Tools For Securing a Job/Internship/Research Opportunity
Hoping to land a job, internship, or research opportunity? Here is your hub to do this! Please see a wealth of resources below that will help you land a job, as well as other pages on our UConnect site.
Steps to Securing an Opportunity!
Career Connection is here to help you explore your options and obtain essential hands on opportunities.
- Step 1: Explore our Career Communities! If you are unsure of which community you identify with, consider the Exploratory Career Community
- Step 2: Join a Career Community and Sign Up for the Bi-Weekly Newsletters with Job & Event details!
- Step 3: Schedule an appointment on Handshake to meet with a specialized Career Catalyst, Peer Career Coach or Alumni in Residence.
- Step 4: Attend a Career Fair or Event! We have major specific opportunities and skill-based events such as our Speed Mock Interviews.
- Step 5: Review the resources below!!
Resources for Landing a Job/Internship/Research Opportunity!
Now in its 7th year, the Bishop Launch Program (BLP) helps students become confident, competent, and competitive internship and job seekers. A semester-long program offered only during the fall term, BLP targets Sophomores & Juniors, helps them in their internship/job search process, and gives them the tools (acquired through a wide variety of workshops) to successfully launch into their careers post OWU. Over 70% of students who register to participate successfully complete BLP.
UC 153 & UC 154
Career Connection has 2 courses you can take to Design Your Future and help ensure Career Preparedness! Reach out to Leigh Mascolino (lemascolin@owu.edu) or Mindy Agin (mbagin@owu.edu) to learn more about what this course entails.
Identifying Your Strengths and How to Use Them
As an OWU student you are able to take the Clifton Strengths Assessment, designed to help you discover your strengths and get customized insights. Learn what you do best, why you’re unique and how you can use your strengths to succeed in everything you do.
The Career Connection offers several chances for you to discuss how to incorporate this information into your elevator pitch, interview question responses and your overall professional life.
Sign up for a Strengths Conversation on Handshake!
Putting Yourself on Paper
Before you even begin your search, you’ll want to have a solid resume ready for minor personalization and submission. The Career Connection has a page devoted to writing a professional resume, and we encourage you to come and see us!
Cover Letters
A cover letter is a persuasive business letter that introduces you to a potential employer and explains why you should be considered for a job. When companies utilize an Applicant Tracking System (ATS), the presence or absence of a cover letter could effect where your application gets placed in order of preference. See more details and examples here!
Potential employers will be searching for you online; make sure you don’t accidentally make a poor impression! Check your privacy settings for social media to avoid any embarrassing or potentially negative perceptions a future employer might find.
LinkedIn is a valuable networking tool and a place to showcase your academic and professional achievements. It can also be used as a job-search tool.
You can learn more about how to establish your online professional presence in this handy ‘how to guide’ from our resources section.
Navigating Job Searching in the Age of the Internet
There are many online job search tools out there! Some general guidelines and tips are:
- Be careful of scams – if it seems to good to be true, it probably is. We encourage you to review our resource that goes into how to spot a scam and can save you hours of effort and potential financial mistakes. If you have any questions about the legitimacy of a job posting, don’t hesitate to reach out to careers@owu.edu to help you and when in doubt NEVER WIRE OR TRANFER FUNDS FOR A POSITION.
- If you find a position listed across several job search sites, it’s best to apply directly through the company’s/organization’s website. There are several reasons why this is good advice and ensures the highest chance of your application being seen by the right people.
- Quality over Quantity = key to success. the ‘Easy Apply’ and ‘One Click Apply’ buttons are not your friend. Many desirable positions, especially with larger companies, will receive hundreds or even thousands of applications for a small number of positions. It is often better to spend more time on personalizing your application than blanket submitting hundreds of a more general one.
- Learn what position titles look like – the vocabulary around certain jobs and industries can be either rigid or more flexible, modifying your search terms can make the difference between one listing and 100 based on word choice alone. Exploring certain organizations you’d like to work with and their potentially unique vocabulary is a great skill to hone.
Commonly Used Online Searching Tools:
- Handshake
- Indeed
- ZipRecruiter
- Google Careers
- Monster
- Simply Hired
- Workday
- Glassdoor
All of these are great options to begin your search!
Consider questions such as: ‘Is this job somewhere geographically I would like to live in? Are there things I could/couldn’t do if I lived there that I enjoy outside of work?’, ‘Does this position offer opportunities for advancement?’, ‘Do people who work there feel like it’s a good work environment?’, ‘Can I work with a hybrid model or do I want to be full time in-person/remote?’.
Keep in mind that these are often not short term positions and while you always have the option to find another, it will be much harder once you’ve settled into your new environment.
Finding Jobs in Your Industry
Different industries have different places they like to recruit talent and can vary widely – the Career Community newsletters are a great way for you to find positions that might not appear on more general search sites as well as any unique postings submitted to the Career Connection by individuals or organizations that we have ties with.
