Tag Archives: Job Search

Preparing for The Placement Exchange

09 Monday Jan 2017

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A Brief Message from your Sponsor

Hello friends,

It has been a while since I have been active and there are many personal and professional reasons for absence. However, I believe that the past several weeks have rekindled my dedication for providing my perspective and reflection in written format. Enough about me. Let’s get to my thoughts!

The Real Content

There are several graduate assistants who are taking the plunge and job searching at Southern Illinois University Carbondale. The department spent a portion of our spring refresher training/onboarding drawing on the knowledge of the department to assist in giving an overview of what the job search, most specifically The Placement Exchange (TPE), looks like from our collective experiences. I have written previously bout my experience at TPE, but a new post might be worth it.

Below is a list about TPE that stems from my experience. There is 100% chance that you are not me and it is possible that some of the advice I give is not applicable to you. That’s okay. I do not have all the answers and know that you can fill my knowledge/experience gaps with your own awesome talent(s).

Before You Arrive:

  • MONEY: Just a couple of the costs are registration, hotel, travel, food while there
  • Hidden Costs: “Professional” clothing is the standard at TPE as well as business cards, thank you notes, and other potential branding costs
  • Prepare in Advance: Do your research on institutions before you arrive to TPE. Depending on your schedule, you may not have time to prepare before an interview. Furthermore, it would be better to use that time to prepare for your second round interviews instead.
  • Set time to yourself early: You may want to interview for all the jobs, but there is a high probability you will starve yourself if you do not take a lunch break. Build time for you in your TPE calendar. This is also applicable to scheduling back to back interviews.

 

When You Are There:

  • Arrive to the city early: I arrived with only 30 minutes until the first Orientation, thinking that a hotel check in would be easy . . . it was not and it never is.
  • Traveling during TPE: You are in a city with hundreds of additional candidates as well as early arrivals for the NASPA conference immediately after TPE. That coffee shop nearest the conference center is going to take more time out of your morning than originally thought
  • SLEEP: Do not forget to do this. Yes, it is stressful and you need to prepare for the interviews, but the lethargy you feel the next day while waiting 45 minutes for a coffee is not worth it
  • Expect the unexpected: Did I expect that the button on my brand new suit was going to pop off? No. Did I expect to wait 45 minutes for a burger diner? Definitely not.

 

After You Leave:

  • Do not stop applying to jobs! You may have had a great interview with X school, but that does not mean X school will hire you. If you follow TPE on Twitter, employers may continue to post new positions on the portal as well.
  • Prepare for the possibility of an on campus interview, if you have not done so already. Do you have reliable transportation? A coworker/friend willing to take you to the airport? Furthermore, you are likely to get the call about an on-campus interview at a terribly inconvenient time. I received my first call as I was in the middle of Orientation.

Final Thoughts

You will be surprised: No matter how much you prepare for this experience something will still happen that throws you for a loop. I was given a compliment during an interview once and I was completely thrown off my game after that. You might find a position that looks FANTASTIC, but then you get to the interview and the aspects you were excited about do not shine through. It is the nature of job searching, especially far and wide.

What advice do you have for your peers? Add a comment with what worked well for you!

E-portfolios, blogs, and websites! Oh my!

21 Thursday Apr 2016

Posted by in Education, Higher Education, Student Affairs

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So… You want to build an e-portfolio, blog, or a website? There are ample different reasons why one may want to create one of these (perhaps extra credit for a capstone level course?). This post is a combination of reflection, instruction, and resource curation. I have built this website/e-portfolio and will draw upon my own experience to highlight tips, tricks, and hardships. I will do my best to inform you about options and not just use my own experience. So here it goes!

Why?

Why do you want an e-portfolio, blog, or website? Before playing around with WordPress or Google Sites one should know what their ultimate goal is. Is the goal to demonstrate growth and learning over the course of a program? To show employers a set of skills that would be beneficial to their organization?  It can even be as simple as publishing stories, thoughts, and reflections unrelated to the any of these options.

