Megan Riksen:

Hello and welcome to the Work Like a Laker podcast. I'm Megan Ricksen, and today I'm joined by both of my co-host, Grace Joaquin and Brian Bossick. And we are here to kick off a brand new season of the podcast. So we're excited to all be together and I wanna start by asking you a question, Brian. Do you have a question that you get asked most frequently about careers?

Brian Bossick:

I do. Typically it's how do I know I've got the perfect job or the perfect major?

Megan Riksen:

Yeah, it's a toughie.

Brian Bossick:

Which is a toughie, right? And, and it's not an easy answer, but to condense it to like the 32nd version. Um know yourself well first, and whether that's through people that know you or things that you do, or you come in to see one of us for like career assessments and understand yourself. And, and then test it out, right? Test it out. Go experience something in a field that's related. Go do an internship, go see if you actually like doing it. And I think those are some of the biggest things. I would also throw that like most majors can translate into so many different job options. So you have flexibility that you didn't even know probably when you first thought about that major.

Megan Riksen:

Totally. Yeah. Good points. Cool. That was pretty quick too. Thanks.

Brian Bossick:

Yeah, you're welcome.

Megan Riksen:

Awesome. So Grace, same question to you. What's your F A Q?

Grace Joaquin:

Yeah, I think as an advisor, one of the questions we get asked, or one of the areas we talk about the most is resumes. That's what a lot of students come in to see us about is for us to help them with their resumes. So with that, I think with the most common question I get is, should I have my high school info on here? If so, how long can I keep it on? What should I include? Et cetera. I think the shortest answer to that is if you're a junior or, or higher. So if junior, senior, et cetera, you probably don't want your high school on there anymore unless you've done something that's like super relevant to your field you know, very impressive. That is, again, really relevant. You might keep that.

Megan Riksen:

And pretty experiential, right?

Grace Joaquin:

Exactly. If you had an internship in high school, maybe that related to your field you still might include that, but for the most part, you're going to leave high school off once you're a junior. Freshman and sophomore year, you might wanna include it and include some of your extracurriculars from there. But just be aware that by the time you're a junior, try to fill it more with accomplishments from college.

Megan Riksen:

Cool. So today we're doing something we haven't done before. We're gonna be responding to the FAQs that we get here in the career center. And what we've done is asked all of our career advisors in the office to submit the questions that they received the most. And there were a lot <laugh>. We get a lot of questions, which is great. So what we've done and how we're we're gonna kind of structure this podcast is we've grouped them into different categories and we'll tackle the frequently asked questions within each of those categories. Does that make sense?

Grace Joaquin:

Yeah.

Brian Bossick:

Sounds like a great plan.

Megan Riksen:

Awesome. So Grace, do you wanna kick us off with the internship category?

Grace Joaquin:

Yes. So along with resumes, which I think Brian will be talking about shortly, internships is another huge topic that we get asked about in the Career Center. We do have an episode specifically for this topic, so I'm gonna try to be quick and brief with my answers, but if you want more information and to go more in depth, in season five, episode one, we have "Internships - The Basics" that you can go hear more about that. But just to be kind of quick with these, how do you find an internship? There are a lot of ways you can look at Handshake. There are great opportunities on Handshake. You can talk to your career advisor, of course, they can kinda help you explore Handshake and find other ways to maybe network attending events like career fairs, et cetera, to get some opportunities. And then also most majors have an internship coordinator. So if you're thinking you might want an internship, I highly suggest to make an appointment as soon as you can with them. And then how do you get credit that's going to vary based on your major and your field. So I would say again, the first step is to talk to your internship coordinator. If you don't have an internship coordinator, then, and again, just Google your major and that word and and G V S U and it should come up. But if you don't have one, then you can come to the career center and we can kind of walk you through the process of how to get credit. Alongside of that, should you get credit or do you have to get credit?

Megan Riksen:

I think that's a big one.

Grace Joaquin:

That's a question I hear a lot. That's a big one. The answer, the short answer is no. You don't have to get credit for your experience. You can do internships without credit. The benefit of having credit for it though is that you do have someone to walk you through that process to reflect on the experience with you. I think you get a little bit more from your internship when you do take a internship class alongside it, plus you get credit, which usually will go towards your major. So that's always nice. But it's, it's up to you.

