Through my college career, the University Career Center has proven to be an invaluable resource. I have been working with, and learning, from Kacie Lawrence over the last couple years. My relationship with her started off with her advising me on my resume, cover letter, and developing “a personal brand” for internships through my sophomore and junior years (Gershon). As I made my shift from Math to Media and Communications, she was able to talk to me about possible career paths, and recommend many companies for me to apply to. As I was going through the process of applying to my dream internship at Nielsen for Technology, I was able to consult her about how to tailor my resume to show off more technical skills, highlight projects that I had worked, “focusing on… qualifications”, as well as guidance regarding the common “practices [for] applicants” and acceptance of offers (Gershon).
Moving into the search for a full time position this semester, it was important for me to revisit her to reflect on my experiences at Nielsen, and to explore new options for my future. Our first few conversations revolved around potential fields and positions that I would be interested in. As I have always been passionate about client-facing work, we discussed positions for consulting within the technological space. Our follow up conversations revolved around the methods in which I could go about networking within those spaces, and “managing [my reputation]” as a media technology professional (Gershon). From here, I did make many changes to my resume as I switched from a 2-page to a 1-page, and cleaned up my cover letter of extra words. Originally, my resume was on 2 pages with 5–6 bullet points per position. After the major edits, it changed to 2–3 bullet points, and the addition of an ‘leadership/extracurricular’ section in which I elaborated on my leadership activities and passion projects that I completed outside of the classroom. My cover letter I believed was strong, but I made a few changes by adding some relevant experience from my previous positions in order to support my claims for the position. Overall, I very much found the career center useful, and would recommend it to any of my peers.