Find your “why” before you move on.

What do I show the world?

What is a website if there is nothing on it? If the “why” is determined then the “what” is evident. For example, my fellow Kent State peers, for a bonus Case Studies assignment, must include the following:

  • Homepage
  • About Me
  • Resume
  • Plan of study Overview
  • Philosophy of Student Affairs (an assignment!)*
  • Professional Development Plan (An assignment!)*
  • “Artifacts” such as our syllabi and examples of our work.

If you are not a Kent Stater thinking about bonus points, craft your own philosophy for your field or self.

If you are create a e-portfolio for future employment, it may be good to have demonstrations of your work as well. For example, I curate my presentations from class and work on my website.

*Note: See Embedded under Resume in this post for tips on making your assignments more visible.

Where do I store all this stuff?

I personally recommend using programs such as One Drive, Google Drive, or Drop Box. On many of these sites you can have immediate access to your content from any computer if you needed to update it or post it. Being mobile can be pretty important, especially if you are a travel blogger.

For example, I use Google Drive because I am most familiar with it. I created an e Portfolio folder where I upload nearly all of my content such as a PDF copy of my resume (which has an auto-update feature), allows me to create links to copies of this material, and I can control the privacy (ex: only people with the link can see).

I do not recommend using an organizational account’s built in shared drive features though. For example, I attempted to use One Drive to share documents with persons, but the default setting was to only allow those who had an organizational account to view it. If the site is for external viewers this would be very unhelpful…

Selecting a platform

There are so many options for how to build your e-portfolio, website, or blog. Here are some examples: wordpress.com; google.sites; wikispaces.com; weebly.com; wix.com; shutterfly.com; squarespace.com; and more. Most of these options have the ability to create a “free” website; these typically have an ending such as  “yoursite.wordpress.com.”

This may be the time to decide if you want to purchase your own domain. I think that I paid about $25 for two years of service for http://www.studentaffairsshane.com so they are not particularly expensive. I would recommend considering a domain purchase if you intend to use the website regularly and after its original purpose (in the case of you who are here to get extra credit!).

Confession: I use WordPress.com and do not know very much about some of the other platforms. However, there are ample forums, videos, and people out there who can help if you have a problem or cannot figure something out. It took me at least three hours to figure out how to create the tabs at the top of my website because WordPress calls them “menus” instead.

IMPORTANT

Once you have selected a platform mess around with it first. I originally started on another site, but switched to WordPress because I was frustrated by the other one. I could not figure out how to do anything. I was stubborn and did not follow any of my own advice and look for answers, but I have learned the error of my ways.

Let’s Talk about Content

Mission, Vision, and Values

Kent State readers have created this in some fashion or form via assignments for class such as our philosophy of student affairs, but it is also pretty important to be concise. For my Everything eLearning course I was required to create a Mission, Vision, and Values that were concise and easy to understand. I chose to make them pretty pictures because a website that is entirely text is TERRIBLY BORING. Also, I am linking some content from this course to this post if you are interested in concisely telling people what you’re all about.

Rubric for the assignment here.

Mission, Vision & Values Statements  by Sasha Thackaberry

Resume

If you are job searching you definitely want your resume on your site, but what is the best way to do it?

Visual Resumes

Visual resumes are graphic representations of your experience and can be done in a wide variety of ways. The example below is one from Phil Rathosky, a 2015 graduate from the Kent State Higher Education Administration and Student Personnel graduate program.

Here is a link to Phil Rathosky’s visual resume (Pages 4-6 from his portfolio). And don’t forget to check him out on LinkedIn!

Here is a link to a visual resume by Paul Gordon Brown

PDF Links

It is really easy to “link” things on most platforms. If you check out my own resume page you will see that I have a hyperlink that will lead you to a PDF copy of my resume stored on Google Drive. This is the simplest way to ensure information is on your page, but what if you want people to actually “see” your resume on the webpage?

