The Career Center at Hofstra University offers students a variety of services to guide them along with everything from picking the right major to finding a job after graduation. Workshops like resume critiquing and mock-interviews are very helpful to students. And every year, they host the career fair where students are able to meet and submit their resumes to employers – ranging from local companies to corporate businesses – in hopes of securing a future internship or job. There are a lot of students who use the resources the Career Center has to offer. Junior management major Kimberly Roberson is one of them.
“I’m starting now to use [the Career Center] to my advantage because I’m learning more about myself by doing assessments, getting help on my resume, receiving insight on careers in fields I can go into and knowing that the staff is willing to help me on my career and future goals,” Roberson said.
Samantha Ibrahim, freshman journalism major, expressed interest despite never having visited.
“I’ve never been to the Career Center. I don’t have time to go, but I would like to go,” she said.
According Senior Associate Director of the Career Center Darlene Johnson, due to the poor economy, many students know that they need extra and have used the resource at least once.
“[However], I don’t think enough students are taking advantage of the Career Center. We basically wouldn’t be satisfied unless 100 percent of the student population was taking advantage of our resources," said Johnson. "That’s our main goal and our main challenge; to increase the number of students utilizing our resources.”
Johnson also believes that students aren’t using the Career Center to their advantage because they think they can do it on their own with Internet resources.
“The Internet is a very valuable tool in job searching and career development, but it’s not the only tool that should be used, and just because you’re finding an opportunity on the Internet, doesn’t mean it’s the right opportunity for you,” Johnson said.
A handful of students use the Career Center especially to get their resume or cover letter critiqued.
Senior journalism major and president of Hofstra University's Association of Black Journalists (HUABJ) Claudia Balthazar did just that.
“I first went to the Career Center during my freshman year…I think it’s important for students to take advantage of these opportunities as soon as they can," said Balthazar. "You don’t want to be that senior who doesn’t know what they are going to do because they never took advantage of the opportunities given to them.”
She also uses it for HUABJ. “I’ve had people from the Career Center come to the meetings and help us with our resumes or prepare us for the career fairs on campus. Sometimes we go to them instead, that way members will know where it’s located,” Balthazar said.
There has been an increase in students who are coming in for quick question hours, whether it’s for resume critiquing, help on their cover letter or any other questions they might have.
Currently, the Career Center has been doing a lot with social media.
“We’re on Instagram, we’re on LinkedIn, we’re on Facebook, we’re on Twitter, and we’re utilizing that a great deal so that’s reaching a whole audience of students that maybe we wouldn’t have access to prior,” Johnson said. “We do a lot of classroom visits over the semester and we’re coming up with creative ideas and go where the students are. Our counselors even do workshops in the residence halls.”
According to Johnson, they’ve been able to see 816 students in the month of October due to classroom visits, workshops and other creative ideas.