On this episode of Speaking Of...College of Charleston, Julia Heslin, CofC senior majoring in communication, speaks with Jim Allison, executive director of the College's career center and Karen Fritchman, director of employer relations at the career center. Allison kicks off the conversation by talking about the various offerings at the career center for students of all ages.
"In higher education and student development, probably the areas that are most underutilized or areas that would be the most appropriate to emphasize, for soon to be graduates, are to please make sure to have your resume critiqued by someone in the Career Center before you graduate," says Allison. "The hardest thing for an undergraduate student to do is apply for a job after graduation cold."
Fritchman shares some of the most common questions students ask when they come to the center. She also talks about the upcoming Spring Career Exploration Fair that is curated for all students, including those just starting to take a peek into what career might fit their passions and interests and those who are graduating and ready to start their careers. The EXPLORATION format will encourage career exploration and discovery, as well as extensive networking options beyond the traditional career fair. The fair will have workshops and programming before and after to effectively prepare students for the fair – like writing a resume, planning professional attire and enhancing communication skills. The event is on Thursday, February 29, 202, from 12 p.m. to 4 p.m.
Most Frequently Asked Questions:
1. Does my resume have to be one page?
2. Do I need a cover letter?
3. Where do I start if I have no job experience?
Final Words of Career Center Wisdom:
"National data has shown for several decades that students who utilize their college career centers have a much higher percentage of securing an internship as well as securing an interview for a full time job."
Featured on this Episode:
Jim Allison, executive director career center, earned his Bachelor's degree in English from Wake Forest University and a second degree in Psychology from the University of North Carolina Greensboro. He earned his Master's degree in Counseling with a concentration in Student Development in Higher Education. When he is not busy in the Career Center, Jim enjoys spending time with his family, his dog, and his bird!
Karen Fritchman, director of employer relations , career center, earned her Bachelor’s degree in Communication and her Master of Education degree in the Art of Teaching from Cedar Crest College in Allentown, PA. Her previous experience within Higher Education includes alumni engagement, student advising, event planning, recruiting, and fundraising. She and her family love spending time at the beach with their dog, Ivy, a rescued German Shepherd, and at home with her twenty pound cat, Beefy!
Resources from this Episode:
On this episode of Speaking Of...College of Charleston, Julia Heslin, CofC senior majoring in communication, speaks with Jim Allison, executive director of the College's career center and Karen Fritchman, director of employer relations at the career center. Allison kicks off the conversation by talking about the various offerings at the career center for students of all ages.
"In higher education and student development, probably the areas that are most underutilized or areas that would be the most appropriate to emphasize, for soon to be graduates, are to please make sure to have your resume critiqued by someone in the Career Center before you graduate," says Allison. "The hardest thing for an undergraduate student to do is apply for a job after graduation cold."
Fritchman shares some of the most common questions students ask when they come to the center. She also talks about the upcoming Spring Career Exploration Fair that is curated for all students, including those just starting to take a peek into what career might fit their passions and interests and those who are graduating and ready to start their careers. The EXPLORATION format will encourage career exploration and discovery, as well as extensive networking options beyond the traditional career fair. The fair will have workshops and programming before and after to effectively prepare students for the fair – like writing a resume, planning professional attire and enhancing communication skills. The event is on Thursday, February 29, 202, from 12 p.m. to 4 p.m.
Most Frequently Asked Questions:
1. Does my resume have to be one page?
2. Do I need a cover letter?
3. Where do I start if I have no job experience?
Final Words of Career Center Wisdom:
"National data has shown for several decades that students who utilize their college career centers have a much higher percentage of securing an internship as well as securing an interview for a full time job."
Featured on this Episode:
Jim Allison, executive director career center, earned his Bachelor's degree in English from Wake Forest University and a second degree in Psychology from the University of North Carolina Greensboro. He earned his Master's degree in Counseling with a concentration in Student Development in Higher Education. When he is not busy in the Career Center, Jim enjoys spending time with his family, his dog, and his bird!