Embedded

Scribd is a tool where users can upload documents such as papers, resumes, etc. and then embed them on web pages. It will create a box that will display your paper as a visitor to your site is looking at it. This is great for a resume, because it reduces a visitor’s (or employer’s) work by one click. Depending on your platform, this option may be built in.

Presentations

Do you give presentations for class? How about work? Wouldn’t it be great if all of those presentations that show how awesome you are were in one place? Guess what? They can be! Utilizing Slideshare makes it easy to to curate all of your presentations. Just upload them and create a separate pages for each presentation organizing them all under the same menu or tab.
Keep in mind that putting your presentations on the internet makes them viewable by people from across the world and that people will view them. My conference presentation has over 300 views on Slideshare, for instance.

To blog or not to blog?

As you can tell I attempt to blog. I choose topics relevant to my interests in student affairs or just interesting in general and write my thoughts about them and their implications. I am probably not the best example of what I blogger ought to be, but I am dedicated to blogging even if it takes me a while to find my voice.

Message

Do you have a brand, theme, or interest? Similar to finding your “why” for building a website it is important to know what you want to say and to create a clear, consistent message. My current blogging scope of student affairs is far too large, but I am in the process of discovery and finding my niche. Ideally, you know what you want to write, but if you are like me and are constantly in a process of self-discovery then it is okay to use your site/blog as a way to find your voice.

Consistency

I fully admit that I do not model this in no way, shape, or form, but ideally a blog should be published regularly. I know that I have no room to talk, but I recommend publishing weekly. It will keep you engaged with the site as well as your readers (maybe you will even have a following).

Content

When I say blogging, I do not necessarily mean that you identify a topic, perform research, check facts, and then write five pages APA. Although some of your content can be scholarly and contribute to a field, it can also be fun or reflective. For example, I try to attend conferences regularly and have developed “Conference Contemplations” as a way to reflect on my own learning after getting some professional development.

Some other ideas include interviewing awesome people and posting summaries of interviews, creating and posting infographics, telling stories, and much more!

WordPress Specific Stuff

So, I created a brief video to highlight how easy it is to create/edit pages and blogs in WordPress.com. Please view the video here. As of 9:27 AM EST, it was processing the video and may take a couple minutes, but check back later. If you have any issues, please let me know via the below contact info.

Thanks for reading! If you have any specific questions – feel free to reach out to me via email at studentaffairsshane@gmail.com or Tweet me @ShaneYoung15

Conference Contemplations [TPE & NASPA 2016]

31 Thursday Mar 2016

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Conference

Over the past month I had my own version of March Madness; instead of basketball mine was filled with professional development and job searching. From Wednesday the 9th to Wednesday the 16th I lived in a hotel room in Indianapolis as I participated in The Placement Exchange and then attended the 2016 NASPA Annual Conference. This was my first time going out of state for professional development and attending a national conference. But, as an emerging student affairs professional I have learned that no experience is complete until one has had the time for . . .  REFLECTION!

placeexchange_logo__largeThe Placement Exchange

TPE is much more terrifying in name and reputation than in person. Before on site candidate orientation I felt overwhelmed. But after I arrived and especially after my first two interviews I fell into a routine. Some other bloggers are writing longer posts including perspectives from a variety of other TPE attendees. Check @hannahetorrance  post here and @RockyTM7 post here  (and follow them on Twitter!)

What made you decide to go to TPE?

I am searching nationally and what better time was there to search nationally than right before a national conference?

Do you feel like TPE is worth it? Why/why not?

If measured only by my placement in a job then “worth it” would be pretty simple to measure, but it is never that simple. I may or may not obtain a job from the conversations I had, but I certainly met many student affairs professionals from around the country (hooray networking). I progressively got better at interviewing throughout the process. In one of my last interviews I utilized scholarly research two or three times. Fit is really important in student affairs and I most certainly had a red flag or two during my interviews. By interviewing with so many different types of institutions, I believe I am better able to identify what fits me.

