How do you become Career Ready? Follow these steps. #CareerReadyUMW
- Activate your Handshake account, our online career management system, to book appointments, receive updates on events, and find job/internship opportunities.
- Meet with a Career Coach for guidance on career exploration.
- Take a career assessment (Focus2) to learn more about skills, interests, and abilities.
- Utilize online tools to explore majors, careers, industries, and job outlook.
- Build your resume through part-time jobs, internships, job shadowing or extracurricular activities.
- Create a resume and have it reviewed by the Career Center.
- Attend the bi-annual Job & Internship Fair.
- Build your network of at least five professional contacts and references.
- Learning doesn’t end with your UMW degree. Explore additional ‘credentials’ including graduate school.
Career Readiness is the attainment and demonstration of competencies that prepare you for a successful transition into the workplace.
These competencies are:
- Critical thinking and problem solving: Exercise sound reasoning to analyze issues, make decisions, and overcome problems. The individual can obtain, interpret, and use knowledge, facts and data, and may demonstrate originality and inventiveness.
- Oral and written communications: Articulate thoughts and ideas clearly and effectively in written and oral forms to people inside and outside an organization. The individual has public speaking skills; can express ideas to others; and can write and edit memos, letters, and complex technical reports clearly and effectively.
- Teamwork and collaboration: Build collaborative relationships with colleagues and customers representing diverse cultures, races, ages, genders, religions, lifestyles, and viewpoints. The individual can work within a team and can negotiate and manage conflict.
- Digital technology: Use existing digital technologies ethically and efficiently to solve problems, complete tasks, and accomplish goals. The individual demonstrates adaptability to emerging technologies.
- Leadership: Leverage the strengths of a team to achieve common goals, and use interpersonal skills to coach and develop others. The individual can assess and manage his or her emotions and those of others; use empathetic skills to guide and motivate; and organize, prioritize, and delegate work.
- Professionalism and work ethic: Demonstrate personal accountability and effective work habits such as punctuality, working productively with others, and time and workload management. Understand the impact of nonverbal communication on professional work image. The individual demonstrates integrity and ethical behavior, acts responsibly with the interests of the larger community in mind, and is able to learn from mistakes.
- Career management: Identify and articulate one’s skills, strengths, knowledge, and experiences relevant to the position desired and career goals. Identify areas necessary for professional growth. The individual can navigate and explore job options, pursue opportunities, and self-advocate for opportunities in the workplace.
- Global/intercultural fluency: Value, respect, and learn from diverse cultures, races, ages, genders, sexual orientations, and religions. The individual demonstrates openness, inclusiveness, sensitivity, and the ability to respect people and understand individuals’ differences.