Karen Fritchman, director of employer relations , career center, earned her Bachelor’s degree in Communication and her Master of Education degree in the Art of Teaching from Cedar Crest College in Allentown, PA. Her previous experience within Higher Education includes alumni engagement, student advising, event planning, recruiting, and fundraising. She and her family love spending time at the beach with their dog, Ivy, a rescued German Shepherd, and at home with her twenty pound cat, Beefy!
Resources from this Episode:
Hello, and Welcome to Speaking of College of Charleston. I'm Julia Heslin, a communications major at the college. And on today's episode, I'm talking to Jim Allison, Executive Director of the Career Center, and Karen freshman director of employer relations.
Unknown:Jim, I would love to hear a broad overview of the different services and resources that are offered by the Career Center for Students.
Jim Allison:Terrific, thank you for having us here. Today, we offer a comprehensive list of services for students with respect to Career Development, here at the College of Charleston, I'm really proud of the fact that we're able to merge career development with student employment, as well as financial wellness, which is a newer initiative for the office. Those three elements really come together nicely for any individual student. But we do offer a traditional list of services for undergraduates, and traditional by traditional I mean, everything from resume and cover letter development to LinkedIn development, interviewing skills, how to write letters, how to write email, how to interact with employers, how to apply for jobs, how to secure internships, and more for me in the 23 and a half years and career development and 25 years, and to do the math real quick. In higher education and student development, probably the areas that are most underutilized or areas that would probably be the most appropriate to emphasize, for soon to be graduate. So those spring semester seniors are, please make sure before you graduate, to have your resume critiqued by someone in the Career Center. Number one, number two, don't, don't forget to use our drop in hours, which are Monday and Wednesday this semester from 10 till noon, as well as Tuesdays and Thursdays from two to 4pm. The drop in hours are casual. They're friendly, everything's friendly in the career center. But these are super friendly, because oftentimes, it's peer to peer advice. And it's, we often find students in particular who maybe have been neglecting coming into the career center for whatever reason. They really find that first point of contact as a fellow student comforting and an easier entree into our services. And then they can follow up with appointments with our staff as needed. And the last thing I'd say on that, just for that first question from from my lens, is that it's never too early or too late to start. Because working with employers working with graduate schools, talking to parents and just working with, I think it's now 1000s and 1000s of undergraduate students, for me, the main thing is to do something and get started before you graduate, because the hardest thing for an undergraduate student to do typically, whether they have a network or not, is to apply for a job after graduation, cold. And by cold, I mean just sending out resumes to openings that they find online, having coaching early, understanding keywords, understanding applicant tracking systems, having connections, meeting someone at a career fair who could directly hire you or interview you. All that and more so essential. Prior to the mass of college graduates who hit the market between June 1 and November 1, any given year, if those students aren't really prepared and don't have good resumes or LinkedIn profiles, and more, those particular seniors can really struggle on an individual basis to find that first job. That's not just a job, but it's more career related. So I think that's the important thing is I could go on and on about the different services and what to do and what not to do. The main thing is to do something with our office before graduation and connect with us before graduating to make life after college easier, and a lot less stressful, if you will.
