Someday these job-related entries will stop. But for now, poll time.

[areyououtthere]

I'm curious about where my peers pick up what they know about job-hunting. I hear a lot of general laments about how liberal arts education leaves people ill-prepared for careers that aren't academia, unsure of what other options exist, and I've certainly spent enough time being bitter about my own relative inexperience. At the same time, though, I

Comments

[wayman]

Resumé: self-taught, drawing ideas from many examples, some from friends but mostly from internet sites about resumés.

Cover letter: self-taught, primarily from internet sites about writing cover letters.

Parsing job ads: some tips from friends, most of which boil down to "it's ok to ignore parts of what the ad says as long as you satisfy other parts and can make a convincing case for yourself".

Interview questions: self-taught, primarily from internet sites about answering interview questions.

I have not found Swat's Career Services to be all that helpful, the two times I've gone in their for general advice. They looked at my resumé and said "that looks fine", and they gave me some aptitude tests, scored them, and said "wow, you're well-rounded!". Gee, thanks. I suspect that if I asked them directly for interview practice, they would be very helpful; I've just never done that.

[maladaptive]

My answers to all of those: the internet, with a little bit of "my peers" thrown in.

But seriously, the internet. The ABA Student Journal was also pretty helpful in some ways, though it's mostly full of "duh" tips. In fact, a lot of the advice given to me by people in the know are "duh" tips.

I have been to the CDO, and my advisor is really helpful for resume writing because she picked up the example booklet and said "good, good, good, DON'T USE THIS THIS IS TERRIBLE" (and bad examples are more helpful than good, I've found), but... mostly I'm self-taught and I rely a lot on presence to get my foot in the door. Which, of course, doesn't work for everyone but I am a bad networker so my ability to command attention is one of the most important ones I have.

[crystalpyramid]

Résumé: College career services, believe it or not. They gave me a handout with formatting and a couple samples, and I went in later and met with someone in Career Services and she gave me a bunch of advice and suggestions. The suggestions were pretty good, about being concise and consistent. This is pretty much the only thing they were ever useful for. I've occasionally supplemented that information with stuff found online, but haven't had any other real sources of information. I think once I had carpenter look over my resume and give a few small pointers, but it was mostly done at that point. I've tried to give my sisters more support about résumé-writing than I got - I hope my advice has been good.

Cover letters: I think this was covered in the Career Services packet, too, but I've never really talked to anyone about it, and most of what I've been doing is self-taught off the internet.

Parsing job ads: Definitely self-taught, but I haven't found this to be challenging. Of course, it helps that I'm in a high-need branch of a high-need

[fiddledragon]

I learned how to write and format a resume from:

*My parents/other adult family members
*Other adult mentor figures (Professors, employers, family friends, etc)
*Career services people at my college
*Peers in work fields similar to mine
*Peers in work fields different from mine
*Entirely self-taught
*Other (explain in comments)

I learned how to write a cover letter from:

*My parents/other adult family members
*Other adult mentor figures (Professors, employers, family friends etc)
*Career services people at my college
*Peers in work fields similar to mine
*Peers in work fields different from mine
*Entirely self-taught*Other (explain in comments

[fiddledragon]

And to sum up...mostly from the internet, but a little bit from the career center, grad school professors, and peers. I didn't really take advantage of BMC's career center, so I don't know what would have been available if I'd asked (or, rather, I know what they say would have been available and don't know whether it was actually any good).

Some tips for looking at job postings actually came from the temp agency I worked for when I first moved up here. They also gave me tips on thinking about things like, "Ok, here's a temp-to-perm job where you'd be working at below your target wage for six months, but then you'd get a raise if they hired you permanently. Can you hold out for six months, or do you really need that target salary?"

I have somewhat of an advantage to many liberal-arts folks in that academic library work is a really, really good field for someone with a not-particularly-useful major. Having written lots of research papers and spent time in academic libraries is the major job qualification for paraprofessional