NASPA2016NASPA

I was superbly impressed with the NASPA conference. My registration was seamless and the registration area looked superbly official. Every facet of the convention center had the theme and logo (except the part where there was a cheerleading competition happening on the other side of the center).  At no time would I have not known that it was a NASPA conference. My first national conference really put it into perspective for me that it was at a completely different level than anything I had ever attended before.

There were easily fifteen or more choices for each session, making it difficult for me to choose. I had two or three sessions chosen and waited until the last moment to decide. I felt there was a pretty wide variety: I attended sessions focusing on diversity, residence life, and student activities. There was a lot that I returned and shared with my colleagues at Notre Dame College. I learned about fundraising for my department’s events, a think-tank’s thoughts on learning communities, how to discuss privilege with privileged groups, and about a resilience development program for first year students amongst many other topics.

One thing that stood out to me, more than anything else, was the camaraderie of the persons at the conference. I attended the Region IV East general meeting and I felt that it was more of a family. Everyone may not have known one another, but they were willing to introduce themselves and talk to me about the beginning of my student affairs journey. I met with my first time attendee mentor and had a really good chat about my journey as well as their journey too. Writing this post reminds me that I need to reach out to them to set up some time to chat outside of the NASPA conference too! At a later social, I met with and spoke with senior student affairs officers, including NASPA board member about their journeys. It was a wonderful experience and I learned so much from a wide variety of different persons. In the midst of all these awesome happenings, I knew that I wanted to become more involved. After a successful #sasearch I want to become more involved with NASPA. I joined several knowledge communities already and hope to be more engaged with them after graduation. I am excited for this next stage of my life.

A friend and colleague of mine made a very good point in the midst of the conference. She felt refreshed and reaffirmed that her choice to go into student affairs was the correct one. Attending NASPA and meeting with dozens of student affairs professionals, seeing colleagues excitedly discussing their own contexts; it was a motivational experience itself. Despite having undergone TPE and barely slept, I too felt refreshed and reaffirmed. No matter all the discouragement from struggling to balance coursework, commuting, and assistantship I knew that I was talking the right path. I may not know what direction I am going nor my destination but it just feels right.

Conference Contemplations [OCPA Pre-Conference]

25 Monday Jan 2016

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Last week I attended the Ohio College Personnel Association (OCPA) Annual Conference held in Columbus Ohio. This is the second annual conference I have attended, but this one was very different. This time I was not solely attending the event, but had spent months planning it with professionals from all levels. I was predominantly planning and implementing the Robert A. Dubick Case Study Competition with my co-member at large. This event is an annual tradition for the conference in which teams of two graduate students compete against one another in responding to a predetermined case study.

This year I had less time to attend sessions, but even so, I felt that this conference yielded more benefit for me. I was more intentional with who I networked with, attended a pre-conference institute, and engaged more with the conference’s multiple avenues for professional development. For the purpose of reflection, I wanted to write a post about some of the sessions that I went to and what resonated with me. Maybe in my reflections you will find something of value?

Check back next Monday for Part 2!

Career Management Institute

This pre-conference is designed for graduate students and new professionals to assist them in charting their journey through student affairs. This year we had three wonderful speakers: Davin Munn, Career Counselor at Robert Morris University; Dr. Jamie S. Patton, Assistant Dean of Students at Ohio University; Dr. Mark Kretovics, Interim Dean of the College of Education, Health, and Human Services at Kent State University

David Munn spoke about creating a “battle plan” for branding ourselves and wanted to highlight the importance of discovering our strengths and weakening our weaknesses. As someone who operates a website, branding is an important part of my current job search. What resonated with me was the ten minutes of conversation that we had prior to the start of his presentation. He asked a lot of questions about me and related many of his presentation points to what I am currently doing in my graduate assistantship.

Dr. Jamie S. Patton started off the presentation in a way that flabbergasted me. He asked us our name, but he also asked us where our names came from. I will always remember this session because it started off by challenging me to think about something I had never thought about before.  Dr. Patton led the group through some self-reflection activities because in order to go forward, you might want to know where you are going first. It was a good exercise to identify what experiences and skills I currently have and which ones I need to develop or gain to get where I want to be.