Unknown:Absolutely. I know you touched on this a bit at the end. Do you have any specific advice that you would give to students who feel like they're already behind on that job search? It's very common to feel stress and anxiety around life after college because our educational system really the United States and I believe in Canada is really set up for you most of this hemisphere set up for almost like elementary school to middle school to high school and then unlike some countries that require two years of military service or have different things that happened potentially after graduation, our culture typically for maybe 100 years in the United States has been, the next thing you do is for a lot of students is go to college. And the thing about that, in my mind is that parents and others kind of help guide students through that, and get them to college and really help them get there. And oftentimes the first time and as a traditional age college students the life right around, let's say, age 21, or 20, excuse me, 21 or 22 years old, is that maybe the first time they've ever had to really go out and do this completely by themselves. And whether there's a parental influence, or a friend influence or a family influence or a connection, networking wise, that's always a good thing in my mind. But if there's not, it can be extremely stressful for students just to get started. So we have some friendlier. When I say friendly, I mean, kind of open, meaning open to anyone. And we're super excited when folks come up to our tables on Cougar mall, whether that's a pop up career fair or a tabling event. We're fairly visible, I think, yeah, hopefully not too visible for out there every day. Sometimes it becomes like wallpaper or poster that you walk by every day. But I think we have enough things going on with doughnuts and bagels and employers and spinning wheels that it really kind of, it's a nice thing to have out there for students to see that we're just kind of open and friendly people, because the terms that we can write on the chalkboard so to speak, like resume and interview and career, just those words by saying those words. And by writing those words, there are studies that show that the room is individuals in the room, their blood pressure automatically goes up, and their stress levels automatically go up. So to that point, my main message is it's very common and very real. And okay to be stressed about that. If for some reason, way up in the Lightsey center, second floor is a almost like a blocker. Like some folks will say, Well, I worked at a school one time 1/3 our size, and I had a student drive from their residence hall to the Career Center, like park like they drove their car. But this remember the school was 1/3 our size. So it wasn't a very far drive. It was literally like one parking lot over. But there was a barrier there. Like that's too far, I don't really want to go way over there. And now St. Philip and Calhoun, there could be a barrier there like mentally I don't want to go way over there. Or it could be psychologically those terms I mentioned like career interview and resume are a barrier. So if you're, if you're in that space, I used to call it in my life, quote, being in denial. But I've changed that since then. Because that's not a fair statement. I used to, I used to compartmentalize and say I don't want to do that because I'm either procrastinating or I'm in denial. Nowadays, especially post COVID. I say, you know, what that individual really needs is some human being most likely, probably not AI, probably not a robot, but a person to welcome them into this conversation. So for you as a student, it could be a family member, it could be a professor, it could be a career center member, anyone that can kind of get you started on the process of writing a resume talking about your life after college, just get that conversation started, preferably before March, which I guess is next month of your senior year, so that then you might feel more comfortable engaging with the Career Center before graduation. Let's restart that conversation with someone because it's extremely hard to do if you start after graduation. Absolutely. Thank you, Jim. And I love that intimate personal feel that you guys seem to have in the Career Center. To go off of that once those students who get past that barrier. Karen, I would love to hear how the Career Center works with students to connect them with potential employers. Sure,
Karen Fritchman:it's my favorite thing to talk about. I'm always trying to bring employers to campus the I guess most popular one is our career fair. We have each semester spring and fall. That brings a lot of employers at a really big fun recruiting event, a lot of good energy. But all through the semester, we're also doing pop up fairs where we have anywhere from eight to 10 to 12 employers out on Cougar Mall. I've asked some students about it. I've asked some employers about it. And it kind of replaced the traditional Tabeling on campus where we might have one or two employers coming. Now when we have the buzz on Cougar mall students are like oh, what's that swag over there. Let me go check that out or I always encourage them to bring snacks. We've had coffee out there and then it ends up being a beautiful 67 A great day and you don't really need it. Doughnuts snacks we've had people bring, I don't even know candy, easy Mac, they've got everything out there. It's less intimidating for the students that way, because they're just kind of wondering what this fun table is. And then they can openly share their elevator pitches without really knowing that they're doing it. And then the employers kind of like it too, because they're able to learn more about the students. And if they are coming to a very specific recruiting event where they might be nervous or shy, or they don't want to screw up their elevator pitch, because they practice and practice and practice and now they're on the spot, and they don't really want to mess that up. So then it kind of works both ways, we often find a lot of opportunities even for part time jobs. Sometimes they are just made this really great offer to work some hours and they learn about an internship or even just a career field they didn't know about. So that's kind of like our main goals throughout. But then we do have some key events too. We're doing a headshot and handshake event where we're going to help students learn about how they can build their online presence and learn directly from employers on what they want. If you meet with me, or any of our career advisors in the office, more times than not a lot of people are like met with a student looking to write news articles, who do you know, and I know a lot because I work with all the employers. So we always are trying to find new fun ways. We get employers into classrooms, we have them just hanging out doing resumes with us every now and then. We've tried some mock interviews, and I feel like that's kind of a little irrelevant lately. A lot of them are doing zoom now. So they don't really need to come in as much. But we're trying to bring that back to anytime we can bring them in more casual, fun, intimate settings to has seemed to be really beneficial for both.