Megan Riksen:

If it doesn't make sense in your degree plan, and it's just gonna be extra money that you're paying for credits you don't need. Don't, don't do it.

Grace Joaquin:

Yeah. I'll be honest, I took two internships as a student here and I did not get credit for either.

Megan Riksen:

Super common.

Grace Joaquin:

You can do what works for you like Megan said. And then the last one here, how early should you start looking for an internship? Again, it's going to depend. But I would say you wanna do it at least like, like, so if you wanted to do a summer internship, you might wanna start even potentially looking in the fall. Really almost like a year ahead. But it depends on the field. So if you wanna go into the FBI for example, you need to be applying for that over a year in advance. So really thinking even more than a year ahead. But other times you might be able to start looking in March and find something for the summer. So I would say it doesn't hurt to do it like nine to 10 months early, but then just keep looking and you might find something closer and know that that's okay too.

Megan Riksen:

It's not like you're totally <laugh> out of it if you haven't started 10 months before.

Brian Bossick:

That's right. Don't give up. Even if it's last minute.

Grace Joaquin:

It does get tricky though if you wait for only a month before. So just make sure you're giving yourself at least a few months of time to look.

Megan Riksen:

Absolutely.

Brian Bossick:

Got it. So I've got a couple questions about timing and two questions to kind of take a look at here. And the first one is, are gap years? Okay. Yes, yes, they are <laugh>, but I'll say more than just that gap years are okay, especially if, well, for a couple reasons, right? If you're trying to figure out what to do next and you're not really sure what you want to do sometimes a gap year is a great way to have something planned and you do experiences to help you figure out what that next step is. So whether that's, I'm thinking about grad school, but I'm not ready for grad school yet, so I wanna take some time off. I wanna work, I wanna prepare and then figure out if that's what I wanna do. Or if you're thinking about like, hey, I'm, I wanna go back to school, or I wanna maybe make a career shift and I need more experience, how do you get that experience? So gap years and the word gap year is a little bit misleading cause it isn't always a year. Sometimes it's shorter. Sometimes it's slightly longer. But I think they're definitely okay, especially if you use it wisely and make it work for you. And then the second question of timing. Should I go to grad school right away? And if you want more info on this, go to the graduate school episode, which is in season two, episode four. That is a great question and there's not a right answer for this one either. However a couple things to think about. Know yourself. If you're someone who, if you're gonna take a break and you know, I'll never go back <laugh>, then maybe keep going if you really want to go. But it also, if, if you're looking at grad schools, but there are grad schools where you might really need experience before applying then go get that experience because not every career path is gonna be a direct shot. Also know yourself about finances. Like, hey, if, if loans and assistantships and other things aren't available, do you need to take the time to work, get practical experience, then apply to grad school? And then also just knowing where you are with burnout. Do you need a break? I've talked to lots of students who, like, they've, they've worked really hard and they, they need a break. So how do you then use that time before you apply for grad school? So you can go straight through, but you definitely don't have to.

Grace Joaquin:

And I think sometimes it can actually hurt you to your point of like, do you need experience before you get a job with your master's? I know with education it's often better to maybe teach for a few years before getting your master's degree.

Megan Riksen:

<Affirmative>, I would say definitely the same thing with an MBA.

Brian Bossick:

Yeah, that's what I've heard too.

Grace Joaquin:

Yeah. So just ask people in your field what they would recommend if you're not sure.

Brian Bossick:

Yeah. I'd say even in the field of psychology, you can go straight through, but then to understand the business and different places you can work, it's really helpful to do that.

Megan Riksen:

Have some time. Yeah. Awesome. Okay, our next little section here is the job search process. So I'll kick that off with the question. How do I follow up with employers? This is one that starts cropping up a lot around career fair time because students have gone into the career fair, they've spoken with, you know, maybe 20 different employers. And I, I think kind of my piece of advice for this one would be just do it. Like, follow up. I don't think it necessarily, I mean, there are good ways of doing it and, and bad for sure, but send an email. Connect on LinkedIn and be intentional in those reach outs. So if it's on LinkedIn, make sure that you're adding a little note saying maybe where you met that person, why you're following up. If it's in an email, you have a little bit more space to maybe write, you know, what you enjoyed talking about, and then asking questions to hopefully further that conversation.