Since you are already signed up for this service, it’s a great place to find jobs that can start you on the path towards your dream career! These come with the added benefit of having a fairly strict amount of oversight and, though it does happen, scam postings are reported and removed regularly.
You can find the ‘Jobs’ tab on the bottom left side in the menu.
Indeed.com is a valuable resource to begin your search. If you are not familiar with it, we encourage you to poke around a little to get used to its features and nuances. You can review Indeed’s own search assistance page for more details about how to use this important tool effectively. Things you also might want to know about using Indeed as your primary searching tool:
- Indeed.com updates constantly and can be a bit confusing with multiple job postings for similar and sometimes the same position – it is best to find it there and, if possible, submit your application directly to the organization’s or company’s website.
- Pay attention to dates – while these are updated constantly, there is little oversight to remove positions where the deadline for application has passed or if the position has already been filled.
- Be careful of scams!
- You can search for not only full time jobs but also part-time jobs, internships and volunteering opportunities that might benefit you.
You never know who you might meet who can help you land your dream job!
Joining Professional organizations is a good place to get a ‘feel’ for the industry before jumping in headfirst. You can find professional organizations associated with your field of interest at the bottom of most Career Community pages – if you don’t see one that aligns to you, ask a Career Catalyst to help you find one!
OWU holds two Career Fairs on campus during the academic year – one in the Fall (September) and one in Spring (February). The Career Connection sends out communications before these and we highly suggest you review the How to Work a Career Fair guide before attending to maximize your ability to network and identify potential leads. It emphasizes three general phases of attending a career fair – before, during and after and even has a potential thank you and connection note for you to personalize and really stand out as an applicant.
What is an ATS?
Simply put, an ATS is software designed for companies that receive large numbers of applications to sort through and rank them based on the company’s established criteria. These systems are often looking for highly specific key words concerning experience, education, skill sets and other factors to narrow down their applicant pool to those who meet the requirements based on their job posting.
Today, a reported 99% of Fortune 500 companies utilize this type of software and with its growing availability, many smaller organizations are able to use them as well. In one form or another it is highly likely that you will encounter this frustrating AI progenitor.
How to Hedge Your Bets for Success
While it’s difficult to anticipate what exactly might get your resume kicked out of a que for the ‘to contact’ pile, we do know certain factors that influence the likeliness of a human eye gazing at your perfectly polished and pristine resume.
- Flashy, out of the ordinary designs are a no go – ATS do not like any ‘unexpected input’ so unique templates might look nice and seem ‘more professional’ than a traditional text based one might seem appealing, it is a far safer bet to stick to what works.
- Do not include images or columns – if you Google ‘Resume Template’ you are rewarded with many options that are not going to be ATS friendly which comes back to avoiding ‘unexpected input’. Columns can vary and can be confusing to an automated system so it is best to avoid them.
- Your header should just be your name – Software is smart but not that smart – avoid combining different types of information (i.e. your name and your contact information) by having both in a header where the information may not be accepted by the ATS and your resume may be categorized as ‘incomplete’ and therefore dismissed. Having clearly defined sections (Education, Relevant Experience, etc.) helps the ATS find the information it’s looking for with no issue.
- Make sure your application materials are submitted in the correct format – You might not think that how you save your document might matter but it does! Simply put ATS cannot work with document types that it does not how to read. It has been noted that Word documents (.docx or .doc) are the best format to submit resumes in but to avoid open text documents as they provide too many variations. If you have any questions about how to convert your document, reach out to a Career Connection member to help you.
- While listing ‘soft skills’ is not ideal, make sure to incorporate them – We advise students to not make a soft skills list (things like organized, good time-management skills, etc.) because, as a college student or recent graduate, you are expected to have these skills as part of your accomplishments however it is important to include exact keywords somewhere in the body of your resume or cover letter to push the ATS to put your application higher than those that do not.
While following these tips does not guarantee that you will trick the ATS to putting your application to the top of the list, they certainly are helpful to be aware of!
Sometimes having an ‘in’ at an organization you’d like to work with or even someone in your industry of interest can be a huge advantage to securing a position.
The Career Connection encourages students to begin building a robust professional network from the start and offers chances for you to meet and learn from our illustrious alumni! You can check out our Alumni Partners page to see if anyone catches your eye and reach out to them for guidance from someone who has been in your shoes and often provide valuable insight into life after OWU and how to grow professionally.
Outreach should always be professional and courteous but most people want to help if they can and building personal, long lasting relationships is an integral step towards your dream career. The Career Connection has resources to get you on the path – review our Networking Guide to get yourself started!
People that you have worked with or for might have information that could be useful to you as you look for a long term position, it never hurts to reach out and inquire by starting a conversation around their experience in their position and if they have any advice they would like to offer to you when/if you are applying.
You’ve successfully gotten the attention of a potential employer and now they want to know more about you and how you will fit into their company – congratulations! That is the door beginning to open and now the next step is to dazzle them in a formal interview.