Unknown:Absolutely those sounds like amazing opportunities. Thank you so much, Karen for sharing. You should come to some absolutely. You will be seeing me there. Jim, you mentioned earlier and initiative about financial wellness. Can we hear a little bit a little more about that? Oh, sure. We're lucky enough to have a donor supported program here at the college. So we want to thank our advancement office, as well as student affairs and Dr. Alicia Cadell for making that come to fruition. Here to college. I know it's also an initiative that is important to President Chu, for instance, in the most recent town hall for faculty, staff, parents and students, the President mentioned the 58 George Street project as being one of the top initiatives for the next 1218 months with respect to construction on campus. And we're looking forward into moving into that new facility, ideally in the spring of 2025. So within 12 to 18 months, the Career Center and financial wellness will move in there together. And what that means is we have had the opportunity the past two years to hire a graduate assistant to run that program for the college. And we've had some good success thus far. It's really taken off this year because we have the funding for a full time employee. And that employee works within the Career Center. And the main, the main goal is to engage students with a platform called high grad, high grad is for all of our students. It's really user friendly. I think it does a nice job of helping our undergraduates understand budgeting has some link to scholarship information as well. And essentially, it just teaches our students the importance of budgeting. And that can extend all the way out to credit card usage or not usage of credit cards. And for some students, it's the first time they've ever really thought about money management. But it's done so in a user friendly capacity. And we're very lucky to have that platform here. It does provide reports to students and recommendations on how they can manage their budget and manage their money. And our full time employee in that space. Liz Cooper does a nice job of doing workshops as well as individual conversations about money and how to plan. The most important thing there usually is paying down loans and considering how to manage money after college and really just not over spending while you're a college student. from either of you. I would love to hear about any online resources that are provided by the Career Center for students to utilize independently. During COVID. We went fully remote with all of our services, and we're really proud of the fact that the summer 2020 We had a statewide job fair with over 1300 Students He's in the state of South Carolina signed up and about 800 participated. And what we learned is that right through 2020 into 2021, we almost had to mimic our in person services with online. And right now are our top online resources probably going to be handshake, although we have self assessments for students to learn more about their majors and life after college, I mentioned I grad earlier for financial wellness. There's going global for students looking to work abroad or for international students looking for opportunities in the States, and more, but the main was probably handshake and handshake has really been a game changer for us. I'll let Karen share her thoughts on handshake. But for me, I think it's really really a good thing when you have a platform that has over 650,000 companies, of whom at least 15,000 of those companies are attempting to recruit our students at any given time. So I'd like to frame it as there's more than one company trying to recruit our individual students, there's more than a one to one ratio there, which is really tremendous. And that's for internships and jobs. So if students do have an accountant handshake, I ask them to continue using that revisit the site, work with your career center advisor, or counselor or coach to learn how to use handshake, because that is a national program that has really leveled the playing field, as well. So for decades, one of the greatest challenges for any school that was not, let's say, a top 20 school, or an Ivy League school, let's say for any school, one of the greatest challenges for a career center would be how do we get the employers to hire our students for jobs after college, maybe not internships, but jobs. And what a handshake is allow us to do is absolutely level that that playing field, right now, any company can post a handshake, and they do. And we now have connections to all of these international companies, some of whom do come to our campus, no question. We have really strong campus recruiters, I could rattle off those names. But I think the most important thing to keep in mind is that it really is meant to allow every student the opportunity to apply for any job or any internship. And it really has given us a lot more employer activity. I don't know if there's something you want to say about a character that I didn't cover. Oh, there's a whole bunch I can say about it. So this is my second favorite thing to talk about after employers. Handshake just has so much that we can do with it even more than we're utilizing yet, because we're just kind of taking pieces to learn from it. But Jim's right, we have 15,000 plus employers in there. We post anywhere between 60 and 70,000 jobs a year. So that can seem intimidating to students. But it's a really cool tool if you're using it right. So if you're filling out your profile, and your major relevant