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Finding A Job

Many students are wondering what happened to the great job market of the last few years. The truth is that the economy is getting better and organizations continue to hire competitive graduates. However, employers can now be more selective and the hiring process may be more through and take longer than in the past. It is also the kind of job market where the advantage goes to the prepared and focused candidate.

Most of the information on this page is covered in more detail elsewhere on this website. This is an attempt to help bring some order to what can be a confusing process.

QUICK LINKS

If you are unsure of your interests take some time to do some self-assessment.

  • Use Myplan or MBTI assessments, available in our office, to generate some potential areas of interest.
  • Gather information through exploring the resources in the resource library, contact alumni in the Eagle Mentoring database and use online resources such as MyPlan for career field overviews to generate a list of job titles by major.

Thoroughly research the career fields that you are interested in.

Develop an effective RÉSUMÉ.

  • Develop a draft using our résumé handout, a book on résumé writing from the resource library or one of the many online sites.
  • Have your résumé critiqued at Career Services.
  • You will also need to write an individual cover letter to accompany the résumés you send to organizations. Career Services will also critique cover letters.

Use all available resources to identify job opportunities.

  • Upload and publish your résumé to eRecruiting so it can be viewed by employers interested in UMW students.
  • Attend an on-campus career fair.
  • Participate in on-campus interviews. (They are the easiest interviews you'll ever get.)
  • Consider posting your résumé on other general and industry specific web sites.
  • Identify a network of family, friends, past employers and alumni who might assist you in you job search. In a slow economy many companies only hire through referrals from current employees.
  • Use Career Search to identify potential employers in a specific industry or geographic area. Career Search may also be helpful identifying companies that seldom recruit students actively. Organizations in fields such as non-profits, social services, investment banking and consulting may require direct contact.
  • Review job postings listed in the newspaper.

Start Early!

  • Different organizations have different hiring time lines. Organizations that hire new college graduates on a yearly basis often conduct their primary recruiting in the fall and only recruit in the spring for unexpected needs. Other organizations will recruit throughout the year. By starting early, (September), you will have more options available to you.