Grace Joaquin:

Yeah.

Megan Riksen:

And the next one would be, when should I start applying for jobs if I'm about to graduate? So, you know, we already kind of tackled that with the internship question. I would say with jobs, maybe it's even tougher to pinpoint a specific time. My response is gonna be very similar to what Grace said for internships in that yeah, you're gonna wanna start thinking about it probably a year in advance, not that you're actively applying for jobs at that point, but there's so much more that goes into applying for jobs than just sitting down, filling out an application. So start the networking process, start the figuring out what you wanna do process, start attending events early, the earlier the better. But yeah, I mean, you're not gonna in every field be able to apply a year out. There are definitely some - accounting <laugh>. Definitely. You probably have a job at least a year out. But there are plenty where they're gonna be looking to fill needs more immediately. So in that case, maybe you aren't applying until March.

Brian Bossick:

Megan, I was thinking too, like the, the benefit of starting early is that you, you get a chance to research, right? And you get a chance to see, hey, same job title, different company, same teaching title, different school. Understanding what that, what fits for you, right. And figuring out what works.

Megan Riksen:

Yeah, good point.

Grace Joaquin:

So if you've done all of these, you know, applications, you're applying to a bunch of places, sometimes what happens is like when it rains, it pours. So maybe you've applied to, maybe it's, you know, November and you're graduating in April and you've applied to 20 places, but you don't hear any, you hear crickets for months, right? And then all of a sudden in February you get five phone calls. I feel like that often happens where all of a sudden you just get -

Megan Riksen:

The timing's right?

Brian Bossick:

Yeah. Absolutely.

Grace Joaquin:

So when that happens, that's obviously a great thing to happen. However, some problems can arise. So some questions we get with that is if you have a job offer from someone, but you're waiting to hear back from someone else, what should you do? So like, maybe you really want company A that's your, like, that's your top choice, but maybe you already interviewed with company B, they're offering you a position, you're waiting to hear back from company A and you're like, oh, I really want company A, but you, you know, what's that saying with the birds in the hand? <Laugh>.

Megan Riksen:

Oh goodness.

Brian Bossick:

Oh, I, I know the saying...

Grace Joaquin:

A bird in the hand is worth more than two in the bush.

Brian Bossick:

Yes. Yes. I think that's right.

Grace Joaquin:

I don't really understand it, but yeah, you get the idea. So that can be, again, it's, it's a good problem to have, but it's still a problem to know what to do. So one thing you can do is with company B, you might buy a little bit of time. So if you've already interviewed with company A and you're just waiting to hear back with company B, maybe you say something like this is so exciting, thank you for this offer. May I take a few days to, to look over the offer letter, think it through and get back to you, which honestly you should do anyway, but it helps buy some time. And while that's happening, you're going to wanna maybe email company A and just check in and say, "Hey, I really enjoyed the interview. Thanks again so much. Do you have any updates on the hiring process?" And at that point, hopefully you can hear from company A, but if they aren't going to be able to get back to you within the timeframe you gave company B, you really just have to make that decision of, are you going to commit to company B? Or are you going to say no and hope for the best with company A? And you just, and our advice is always to try to keep your word. So no burning bridges. Try to keep your commitments. If you say yes to company B, try to follow through with that. So just be aware. Another part with interviewing and job searching is interviews. After an interview, if you have not heard anything, so again, maybe company A has not gotten back to you, how long should you wait to contact them about the status? So I think that this varies. If the company told you, we'll get back to you in two weeks, do not contact them before those two weeks are up <laugh>.

Brian Bossick:

Exactly. So true.

Grace Joaquin:

