light of your prospective career. Try to give an impression that you have handled similar responsibilities in the past. Emphasize on how you used your communication and organizational skills in your previous jobs.

• Hobbies and extracurricular activities too, play an influential role in a student resume. It portrays the qualities of leadership, team spirit, cooperation of the candidate. Hence, mention details of the competition and events you participated during your student days.

• While proofreading your resume, think from your perspective and later from an employer's point of view. Analyze as a job seeker, if you have done justice to your qualifications and expectations. On the other hand, study your resume to find out what the resume offers to the recruiter. Make sure it matches with the job description/ eligibility criteria given in the advertisement.

Saturday 4 April 2015

Top 5 Interviewing Mistakes

There are a number of mistakes that inexperienced (and experienced, for that matter) interviewees make. Listed below in no particular order are the top five that I have encountered while conducting first-round, on-campus recruiting. They have risen to the top because of their impact on my decision to place someone into the "no" pile and their frequency of occurrence.
1. Poorly Organized Resume
The first thing to keep in mind is that I am a busy person and that when I am entering the interviewing room, your information will probably not be fresh in my mind. Don't make it hard for me to find the relevant information by having a poorly organized resume. Most resumes are full of useless words and irrelevant facts which hide the data you want me to see: your strengths, your character, and your intellectual capacity.
2. Bad Breath Effect
First impressions are key. If you are not well-dressed, have a weak handshake, don't wear socks, show up late, are too casual, are rude or impolite, or, yes, have bad breath, you will make a bad first impression. I simply do not know you well enough to know whether this is a rarity or your normal character. I may very well assume it is the latter.
3. Not Answering the Question
If I am hiring you for an entry-level role in my firm, I need to know that you can follow instructions and do what you are told. Leadership skills and creative thought are important, but before you will ever get a chance to show me these traits, you will have to prove that you can do the little things well. How do I judge whether you can do this? The best way is to ask you a specific question, then see if you answer only what I ask. Beware: if I ask you what your greatest strength and greatest weakness are, I only want one of each. If you think you are impressing me by giving me three or four strengths, you have just shot yourself in the foot.
4. Rambling
You should practice answering short, fact-based responses to questions. A lot of times when people get nervous, they tend to drone on and on. Blabbers are poor team players and high maintenance employees. I will rarely ask a question that needs more than a one minute response. A question such as, "Tell me about your summer internship," is not an opportunity to go into excruciating detail. It is a general question and should be met with a general response. I will ask a follow-up question if I want to drill down in a particular area.
5. Not Knowing Yourself Cold
You must be able to defend every word on your resume and every statement you say in your interview. Little loses my interest in a candidate faster than when she is not able to back up what she wrote on her resume. If you say you are fluent in Spanish, you better be prepared to conduct your interview in that language. If you mention a research project that you did during college, you better be able to articulate what you did and what your conclusions were. If you include a computer skill on your resume, you better be able to demonstrate some level of proficiency in it.

 
Bonus: The #1 Must Have
Here is the number one "must" that I look for in first-time job seekers when determining if I am willing to take a chance on them. This might seem obvious, but if you dismiss it as such, you will miss the point. Your resume, cover letter and responses during your interview should reinforce the following point:
I AM INTERESTED IN WORKING IN YOUR PARTICULAR INDUSTRY!
How do you do this? It is quite simple: give me multiple examples of things you have done that show me that you are interested in the type of work that I do. Direct work experience is great, but related research or academic experience can be equally as good.
Happy job hunting! It is never too early to start adding a little shine to your interviewing skills.