Internships are considered the Key to Career Success.  If you look at an internship as an extended interview you will understand how important it is to maximize your internship experiece.  There are many Fox School students who will be embarking on their first, second, some even third, internship experience this summer.  Below are 4 main goals for your internship.

1. Develop new skills
   Exhibit a can do attitude.  Pass the attitude test and you are on your way to success.  Take on with enthusiasm, ANY task assigned, no matter how small.  Take the initiative to acquire new skills.  Take your assignments seriously and build a reputation for being dependable, diligent and accurate in your work.  You may encounter ambiguity in the work environment, so seek direction and ask questions.  Also, set realistic goals and expectations!  A learning agenda is what distinguishes a short-term job from an internship.  This is a critical element, often times overlooked.  Determine with your supervisor the specific skills and competencies you wish to acquire.  IT IS UP TO YOU to establish a correlation between your learning goals and daily tasks.  Maintain a journal of activities and accomplishments and seek regular reviews from your supervisor to assess your performance. 
2. Show your capabilities
   Assume that everyone knows m ore than you do, however, do not be afraid to offer useful ideas that may save time or money or solve problems.  Employers greatly value assertiveness but not aggressiveness.  Learn how to properly address colleagues and customers, and maintain a pleasant and respectful demeanor with others.  Be a team player.  Learn how your assignments fit into the grand scheme of things and keep a keen eye on getting the job done.  Success if often defined by your ability to get along with and interact with others.  You’re a winner only if your team wins in the working world.
3. Learn about the company
   Get to know co-workers early in your internship.  These colleagues will help you quickly “figure out” the culture.  Being the “new kid” is like being a freshman- you will need to adapt, observe, learn and process a large volume of information.  Watch closely how things get done, ask questions and pay attention to how people interact with eachother.  Also, get a mentor.  Identify at least one individual to serve as your mentor that is willing to take a personal interest in your professional development.  Ask other seasoned employers to share knowledge, perspectives, and insight.  Get noticed-  many more people thant you are first realize will have a role in determing your future.
4. Assess “fit” between you and the company
   Understand the company so if a full time job offer is presented to you, you can make an intelligent and well thought out decision on your fit within the organization.  Remember to take into account:
             Friendly or formal environment?
             Team based or independent working environment?
             Structured or loose culture?
             How are decisions made?
             How are employees valued?
             What types of attributes gain recognition?
             What professional development opportunites are available?
             What is the work/life balance?

There are a lot of things to think about on an internship but most importantly…have fun!

NACE, The National Association of Colleges and Employers, the governing body of many Career Services and hiring managers, has issued its newest statistics on the importance of the internship.

Following are some highlights from the 2008 NACE Experiential Education Survey:

• The percent of interns receiving full time job offers as a result of their internships increased from 56.9% in 2001 to 69.6% in 2008.
• The percent of interns converted to full time employees (those offered jobs that accepted) has increased from 35.6% in 2001 to 50.5% in 2008.
• “High-Touch” activities are rated as the most effective recruiting methods in filling internship positions and are also the most widely used.  Participating in career fairs, recruiting on campus, and getting referrals from interns lead the list of the most widely used and effective recruiting techniques.
• The paid internship is a nearly univeral practice among respondents to the survey…More than 99% of respondents reported paid internships within their organization. (This is true here at The Fox School as well.  Many of our internships pay between $15 and $23 an hour!  The national average is $16.33 per hour.)
• The most widely applied benefit for interns is the copmany-sponsored social event.  2/3 of respondents indicated underwriting such activities for their interns.
• 1 out of 2 employers provides their interns with paid holidays and 45% provide some level of relocation assistance.

As you can see from the above statistics, there is a lot of proof as to the importance of the internship and how it can lead to a full time job offer.  Remember, many employers use their internship program as their feeder for their full time college hiring.  For these employers it is difficult to be hired out of college, if you dont have previous internship experience at their organization! 

If you are still interested in a summer internship, check FoxNet!  We still have a lot of great internship opportunities for students interested in interning this summer.

By: Joe Norton 

In this post, I’m going to discuss the ”Resume Critique” portion of the CSPD Process… oh the terror…

Someone is going to tear apart your resume! How awful, right? they are going to tell you everything you formatted wrong, everything you worded poorly, and even tell you whole sections which need to be removed or added. Sounds terrible, right?

Actually… isn’t it exactly what you want? Don’t you want a recruiter, a professional resume reviewer, to critically analyze your resume and make it as good as it can possibly be? Of Course!

When I went to CSPD to get my resume critiqued I was alittle nervous but I also had the feeling I was going to do pretty good. I had worked hard on my resume and it’s subsequent re-writes and I was sure that I had honed this draft down to a science.