That's going to be a little frustrating, I think to them, because they probably have a lot going on. They're probably trying to prioritize this as best they can, but maybe they need those two weeks to look through all the candidates. So be listening to what they say in the interview. Remember, you can always ask, "what are the next steps in this process," and get that information from them. But yeah, so wait until the timeframe they've given you. Usually it's going to be hopefully within a week, but who knows? And then after that timeframe has passed, maybe a few days after that, you might wanna check in, just send a quick email. "Thanks again so much. I'm just checking to see if there's a status on the hiring process." Keep it short and sweet and polite. And that will, I think, just show that you're engaged and enthusiastic. So it's always good to do that when you can. And then finally another question is, I'm looking to make a career change, but don't have experience in X. How should I write my resume? So one thing we wanna, we always talk about is transferable skills. So thinking about, you know, actually I'll use my own life as an example. I used to be a teacher, and now I work in the career center. Even though they're both in education, they're quite different jobs. And so when I was applying to the internship here, I had to really think about what skills did I gain as a teacher that could apply to this career. You know, making a career pivot. And so thinking about, working with others well, like coming up with curriculum and trainings that I could do, which I now do in the career center, working with students, which of course is, is very transferrable. So thinking about what did you do in your first job? What skills did you gain even? Did you gain organizational skills, et cetera, that you could apply to the new position. And making sure you're really spelling that out in your resume and cover letter of how those apply to the new position.

Brian Bossick:

That's perfect.

Grace Joaquin:

I think that's long-winded, but...

Brian Bossick:

No! And I think that gives flexibility, right? That is the perfect thing if you're looking to make that switch. All right. So talking a little bit about resumes, just a couple questions about resumes to take a look at that Megan and I are gonna jump into. If you want more information on this check out our advisor chat on season two, episode seven on resumes. So we can do a deep dive. If you wanna hear more.

Megan Riksen:

Yes, we go a lot more in depth there.

Brian Bossick:

One of the questions we get a lot is, what's a curriculum vita or a cv? Because People will see that. And oftentimes, so curriculum Vita is, is essentially like an expanded resume. If you think about it more often, you see it when you're in graduate school, in academia, when you're in your current job. So not often when you're first starting out. And it really can follow the same format as a resume but it's gonna be more detailed. So on your work experience, your publications your research experience, your certifications, and here you're gonna see it go from that one to two pages to maybe four to six, six to eight, really depending what field you're in. We do have some samples of curriculum vitas. If you have questions and you have to start doing that, definitely come see us 'cause we can kinda help fill you in. And then the second question, should I have color on my resume or put my picture on it? That's a great question. And very common, very common question. And I think it's, the answer really depends. It depends on number one rule. You wanna make sure you don't distract from the resume and what you're trying to put forward. So you wanna make sure it isn't distracting and people pay attention to the main things you really want 'em to pay attention to. And if it distracts from that, then don't, don't do it. Second thing is, know the company you're applying to. Some companies, if I think about like advertising or other things, maybe creativity is more welcomed. Others it might not be. So keep that in mind as well. And then kind of the guideline for pictures, no, there is, we really don't advise putting pictures on your resumes. So color for paper and maybe even jazzing it up a little bit. Know the company. And then also just make sure your message does not get lost. How many references should I have? And this is an interesting question too. Oftentimes you don't see references on resumes as much anymore. Often if you're applying online, there's almost a separate space for references. However, if you're putting 'em on resumes or you're applying online we usually recommend between three to five references. So if you have that number then I'd say you're, you're doing okay. Yeah.

Megan Riksen:

And you know, if you're gonna have five, have a nice mix. Right? So maybe it's a faculty member and also a past supervisor and also, you know, your career advisor, right? Anybody that you kind of have those strong relationships with is gonna be a good choice.

Grace Joaquin:

And ask them first.

Megan Riksen:

And ask them first!

Brian Bossick:

Oh my goodness, yes. Ask them and give them time, right? Make sure you give 'em some time. If they're like -

Megan Riksen:

Send them an updated resume. Make sure they're okay doing that for you.

Brian Bossick:

You got it. And just think about too, like where you're applying and did this person work with you when you're using those skills or those transferable skills so they could talk to that.

Megan Riksen:

Yeah. And that way they might switch out references depending on what you're applying for.

Brian Bossick:

Exactly. Good point.