Dr. Mark Kretovics is currently my instructor in a class that I was unable to attend due to OCPA duties on Thursday, so it was quite nice to hear his wise words despite my absence. Dr. Kretovics spoke to us about two ways of looking at our career paths: the planned and the unplanned route. If a plan was needed, Dr. Kretovics recommended that the job seeker know what is important to them. Does the location of the institution matter? Size? Mission? For those less interested in plans, he spoke about his own career trajectory and although the job seeker may have a destination in mind, the journey there does not need to be direct. Maybe you are like Dr. Kretovics and move to Hawaii “Because why not?” or maybe you want to know where you are going and know exactly how to get there.

See you next week for Part 2: The Annual Conference.

It’s a Grad School Life: A Chat with ACPA President Gavin Henning

21 Monday Sep 2015

Posted by in Education, Higher Education, Student Affairs

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After my morning coffee on Wednesday September 9th I had the opportunity to test out Google Hangout with American College Personnel Association president, Gavin Henning. Gavin and I spoke for about 28 minutes about some topics that I thought were relevant to graduate students. Gavin had a great many of insights that he shared and I wanted to share these with the world!

Gavin and I talked about three main topics: Future Trends in Higher Education and Grad Students, Grad Students and Professional Organization Involvement, and the Job Search and Marketing.

Future Trends in Higher Education and Grad Students

Gavin sees several trends for the future of higher education. In the next five years, he believes the financial aid process will become easier. Lamar Alexander, chair of the U.S.  Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions is working to do just that Gavin says. And it seems like it is happening. Below you will see several Tweets regarding potential changes to the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) that support Gavin’s hypothesis.

Gavin, however, did note that he does not believe that there will be a deregulation of Higher Education overall “because the current Congress, actually a lot of folks are concerned about the cost of higher education and the return on investment on taxpayer dollars. I think there will be the continued push for accountability, but I’m not sure how that process is going to look.”

Gavin is unsure of what its eventual impact will be, but believes that technology will continue to be a trend in higher education. We already do quite a lot with technology, Gavin admits. “Right now we’re able to identify students who may be at risk based on their coursework, incoming GPA and variables”, but points that there is more to come. [Students] can customize their phones and Spotify accounts; everything that they do they customize in the way they want” and higher education will need to do this. What’s the catch? We need to be able to do this without a significant stress on human resources.

Connected to the trend regarding accountability, higher education is going to need to demonstrate the return on investment for student services. There have been instances of student affairs being dismantled and relabeled as a student service under the supervision of Business and Finance. In connection with the increasing push towards accountability there needs to be an equally effective push to assessment and ensuring that student affairs can demonstrate our positive effect on retention, graduation, and persistence.

Gavin Henning also has some ideas on how graduate programs and students can begin preparing for that future he described. Odds are that graduate programs may be more likely to use the ACPA/NASPA Professional Competencies, which have been recently updated, to craft their curriculum and as competencies for the programs. “When I look back at my grad program that I was in 91-93 and all the content that I learned then is not applicable today. The theories I learned are not applicable today” Gavin admits. In the New England College program, Gavin focuses on developing skills such as critical and reflective thinking, problem solving, and team skills with his students by using content as a vehicle.

Overall, President Henning is very positive about the future of higher education and student affairs. There are some challenges ahead and the field may need to make some changes, but we are heading in the right direction.

Grad Students and Professional Organization Involvement

ACPA Logo

Networking and professional development are the two main reasons that Gavin believes graduate students should become involved in professional organizations. Gavin recalled his initial involvement in ACPA stating “When I think back to my involvement in ACPA, I got involved in order to meet assessment professionals. This was at the beginning of the assessment movement. Now I feel like I know everyone in assessment because I got connected to a few people who were connected to others.” Through his engagement with professional organizations Gavin has met many close personal and professional friends. By being involved we are making connections with people who have similar interests of know persons with similar interests. Later in the interview Gavin mentions how it can help with the job search too, so stay tuned for my next section of this post on the Search!