I waited a few minutes before being greeted by the professional recruiter, that’s one thing you must understand - CSPD gets local recruiters of prominent corporations to come in and give up some of their expensive time to help you get a job.

It wasn’t long before we were in one of CSPD’s little offices and he was going at my resume with a red pen. Sure, it was alittle gruesome to see so many red marks you’d think he was drawing a volcanic eruption - but at the same time I knew that each of those marks was him letting me know “fix this now, or pay for it later”.

He asked me a few times to discuss things on my resume, which it should go without saying - you should be able to intelligently discuss EVERYTHING on your resume. You need to be able to discuss why you transferred, what you do in so-and-so club, how you like your boss at X job, etc. It went pretty well though, I knew that he was helping me get prepared for the interviews with corporate recruiters that would really matter - this was just practice.

The critique ended well, and I had a list of slight corrections to make to my resume. He gave me his card and told me that I was welcome to send him my further revisions of the resume to perfect it more, and he wanted me to keep him informed where I got a job.

I ended up writing him back and forth a few times, sending him revised resumes and him helping me slowly get my resume to it’s ideal state. It wasn’t more than 3 versions later when he said - that’s it. It’s perfect.

All in all, the CSPD resume critique was a great experience and I made a friend of a local HR professional.

According to THIS article on the Wall Street Journal, business casual dress is the “black hole of style.”

What was supposed to be a simple break from stuffy business suits has turned out to be difficult. Business casual is one of the least understood descriptions of business attire in the workplace and is open to interpretation at every different office or organization. It is extremely important to understand what business casual means in your office because you you and your dress will get noticed. Many think that when they see someone in their business casual wear they are actually seeing their real personality as it lends to more creativity than the normal work attire.

Here are some simple pointers:

MEN- Dressing When You Get the Job

WOMEN- Dressing When You Get the Job

The article also points out 5 simple tips:

By: Joe Norton

I already have a resume, I thought to myself, what point is there in re-doing it? I had already spent considerable time putting down all my leadership roles, athletic endeavors and past work experience. I had already had this resume reviewed by several people, including my Dad who works at one of the finance firms I was hoping to get an internship with. As far as I knew I was going to sit around during this resume seminar and twiddle my thumbs waiting for the clock to tick by.

It wasn’t until the 2nd half of the double header when I learned about the fox resume, how wrong my current resume was, and why I was having such a difficult time getting past the resume drop and into the interview.. .

Recruiters get so many resumes that they go through them just looking for the ugly ones with poor formatting and immediately sort these out of the process without glancing at the content of them. I was shooting myself in the foot by using a non-standardized format I made myself. Using the Fox Signature Resume format I would have a tried and true resume format that is visually appealing and best of all it’s streamlined and efficient in displaying all the information that goes on a resume.

All the formatting of my resume was wrong, I used like 5 lines for my name, address and contact information. I had done tabs and non-traditional spacing all over in the attempt of organizing the info my own way; I didn’t realize how poorly I utilized the space on my resume till I saw the Fox Signature Resume and noticed how it fit much more content, and still looked appealing and not blocky.

In terms of content: All of my extracurricular activities were from my high school days. To my dismay, I was told that employers don’t care that I was the captain of the football team, or that I was the student council vice president in high school . Only college stuff should go on my resume, I was told. This meant about half my resume was totally based on the wrong time period.

Do What I Did, Find SPO’s you find Interesting – I decided on joining several SPO’s so I could get some relevant extracurriculars on my resume and not look like a slacker who attends class but does nothing else “productive” with my time. Once I started going to meetings I couldn’t stop because I quickly became immersed in the organizations and even ended up becoming a webmaster for one, not long after joining. Joining SPO’s for your resume alone is a waste of time I think, fortunately many of you will find that you enjoy your organization and get the opportunity to train yourself in leadership, organization and time management (more fun than it sounds) when it comes your time to take an officer position.

All of my job experience, I learned, was poorly worded and turned off recruiters. I had to re-write all of it and throw some action verbs at the start of every bullet and re-narrow the focus in explaining my experience. I realized that I really hadn’t done myself any favors with the way I had crudely described my experience. I had written the bullets in terms of what I did for the company physically, not necessarily how I added value to the company.

It took a few re-writes – but eventually I had perfected the new format and re-worded my descriptions of past job experience and I was ready for the final stage of getting the Fox Signature Resume complete – and that was the resume critique.