Megan Riksen:

All right. Next question then. If I include a skills section on my resume, which skills should I list? Of course this is gonna be dependent on what you're applying to, but basically I find that hard skills are definitely something you want to include. Right? So if you have skills in technology or something that's super job specific, something that you have seen literally on that job posting, make sure you are adding that. And if you can quantify or qualify those skills at all, you get a, you know, just an extra little boost in the skills section. Right? So I could easily say that I, you know, am proficient with ERP systems. We'll just use that as an example. But I could make that a lot stronger if I described that proficiency, right? If I did that through a course where there was a hands-on element or if I had already done that in an internship, if I had used an ERP system. So whenever you can add those descriptors in kind of a quick bullet pointed, almost accomplishment statement type way, that can be really helpful. And that same, you know, kind of strategy would go for soft skills. I think maybe even more important to describe soft skills, wouldn't you say? Because if I'm just saying I'm a great communicator, but I'm not backing that up, the person's gonna read that and it's gonna fly out of their brain. Right? It's not gonna mean a darn thing, right? So I think skill sections are important because it is a very easy way to kind of show how your skills match up with the skills you're seeing on that job description.

Grace Joaquin:

One thing I'll add in too is language skills, which, even if the job description doesn't require another language, I think it never hurts to put that on your resume 'cause you just never know when that could come in. Right?

Megan Riksen:

Right. And then our last question in the resume section is, do I need an objective statement? This is definitely an FAQ that I hear. And again, it's gonna depend. I will say I think the trend in resumes is moving away from objective statements. And probably, you know, either removing it entirely or replacing it with something like a professional summary, which can do a little more, it can summarize, you can maybe have a few bullet points instead of just, here's my one objective. You're kind of saying "no, here's what I want and here's what I've done" in a really brief way. There are going to be fields, you know, we keep picking on education but <laugh> that's probably one where we do still see the objectives. So of course you still want to pay attention to the field you're in, what you're applying for, ask your career advisor. They're definitely gonna have kind of their finger on the pulse of your specific area.

Grace Joaquin:

Okay. So for our last section, we are going to talk about miscellaneous questions where these didn't quite fit into anything else, but these are definitely questions we hear a lot. The first one is, how do I reach out to people on LinkedIn? You can reach out. Linkedin is neat because you don't actually have to know the person in person to reach out. One way it that's nice is to like look for alumni from Grand Valley because then you already have a connection with both being Lakers and you can just find someone on LinkedIn. Hit, I think connect is the word they use, and then add a note. Because If you don't know them, you wanna kind of give a little note to say why you're connecting with them. And you know, put a ask in there, but a easy ask because if you just connect and say hi, they're not, they might say yes to the connection, but they're not going to respond. They're not gonna know what to do with that. So make sure that you connect and you say something like, "hi, I see you're a fellow Laker. I am interested in working in the field that you are. Do you have 20 minutes where I might be able to chat with you via email or phone to pick your brain about this area?" You also don't want the ask to be too big, so you don't wanna say, "can I get a job at your company" or something when they don't know you.

Megan Riksen:

Can you hook me up?

Grace Joaquin:

So, you know, that might be something that if you're not sure how to go about that, feel free to come into the career center and even career lab. We can just chat with you about how to send one of those messages. Kind of brainstorm it with you. So yeah, I think that's one way you can connect. And then another question we have is, do I need a cover letter and how do I write a cover letter? And actually this season, in a few more episodes down the line, we will have a whole episode on cover letters. So if you wanna hear more about this, stay tuned. But as far as should you have a cover letter, the answer is yes. You don't always need one, they don't always require one. But we suggest if there's ever a spot where you can upload one, even if it's not required, it's usually a good idea to do so because you can really then talk more about your experiences, have them get to know you a little bit better, showcase why you'd be a good fit. So it's never really a bad idea, just make sure you're doing a great job with a cover letter. So yeah, so you don't always need one, but we would suggest you always have one if you can.

Megan Riksen:

It's, I mean it's a different, it serves a different purpose than a resume. The resume is all the things you've done that are relevant to the job, but the cover letter you get to actually write in a, you know, a few paragraphs they can get us a little bit more of a sense maybe of who you are. That's why you're writing.

Grace Joaquin:

You are gonna hear some people say that they don't read them. You'll hear people say that. But, you know, that

Megan Riksen:

Doesn't mean...

Grace Joaquin:

There are a lot who do want one.

Megan Riksen:

Yeah.