courses, putting in your career interests, what types of jobs you want, where you want those jobs, the algorithm works really quickly. Something I love about it is they have some collections that I get to pick and choose which employers go in those. My favorite collection is hidden gems. And anytime I'm having really awesome conversations, and these are local and national companies, I'll put those in there. To be able to showcase those first. The way it works is it will go through your profile, and it will start recommending jobs events. And then the second thing it goes through is our collections. So then I get to piecemeal some because it is really hard to know what companies are out there. What jobs should I look at. It also is home to all those resources that Jim mentioned. So if you aren't really sure where to go, and you're not finding it on the website, or you just have no clue you can go onto handshake, there's a button called resources. And that houses I grabbed it houses big interview, which is a pretty cool platform that you record yourself answering common questions and then you get to watch yourself and see it back. So it's a little weird and awkward, but then you feel better when you're in the real thing. What can I do with this major the assessments, everything that Jim had mentioned are all in one place so it's easier to find. We also have all of our student appointments in handshake. So if you wanted to meet with a career advisor, if you're looking for an on campus job, that's through handshake, too. We post all of our all of our jobs from on campus Federal Work Study, part time jobs, internships, volunteer opportunities, it really is all there and all of our events, so kind of everything. It's a one stop shop, you can go in there to find whatever you're looking for. They have really nice features if you're browsing through some jobs or companies. It will show you if another student is an alum that has worked there or an intern there. It gives you prompts to send messages if you don't really They know what to say or how to start a conversation. And a common question I often get is why should I be in handshake, and not LinkedIn or not indeed, and I have the pleasure of reviewing every single job that comes in. There's a love hate with that. But it is kind of comforting for students know that somebody's looking at it, it's not going to be a scam. If it seems unsafe, if you're going into a personal home, and it just seems a little sketchy, like we're not allowing that handshake does a great job up front of vetting all of the employers to make sure that they actually have an employer identification number that they're paying their taxes, and it's not just some random company in a garage that you're gonna go work for. So there's a lot of safety and trust that's involved in that. Not that we don't promote, I guess, LinkedIn to and indeed, but when we're asked that difference, it's just kind of nice to know somebody's looking at it. We have internships, we definitely recommend paid, if you can find paid, we give priority to those every year. It's just kind of anything you think you might want, it's in there. And if it's not yet it's available. We're just maybe not using it yet. But yeah, handshake is like our go to baby, just get in there, play around with it oftentimes. So like, I don't really know what to put in there. And we're like, just go in and see. We do have a, a prompted profile completion. So handshake will ask you what are your interests and they will give you topics to choose from, they'll give you skills to add. So sometimes it's like, I don't really know what that skill is, but you'll read it and you're like, oh, yeah, I have that. And then you'll click it. So it is very user friendly to most of our students use the desktop feed and not the mobile feed. Mobile feed has some really cool features. So I am trying to plug that and get more students to use it on their phone. One of our students yesterday told me that she doesn't want to use data on her phone for a handshake app when she can be on her computer. And I was like, but look at all it can do. And it's really nice to share content, our resources pop up, our events pop up. You can see who's coming to the career fair, I had a time research those employers, it'll tell you the size, the location, all their jobs. So it's really, really awesome that we have it does sound amazing. And as someone who has the mobile app on my phone, I would definitely recommend people to download that stuff. I think it's definitely worth the data. And I love that you mentioned jobs as well as internships. I think that's also applicable for freshmen, even freshmen, sophomores, juniors, absolutely qualities freshmen are plugged into it. Yeah, pretty immediately good. They shouldn't be around your ad dropped. They are plugged in. Yeah, not all of them know what it is. So we're trying to get that word out. And that's really common to with the Career Center, we don't want you to wait till your last semester. As a senior I want to see you early. We focus on exploring and validating your career path and what your major is to help you just know what you don't know. Absolutely. To transition back to the in person aspect of the Career Center. I would love to hear more about the career fair from you, Karen. Right. Third baby third favorite I can just keep going on. So the career fairs are super fun students can expect a pretty, I guess fast paced kind of depends on when you're there, we usually have anywhere between 110 140 employers, which