While it can be daunting to step into a new place with unknown people, especially if it is not something you have done before, there are many ways to help you do well! The Career Connection offers resources to help ensure you feel ready to take on this challenge.
- The OWU Career Connection’s Interview Success Guide is a great place to start when preparing for your first formal interview. It goes over how to approach interview preparation and outlines what employers are looking for during yours as well as good approaches to answering unexpected questions like a STARR.
- Ace Your Virtual Interview provides you with tips and tricks to ensure that if this interview goes virtual you can avoid certain pitfalls that might influence a potential employer’s view of you as a future employee.
- Schedule a Mock Interview with one of the Career Connection team members to test your skills and receive personalized feedback to make sure you make the best impression possible.
Undergraduate research can be an integral part of your education! While this is normally associated with students looking towards a future career in STEM, it is a chance for any student to explore many aspects of future professions. It can help you explore career options, build skills in critical thinking, professional communication, information literacy and offer a chance to learn outside of the classroom, not to mention build your professional network.
You can do research on just about anything! The first step when thinking about research is to define, in at least some detail, what you’d like to study and how the community surrounding it approaches it. Talking to faculty members in your area of interest is a great way to start your search and learn where the best places will be to find an opportunity and how to think about drafting your research proposal or being invited to join a current project.
Most formal Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REUs) are paid,10-12 week programs over the summer and are usually built for those entering their Junior or Senior year the following fall. Graduating seniors are generally not accepted and incoming First Years or Rising Sophomores, in general, do not have the academic preparedness to fully take advantage of these opportunities and are often encouraged to reapply the following application cycle.
These programs have unique applications that require more detailed information than your transcript and a resume, you can learn more about this application process on the STEM Career Community page or reach out to the STEM & Pre-Health Career Catalyst, Kristen Astorian (keastorian@owu.edu), to get you started.
You don’t have to go far to find some fantastic research going on in the world of science!
If you know research is in your future or want more experience with how it’s done, our faculty members are a fantastic resource for you.
Independent studies are guided by a faculty mentor in your area of research interest and can award you academic credit in the process. Reach out to your Academic Advisor or favorite faculty member to learn more about the process. We also have some amazing faculty with long term projects and their own laboratory groups for you to investigate further.
Gangloff Lab of Amphibian and Reptile Ecophysiology (GLARE)
Hosted by OWU’s faculty member Dr. Eric Gangloff, his lab group focuses on studying physiology, behavior, morphology, and ecology in various reptile and amphibian species.
He often has students work with him on their own independent studies, has summer research available and is open to conversations about getting students involved.
Dr. Chris Wolverton’s research interests include how plants integrate signals such as light, touch, and gravity to influence growth and development. His lab uses a combination of mutants, transgenic approaches, and reporter gene studies along with a custom hardware and software system that combines real-time image analysis with motor control to study the dynamics of sensory output and growth regulation. He is currently funded by NASA for a spaceflight experiment investigating the threshold for gravity perception and to characterize the cellular systems that transduce the gravity signal into cellular information.
He often has students working with him year round is open to conversations about getting students involved!
- Dr. Chelsea Vadnie uses mouse models to study the role of circadian rhythm disruptions in behaviors relevant to anxiety, mood and alcohol use disorders. She uses optogenetics and environmental manipulations to understand whether circadian rhythm disruption alters behavioral phenotypes and neurobiology in mouse models. Her current project is centered on determining the role of the central pacemaker in the brain, the suprachiasmatic nucleus, in the regulation of mood and anxiety-like behavior. She also studies the behavioral and neurobiological effects of circadian disruption during adolescence.
She occasionally has students work with her during the SSRP. - Dr. Robert Harmon utilizes OWU’s Perkins Observatory for classes and research, including the study of starspots. He mentors undergraduates conducting research during the summer, the results of which often are presented at regional and national conferences.
He has routinely has 2 SSRP students working on projects each summer. - Dr. Dustin Reichard focuses broadly on the evolution of animal communication and sexual selection with a particular emphasis on birds. Specifically, he investigates the relationship between signal structure and function in a variety of poorly understood signals including whispered vocalizations that function in aggression and courtship as well as female songs, which were once thought to be exceedingly rare. His focus on communication extends to measuring how human-induced changes in the environment, such as anthropogenic noise, are affecting animal signaling and stress physiology. He is also interested in how various types of social interactions, which typically include vocalizations, affect circulating hormone levels and ultimately, an individual’s fitness. These studies are done in the field with free-living songbirds, predominantly Dark-eyed Juncos, House Wrens, and Carolina Wrens.
He works with students on independent studies and participates in the SSRP, often at OWU’s Nature Preserves. - Dr. Nathan Rowley researches fields include climatology, remote sensing, human-environmental interactions, and glaciology. As part of his approach to teaching, he is an avid supporter of mentorship of undergraduate research.
He often works with students on independent research and participates regularly in the SSRP.