Grace Joaquin:

So it just, I think it's always a good idea to do that. And that goes along with how do you write one, which is I think making sure that it is targeted. So if you have this sort of great template that you love, make sure you're still going through it with each job application and adding in details of that specific job. So why that specific company, why that position? Why do your experiences match up? Make sure that they can tell that you wrote it specifically for them, even if maybe 70% of it is copy and pasted. You still wanna put in that 30% extra, you know, info. There's also different formatting that you wanna look into to make sure yours is up to the, the normal or like the common standards that people are expecting. All of that can be found on our website. So if you go to gvsu.edu/careers in the students tab under resources, we have a template, I dunno if template's the right word. We have an example of a cover letter that you can look at to see the formatting and also what goes in each paragraph. I guess the main thing I'd say is just make sure it's only one page is kind of a big piece of that. Another question is, what careers are available to someone with my major? Now this you can find out in a variety of ways. First thing I'll say though is with a lot of majors, the possibilities are endless. I mean, if you're an English major, you're not gonna be an accountant most likely, or a nurse or something <laugh>. And if you're a nurse, most likely you will be a nurse. So there are certain fields where they really match up.

Brian Bossick:

Yes.

Megan Riksen:

Right. That's good to say.

Grace Joaquin:

However, if you're an English major, you might work for a for-profit business. Maybe you're in hr, I mean it, it's going to depend on what your experiences were in school, did you do internships, et cetera. So really there's so much flexibility with each major. So that can be overwhelming. And we do have some resources that can help with that. So you can come into the career center and talk to us, for example, and we can give you some ideas of different fields you might go into. You can look on our career guides that we have on our career center website. So again, if you go to our website, students tab, resources page, you'll see career guides on there.

Megan Riksen:

Those are helpful because it actually shows like, here's some past internship sites. Here's some of the job titles where some of our alums, what they're doing, where they're working. So you can get a general sense. It's not gonna be the, you know, complete list of everything you could ever possibly do. But yeah, I think those career guides are super handy.

Grace Joaquin:

And to summarize that, it's really just showing you, I think the best way to see what you can do with your major is to see what other people have done with your major. So those career guides. Also LinkedIn, if you, you look at Grand Valley's page and then the alumni tab, you can filter it by your major and see what all of the alumni are doing with that major. So I mean there's a lot of ways that you can look into that. And again, a lot of flexibility.

Brian Bossick:

I love them too because you have job titles and I think that's one of the things people just, you don't know what the job title is. So if you could look at a career guide, you can see, yeah, this is what we call this or this is what this looks like.

Megan Riksen:

And then you have that information, you can go and research that more. If that's one that sounds cool.

Grace Joaquin:

Yes. And we have a bunch of resources and tools on our website that will help you do all of that. And then finally, what goes in a portfolio? So some of you might hear from your professors or from other people in your field that you should have a portfolio. What goes in a portfolio? Well, that's going to depend on your field. These aren't super common in every field, they might be more common in slightly more creative fields. So for example, AD and PR they're pretty common. And if you're in that field, you're going to probably have maybe like a web based portfolio where you're going to show some of your materials that you've created in the past. You really wanna showcase the, your favorite things that you've done, things you're proud of, that you would want an employer to, to see, to give an example of your work. You might have a physical one if you're doing perhaps art in some form, or photography. But a lot of the portfolios they see now are online. So it just kind of depends on your field. And again, not every field will have one.

Megan Riksen:

And sometimes it's just a matter of having some samples available. I'm thinking like a writing major. You know, it's not, you might not need necessarily like a beautiful website online portfolio, but you gotta make sure you've got some writing samples that you can provide because you either will be asked for them, might be nice to bring along to an interview. So it's basically like what's the proof you have that you can do the things you're saying you can do. And that even if you never show it to anyone, it's good preparation to look through that stuff and be able to talk about it.

Grace Joaquin:

Yeah. Good point, Megan.

Megan Riksen:

Right.

Grace Joaquin:

I think that's it. <Laugh>.

Megan Riksen:

That was a lot of -

Brian Bossick:

A lot of good -

Megan Riksen:

...questions. So thank you to all of our advisors who submitted those for us. And if you have more questions, of course come into the career center. We also are very active on social media, so if you have like little quick questions, DM us on Instagram. We're at gvsucareers. We would be happy to point you in the right direction with that. As we've mentioned many times, we have other podcast episodes. Our website is a great resource as well. So hopefully this was a nice little introduction to the season for everyone and we kind of covered the gamut of topics here. <Laugh> Thank you so much to everyone for listening, and we hope you tune into a future episode soon.