sounds intimidating, and for some it is, but all of our career fair staff. And we've really awesome volunteers are there. So if we see somebody turning around and like hightail it out of there, we're like, wait, wait, wait, let us calm you down. Some advice that we often give is to go to the employers you don't really care about and practice on them, talk to them share about yourself. And then that way, after you get all the bugs out, you can just go up to that employer that you've had your eye on. The employers often have really good swag, again, just like our pop up fairs, they bring pens, they bring flash drives, cups, like if you need some cups for your kitchen, you can get a 12 pack of cups. You can stock up for a week or two on snacks. There's pens, way too many pens, but you can get some pens there. They are really, really open. I mean, when the recruiters are there, they're here to hire our students. They're not there to just sit behind the table on their phones or laptops. Somebody once told me that they didn't allow chairs at their career fair because they wanted the employers to stand and actually be engaged. But we've never really had that problem. We offer chairs and most of them are standing and not using them anyway. They really love to just meet with the students and they want to hear about them. They want to share opportunities. Our students will probably learn about 1245 We don't even know more jobs that they wouldn't have thought They were interested in. A lot of times we ask where asked who comes to these career fairs, what majors they hiring for. And it's really all majors, anyone can come. We have employers who want to hire freshmen and sophomores. So we're encouraging them to come. We have students who just want some job shadowing opportunities. And that's something that they can go talk to these employers about. If they're not quite ready to jump into an internship or job. We have our staff doing a tip table. So if you're just really not sure where to start, you need to chat with somebody. We have mints for you, there's water, we do headshots over there, just to kind of boost their confidence and get them in the door. Once they're there, they have a really great time. It's down at the Charleston Gilly Art Center now, not that far away, not as far as some think it is. It's a nice, easy walk. So we encourage everyone to come on down. It's really a time of networking and exploring to discover something new. It's not really, although it's called the career fair. It's not getting that job after graduation necessarily. For spring, we have a lot that needs some summer jobs, or they're looking for a fall internship, even they're ready, they have their summer, whatever they're gonna do go home work, intern, but now they're like, What am I going to do in the fall? And then that's kind of what we want. We want more students doing more internships or experiential learning opportunities while they're here. And the career fairs a great place to start for that. Absolutely. And definitely hearing you talk about it seems much less and have you gone to any of our fairs? I have not yet but I am fully locked in right now. You will see me at the next one. Absolutely. Do you know where the GIL yard centers located? I do. Do is hesitation I do. You can get to a by Calhoun Street or George Street. You'll run into it either way. It's only a block or two away. So it's not that far. I wonder sense in our beautiful city? Definitely walk into the sunshine on the way. Yeah, hopefully. So about a block from TD arena. Have you been a TD? Yes, I have. And everyone is probably familiar with that. Yes, yes. Did you go to the career fair when it was in the arena or never? No career fairs? That's okay, guys, this behind? I'm logged in right now. This is convincing me? And all of the younger listeners, you should? Yes. Over there before I do. So to either of you. What are some of the most common questions that you guys are asked about? Career Fairs? The Career Center in general? anything relating to those? No, go ahead. No, I mean, I have the list. You MLS we can both take turns minor, minor, usually the outliers. So common questions for me are going to be vendors who contact us and want us to partner or parents who maybe have a student here who hasn't gotten engaged, or an employer who has had a really good experience, or maybe hasn't had the experience they want? Or is the staff members running into a situation they need some assistance with? So a lot of times is outliers. For me, it's just sort of the the emails or the conversations that maybe not everybody on the team knows how or in what way to answer or all the various resources at the college that are available to answer the question. But just on the in the day to day, it's pretty standard. Where's your office located? Once we move into 50, George Street, that probably will be obvious. Hopefully, we're gonna make it obvious. But where are you located? What services do you offer? What are your hours? Because we did experiment with some real flexible hours a couple of years ago, staying open later, that kind of thing. And I try to mainly encourage students in particular, just to come in and use the senator during the eight, five hours when possible, but there are a considerable number of emails and things to answer after hours as well. But most of them line is going to be on the outlier realm, beyond the day to day around resume Career Fair and that kind of thing. Absolutely. Carrie Yeah. I mean, in my job, I get questions from students and