When it comes to professional development there is no better way to obtain and develop skills than through practical application, right? That’s what Gavin has done in his years as a professional and he is still learning today. Right now, because of the ACPA 2016 Montréal conference Gavin is learning more about First Nation people, international travel for Trans identified persons, and undocumented students and professionals. In his work as a commission chair, Gavin has developed skills in motivating volunteers, and coordinating difficult schedules (five time zones!).

Ultimately, President Henning recommends that graduate students and their mentors or supervisors have the conversation about professional development and plan for how to become involved. The supervisors have a lot of knowledge just waiting to be shared with someone, but maybe they need a catalyst- an eager graduate student asking “What opportunities exist here?” And do not forget the impact of technology too! On the ACPA website, there are ample resources for professionals across the country that can be used to find other ways to become involved, even if it is just as a volunteer at a national conference.

Job Search and Marketing

job search image

Brandi Hoffman, a colleague of mine and another student in my program, gets credit for this question, but I was intensely curious about being split between different interests when job searching. I know that I have passions for a lot of different function areas (See the header image on my website? That’s a VERY narrow list) and I always struggle wondering if I have to pick one when I do my upcoming search. Gavin was 100% supporting of applying for multiple functional areas, but with one caveat: you have to have passion! “If you’re passionate about Residence Life it will show through when you apply for Residence Life jobs. But if you’re not passionate about Academic Advising and you apply to Academic Advising jobs- it won’t come through” Gavin explains.

I knew some of what Gavin was going to say due to having a collateral assignment in Career Services last year, but he spoke about the need of new professionals and graduate students to customize their application materials.  Gavin’s advises to make sure that each cover letter and resume is designed to complement the type of position one is applying for. Even deeper, he would recommend adding another level of customization based on the institution. If you have experience in an area, such as living learning communities, and the institution has a focus on those then it would be a good way to demonstrate that you would be a good fit. If the institution has different strengths- try to find ways to demonstrate that you have similar or complementary abilities and skills.

Gavin had recently spoken to his graduate students about the job search so it was fresh on his mind! He advises that graduate students find ways to differentiate themselves from other candidates. Blogging, being active on Twitter, doing an extra practicum, or helping with a research project, and otherwise creating content that can be shared with the world and potential employers.

Other advice that Gavin has for those about to or already engaged in the job search included being willing to go out of your geographic comfort zone. Narrowing your search area too much can be negative because you could experience a lot of competition in a densely college populated area or missing out on great opportunities elsewhere. He advises us to remember that our first job is not the one we are going to have for the rest of our lives, but maybe three to five years at the most. Once the first job is over, there is nothing to bar a professional from returning to their roots.

It is also possible that we may not find a job, but we should not let that defeat us. Gavin details his frustrations in his job search in his blog post From Serendipity to Intentionality in Student Learning, but he had a backup plan. He was going to work at J. Crew as a manger and there is nothing wrong with that. If his goal was to get into higher education, he would have to have found ways to continue his skill development in the meantime to ensure success in his next search process. What does that look like? Well, involvement in professional development organizations is one way or even taking additional classes.

The last piece of the job search puzzle is networking! Knowing someone may not get guarantee you an interview or a job, but the more people you know, the more you can learn about a job that you are interested in. Having these connections will help getting to know the institution one is applying for a lot easier than any Google search. Networking now also helps prepare for the future. Gavin’s recommendation for moving into the mid and senior level position is connected to who you know and who might recommend you to their hiring manager or supervisor when a job becomes available. I personally think these are good things to keep in mind for the future!

Overall I had a lot of fun speaking with Gavin Henning about lots of topics that graduate students might be interested. It was a wonderful opportunity for me professionally to help spread the wise words awesome and successful student affairs professionals! You can definitely look forward to me interview more student affairs professionals and sharing their insights! Thanks for reading!

A full transcript of my interview with Gavin can be found here.