Unit 13: Your Career After College
The time to think about what you will do after college is now! You may have already given this considerable thought in Unit 1, but the final unit of this course will give you some practical guidelines for preparing the specific tools and elements of a successful job search, as well as the knowledge you need to organize yourself for your entire career, not just your first job.
Completing this unit should take you approximately 18 hours.
Upon successful completion of this unit, you will be able to:
- differentiate between a job and a career;
- illustrate how to get organized for career development;
- complete a well-organized, effective résumé;
- write a cover letter; and
- explain how to prepare for a job interview.
13.1: Finding a Career
Read the Chapter 12 introduction as well as sections 12.1 and 12.2 to help you consider your future goals, learn about what careers are best suited to your personality type, and explore other important factors that may affect your career decision. Make sure to complete Exercise 2, titled "What's My Type?" as well as the checkpoint exercises.
13.2: Choosing Your Major
Read this section to learn about the significance of choosing your college major. This is a short but truly helpful reading that can take some of the mystery out of what area you choose to study. While important, the major you choose does not necessarily limit your career choices significantly. This reading will help you identify what information you need to select a major that is appropriate for you and tips on making your major selection process easier. Make sure to complete the checkpoint exercises at the end of the reading.
13.3: Getting the Right Stuff
Read this section to explore the benefits of a four-year college education, understand the difference between work-based skills and transferrable skills, and learn how to gain skills and experience through jobs, internships, and volunteering. Make sure to complete the checkpoint exercises at the end of the reading.
In your notebook, identify opportunities that are appropriate for you and how to create a written agreement with your employer that outlines the goals your internship or work experience.
13.4: Thinking About Your Career Now
Read this section. This short section covers some very important elements of an effective effort at career development. Remember what you learned at the beginning of this course about the importance of setting goals. Your career should be no exception! Make sure to complete the checkpoint exercises at the end of the reading.
13.5: Résumés and Cover Letters
Read this section to get a good picture of the purpose of a résumé and cover letter and to learn how to write them. Make sure to complete the checkpoint exercises except for item 3. You will create your own résumé and cover letter in subunit 13.7. For now, keep in mind that it is a great idea to have a draft of a résumé and a cover letter that you can easily update as needed for job applications; but also remember that you should plan to make significant alterations to your drafts for each job application, in order to tailor both your résumé and your cover letter to a company's specific needs.
Consider what your own purposes for your résumé will be as you consider your personal skills and job interests. Brainstorm how you will organize the three résumé elements - the header, the objective, and the résumé body components - in your own résumé. Think about how you can state your best accomplishments using action verbs.
It is usually better to keep formatting of a résumé as simple as possible. In today's electronic age, many résumés are read by machines before they are read by human eyes - so fancy formatting could compromise your résumé or even eliminate you from consideration before a person ever reads your résumé!
Be sure to understand the purpose of the cover letter, as well as the important elements that should always be included in the letter. Keep in mind that a cover letter should be adapted to the specific job being applied for and geared toward the specific company being applied to. This knowledge will help you avoid producing a general cover letter that might go unnoticed.
Read the headings on the webpage titled "What Is the Purpose of the Cover Letter?" and "Learning about the Job." Some of this information will serve as a review of information you have already seen in your course readings so far.
Next, click on the light orange tab on the left side of the page, titled "What To Include," and read the information under the headings titled "How To Relate your Experience to the Job Advertisement," "Deciding which Qualifications To Include," and "Afraid of Not Meeting the Requirements?"
Finally, click on the light orange tab on the left side of the page titled "Formatting and Organization," and read the information under the headings titled "Formatting Your Cover Letter," "Organizing Your Cover Letter," "Addressing Your Cover Letter," "The Introduction," "The Argument," "The Closing," and "Before You Send the Cover Letter." Be sure to carefully review the cover letter example provided at the bottom of this webpage.
Note that, although these resources echo the information you have read in the College Success textbook, these points are organized differently and often go into much greater detail than the textbook. You may want to bookmark this webpage, as it may prove very useful to you in your long-term college experience.
13.6: The Job Interview
Watch this video on job interviews for an overview of the interview process. Take notes on this process and how it may apply to job interviews in your personal career track.
Read this section to learn tips on how to conduct yourself during an interview. Make sure to complete the checkpoint exercises. Take your time in preparing for the interviews and mock interviews assigned, completing the interviews, and reflecting on the experience.
13.7: Create Your Own Résumé and Cover Letter
Open this interactive document and click on each of the sections to review the purpose of each element of a résumé. Be sure to click on and read all of the following sections: "Contact Information," "Objective," "Experience," "Education," and "Honors and Activities."
Use the Purdue Owl Sample Resumes to develop your own resume, based on the information you have learned in this unit. You may find that the other resume resources listed along the left side of the webpage are also helpful. Once you have developed a rough draft of your resume, it is very important that you ask several knowledgeable people to review it for you, such as a career counselor, a supervisor at your current job, or a person with experience in business.
Use the Purdue Owl Resources to create a cover letter for a job posting you are interested in. Work through all five light orange tabs on the left side of the page, entitled, "Cover Letter Headings," "Addressing Cover Letters," "Cover Letter Introductions," Cover Letter Body Paragraphs," and Cover Letter Closings."
As you read through each tab, create that section of your own letter, using information about the actual company and job you are interested in. Just like your resume, it is a good idea to have a knowledgeable person review your first few cover letters, until you have mastered this skill.
Unit 13 Assessment
Now that you have completed the exercises and assignments for this unit, you should have drafts of a résumé and cover letter ready for polishing. Read this article, which will guide you through the process of finalizing your résumé and cover letter and creating your professional profile.