Get Started on Your Fox Signature Resume with the CSPD Resume Guide.
The following samples should be helpful in putting together your own resume:

Sample Resume - MIS Majors
Sample Resume - Marketing Majors
Sample Resume - Accounting Majors
Sample Resume - Human Resource Majors

The telephone interview or screening call is becoming more and more popular and many students will be faced with a telephone interview during their job search.  A phone interview has many advantages for both the employer and the interviewee, but some disadvantages as well.  An employer can conduct a phone interview rather quickly, the cost is less, and the list of questions can be standardized.  You will be able to keep in front of you a record of your achievements, i.e. a resume, and also a cheat sheet of some other details you would like to talk about, including the job description and information on the company.

You are unlikely to win a job offer from a phone interview, so you goal is to secure an in-person interview with someone who has the authority to make a hiring decision.  Approach the call with that attitude.  If you recieve a “surprise” phone call from an employer when you are not prepared, professionally ask to reschedule and confirm a date and time. 

Before the phone interview gather:

Make sure you have made all resonable changes to your environment to take away any distractions.  Turn off all TV’s, computers, cell phones, etc. and let anyone else in the area know what you are doing and ask not to be distrubed.
 
During the call:

For a stand-out performance:

Please share any additional questions or concerns about a face-to-face or telephone interview in the comments section and I will be sure to answer!

Bizarre Interview questions… We hear so much about them, but what purpose do they serve?

I recently sat down with a student who had just been on an interview and wanted to review his answers and his performance.  He said he felt great, looked professional, nailed every question….And then…the employer asked him, “If you could be a tree, what kind would you be and why?”

These types of questions are creeping up in more and more interviews.  More importantly than finding the right answer, which there may not even be, it is important that you understand WHY the questions are being asked.  Employers know that you are being trained on the interview process, you can find many interview questions specific to company on the internet, and many people are great at telling the employers what they want to hear.  These off-the-wall questions allow the employer to see how you think on your feet and also let them see a little more into your personality.

Sample questions:
If Hollywood made a movie of your life, who would play the lead role and why?
If you won $20 million in the lottery, what would you do with the money?
How do I rate as an interviewer?
If you could have lunch with anyone, dead or alive, fictional or real, who would you pick and why?
Why are manhole covers round and not square?
How many golf balls would it take to fill a VW Beetle?

So remember the next time you’re on an interview and the employer, with a huge smile on his face, asks you one of these questions, take the time to think through what is being asked, pause to formulate a coherent answer, smile, and be honest.  It is a great way to bring a personal element to the interivew and break the tension.  The student mentioned above did just that and said to the employer, “If I could be a tree, I would be a Christmas tree, so at least someone would love me once a year.”  He got the job.

So, if you could have lunch with anyone, dead or alive, fictional or real, who would it be and why?? 

During your job search your IMAGE is everything.  Your professional image is made up of 5 components:  

I - Impression

Students make and leave impressions with every employer they make contact with, whether it be at a networking event, interview, or another social setting.  You have to remember that impressions are remembered.  Think about how long it takes you to make a judgement on a new professor, potential date, or coworker.  Whether positive or negative, these judgements make lasting impressions.  Immediately establishing yourself as a credible and valuable resource will save you time and energy on trying to prove this down the road.

M - Movement

The evaluation of your non-verbal cues, or movement, will begin as soon as you enter an employers lobby, and will continue until the interview is finished.   Make eye contact, smile and nod appropriately, dont slouch, sit all the way back in your chair and lean forward to appear engaged and interested, all of these are important non verbal cues that an interviewer will be looking for.

 A - Attitude

Many things in an interview are out of your control but your attitude is the one thing you have complete control over, take advantage of it.  We all have a choice every day if we will embrace a positive or negative attidue.  Your positive attitude, and a smile during even a telephone call, will be noted by an employer.  You can hear a smile!  Show your enthusiasm for a position and stand out!

 G - Grooming

This is stressed time and time again but for due reason.  It is certainly important to make sure you’re dressed for an interview (nice pressed suit, good shoes, etc.) but it is equally important that personally you are looking your best.  Make sure your hair is neat and conservative, no crazy colors or styles, your nails are trimmed, and for the men, any facial hair is well groomed.  It would be a shame to answer every question well in an interview but to lose points because you forgot to take off that crazy, half chipped bright green nail polish!

E - Etiquette

Understanding how to handle yourself at a business meeting, company party, or over dinner is crucial to your success.  Simple things to remember, your bread is on the left and drink on the right, never order any alcohol or the most expensive entree on the menu, keep to simple foods that aren’t messy, and always follow the lead of the employers.  Watch what what they do, and when they do it, and follow suit. 

All components of your image are definitely in your control.  Make the most of your image and give yourself the advantage to succeed.