CALS Career Services Blog

It is the last day of the Ten Days of Career Services and today is a simple task, Organize Your Professional Network.  You undoubtedly met a lot of people at the Spring Career and Internship Fair and got their business cards.  Take the time today to organize those business cards and put them in a safe place for the future.  You never know when you will need them.

You should also put your connections into your LinkedIn profile.  It is an easy way to stay connected to your connections and is a way to network with people in the future.  If you don’t have a LinkedIn account, take the time today to create an account.  Fill out everything, you can pretty much take things from your resume.  Begin to make connections with your friends and any people in the industry you know.  As you go to more networking events, gather business cards and add people into your network.  People are always willing to connect with people.  It is a professional network for you to use to get a job.

This is all you should do today. After you are done, enjoy the weekend and thank you for participating in the 10 Days of Career Services.

If you missed the career fair you have a lot of catching up to do. CALS Career Services is here to help you connect with the companies that were at the Spring Career and Internship Fair.  There are plenty of things you can still do to get that internship or job.

Yes the career fair was two days ago, but we still have the list of all the employers and contacts that attended the fair.  For the exact contacts you have to come to our Walk-In Review Session today from 11-2 p.m. in 116 Ag. Hall.  In this walk-in session you can pick-up any information from the career fair as well as get any tips on how to proceed from a CALS Career Services representative. For a list of companies you can go to BuckyNet to get that information.

The many opportunities available to still get a job or an internship are mostly online.  A great resource you can still use is BuckyNet.  It has had around 900 jobs and internships posted throughout the winter.  All of the employers at the career fair have a BuckyNet account and are posting jobs using this resource. You can also use BuckyNet to go to their websites and find jobs they are posting on their own websites.

Click here to go to WISCareers

There is also an amazing resource available to any UW-Madison student called WISCareers.  This resource allows you to not only find job postings, but analyze yourself and find the right career for you.  There is a related CALS Career Services blog post that dives deeper into this resource.    To get started with this resource right away, log-in to your my.wisc.edu account and click on Work Record.  Then scroll all the way to the bottom where you will see a WISCareers tab and then click on it.

Several other resources CALS Career Services uses to post jobs on BuckyNet include the AgJobNetwork, Wisconsin Job Network, USA Jobs and Job Center of Wisconsin.  There are several great job and internship postings spanning several majors on these resources.

Even though you missed the career fair there is still time to apply for jobs and internships.  Keep applying today and you will get that job or internship you have been waiting for.

You made all of these great contacts and got all of their business cards last night at the career fair, but what are you supposed to do with them? Today you need to follow-up with all of those recruiters.  Remind them of who you are.  Remember, they saw at least 50 students last night and may need some help remembering you.

Today you need to send them a thank you.  Write a thank you and tell them you are really interested in talking with them further about the opportunities you talked about.  If you didn’t fit with the positions they had last night, ask them if they would forward your resume on to someone in their company that would be interested.  This thank you should be in business letter format and pasted directly into the email.  You can then attach your resume for them to review.

The next thing you should do is connect with them of LinkedIn.  Chances are they have a LinkedIn profile and this is a great way to stay connected with them in the future.  You never know when you will be able to use a contact in a company.

If a recruiter asked you to complete a profile in the “careers” section of their website, make sure to do this.  They do check on this and it is a sign that you are serious about working for their company.  If they told you to do it, it is really important.

Doing all of these things can help set you apart from the crowd of people the recruiters saw last night.  If you start doing these things, you will probably see yourself in an interview somewhere.

The big day has finally come.  Today we put our suits on and find a job or an internship.  Tell everyone about the Spring Career and Internship Fair going on today from 4:30-8:00 p.m. at the Kohl Center.

Here are a few things you need to know about today’s career fair.

The biggest change this year will be the use of technology at the fair. We are using QR codes to help you at the career fair.  There will be a QR code on signage and on the guide that will lead you to an electronic copy of the guide.  We hope this will make it easier to view and reduce the amount of paper you have to shuffle through.  There will also be QR codes at all employer tables.  These QR codes will take you to company websites so you can research the company while standing in line or off to the side.

Another big technological change will be the use of Twitter.  There is an official hashtag for the Spring Career and Internship Fair, #UWCF12.  Use this hashtag to tell about your triumphs and tell other people about the fair.  We will be tweeting too, so feel free to ask questions with the hashtag and someone will answer you with what to do.

The Spring Career and Internship Fair is at the Kohl Center and goes around the outer part.    When you arrive make sure you have your campus ID ready to swipe at the door so you can check-in.  Coat racks will be provided for you to put your coats away.  There will be a complete list of companies and their descriptions available to you at the door, complete with a map of all the company locations in the Kohl Center.  Some employers gave us jobs they are looking to fill and some did not, keep your eye out for this.

The walkway can get very crowded at times especially by the door.  Please do your best to stay out of the aisles and the best way to not have to stand in line at the big companies is to come early and go to those booths first.  You will probably also get more time to talk to those companies.

Make sure you check out some employers that may not hire directly for your major.  A company does not just hire one major, but several majors.  They may have a job opening for your major.  It doesn’t hurt to look.  This can be the difference between a bad career fair and a good one.