employers, most often it's employers who want to be on campus, which is great. And we kind of do whatever we can to bring them in. We do have a lot of Do you have Students in this major? Do you have students in that major and it's kind of easy to just Google CFC insert major here and they can find it but I'm happy to do that for them. From the questions with students, they range all over the place a very common one is does my resume have to be one page? Depending on who you ask, there's mixed reviews on that. Do I need a cover letter? And what is it? And that's another fun one, especially on my end working with employers, some of them hate them, some of them love them. But we say is, if it is required, then yes, do it, obviously, upload your resume twice. Where do I start? If I have no experience is another one. And that's always a fun one to answer. Because then as you're just chatting with, Hey, what are you involved with? Now? Maybe you didn't have an internship, but you're in a club and you have a leadership role. You might be in a sorority, or fraternity who's planning fundraising events, and you don't really know that that's actual experience. So just ways for them to think differently. And most students who think they have no experience actually have a lot, they're just not sure how to get it out. When employers want to hire me, the answer is basically everyone. Majors vary, but employers, for the most part, need a little bit of everything. Obviously, like some of our engineering, companies want engineers but what students don't think of is they also need an accountant and somebody to do their marketing communications. They may need somebody to who knows HR just insert any job they forget about the business side. Another common question is about salary. And how do I know when they asked me what my salary is. So we have tips and tricks to figure that out, kind of based on cost of living and where you're going to be? No, you're not going to get six figures and work remote from a beach somewhere, not going to happen fresh out of school, you may work remote and make a pretty decent salary depending on where you go. But how to navigate that. And in the fall, we partner with our financial wellness team, and we do a compensation one on one event, which is super fun. This will be the fourth or fifth time we're doing it. We have an alum who comes and speaks he's a compensation analyst. So it's what he does and what he knows. And then we always follow that up with a panel of employers, summer alumni, some are not and we usually curate questions, we get to one or two, and then the students are just asking away. And they take a lot out of that. And it's a really fun thing for them to learn. Oftentimes, we joke and say that we can give the same message but when an employer and alum gives it they listen. You might be guilty of that you'll Yes, absolutely. Yeah. And like those are those are just some of the common ones. We get all different questions all the time. But there definitely are those go twos. Or they asked, like Jim mentioned, what else do you offer? Because they think that we are just resumes and cover letters. But we are so much more than that. As we have learned today? Yes. I think those are all things that are definitely on my mind as a second semester senior but also things that students should be learning about throughout their college years. Are you graduating this May? Yes, I am. So as an alum, but I failed to mention earlier another common one that we get, certainly get our alumni we serve and help alumni up to three years out, although honestly, only we've turned away any alumni in a while. I mean, there's really the reason for the up to three years out is usually those students or those alumni are still connected to the college in some capacity that either here in Charleston, or they're working directly with a faculty member to apply to grad school or something like that. So that's just something I think it's important to know is that we do help our alumni. Thank you both so much for coming in to talk. Today. I learned so much from both of you about the career center. Are there any last notes that either of you want to add in? I would add that national data has shown for several decades that students who utilize their college career centers have a much higher percentage of securing an internship as well as securing an interview for a full time job. And of course, in order to get a full time job, you're most likely going to have to have an interview. That would be more incentive to utilize our services at your convenience, as well as thank you for your time today. Yes, thanks, Julia. And I'll just, again shamelessly plug our handshake it's there for you to use so it there's no harm in doing it. Please get on there. Fill out your profile. Look around. If you have questions come to the career center and we're happy to meet with you and then we hope to see you at some pop up fairs or career fairs again, you have nothing to lose but you guys will both see me there soon. Thank you Thank you for listening to this episode of Speaking of College of Charleston for more episodes and to read stories about our guests, visit the College of Charleston official news site, the college today@today.cfc.edu. You can also find this and past episodes on all major podcast platforms. This episode was produced by Amy Stockwell from university communications with recording and sound engineering by Jesse comes from the Division of Information Technology. Thanks again and we'll see you next time.