|
University Career Services (UCS) offers comprehensive career services
to graduate students. Students across all graduate departments are eligible
to receive services to address their career planning and job search needs. The
UCS staff are well-informed about the search process and prepared to assist
you with your individual needs.
Our office provides the following:
Registering and Using UCS Services
To access our services, we ask that you first sign-up on CareerCat. Thereafter, you can:
- Come to our walk-in hours from 11:00 to 3:00, Tuesday through Friday
- OR
- Contact Tamara Johnson, Associate Director for Career Developent, via email
at tamara-johnson@northwestern.edu to
schedule an initial appointment
Your initial UCS appointment may include the following:
- Meeting with a member of our staff to receive an overview of our services
- Referral to the most appropriate staff member for follow-up appointments
- Discussing your career aspirations, concerns, and challenges
- A review of your resume or curriculum vita
- Referrals to other resources to get your process started
Follow up Appointments
Our Associate Director for Career Development or our Career Counselors can
assist you with any aspect of your career development as well as other life/work
concerns you may have. This includes assistance with self-assessment, career
exploration, employment preparation and transition from graduate
school to the work world.
[Top]
Services
- Career counseling
- Career assessment
- Individual job search counseling and consultation
- Job search tips for faculty spouses/partners
- Access to the career library located on the ground floor of UCS (620 Lincoln Street)
- Resume referral service through CareerCat
Databases
- CareerCat for on-campus interviewing and on-line job listings
- MonsterTRAK for on-line job listings
- Northwestern CareerNet – Alumni database Network
- Dossier file service for the academic job search
- Career Search – a national employer database (contact UCS for the username and password)
[Top]
Career Programming
- Beyond Books (programs sponsored with the Graduate School)
- Backpack to Briefcase series in the Fall
- Life After College series in the Spring
- All other career workshops and seminars
[Top]
Career Fairs
- Campus Recruiting Expo a preview of companies coming to campus
- SWE Industry Day job fair for engineering/technical employers
- Martin Luther King Public Interest Job and Internship Fair for government and non-profit employers
- Career Expo (job fair for business and other non-technical employers)
- Chicago Science Career Forum (Ph.D. only job fair)
[Top]
Career Counseling
Career counseling is a confidential and supportive process through which you
and your counselor work together to explore career options and make career
decisions. You will work at your own pace, on the parts of the career planning
process appropriate to your needs. Career counseling can include discussing
your strengths, areas of growth, and challenges. Additionally, career counseling
can include an assessment of your skills, abilities, interests, and work values.
Career counseling issues for graduate students often include:
- Evaluating academic and non-academic career choices
- Discussing the impact of graduate school on career options
- Learning, evaluating, and refining your interviewing skills
- Examining familial, cultural, gender, sexual orientation and/or disability
issues related to career decisions
- Managing feelings of being rushed/pressured to make career decisions
- Considering the transition from student to professional
- Learning about employment opportunities
- Making decisions that are most appropriate given lifestyle considerations
[Top]
Academic Employment
UCS also provides job search consultation for the academic job search. We can help you:
- Prepare an effective curriculum vita
- Write appropriate cover letters
- Improve your interviewing skills
- Implement effective job search strategies
Resources for the Academic Job Search
[Top]
File Services
Graduate students seeking teaching or administrative positions in academia
may set up a dossier file within UCS.
[Top]
Non-Academic Employment
The decision to pursue a non-academic position may present unique challenges. The
process of obtaining a professorship is very different than the process for
obtaining other positions. Searching for alternatives to professorships can
be an ambiguous and difficult undertaking.
Once you decide not to pursue academic employment, you must determine what
employers are looking for and revise your resume to highlight how your degree(s)
and experiences fit with what potential employers seek. While there are plenty
of employers in all industries interested in hiring Northwestern graduate students,
many do not actively seek out graduate students to fill their positions through
the same channels they use to recruit undergraduate students (e.g., on-campus
interviewing, on-line job postings). Working with someone from UCS can
help you think through additional options.
Additionally, some employers are simply not aware of the added value your
advanced education would provide them. As such, you must be very proactive
and learn how to market your education and training to potential employers.
This will likely include transforming your curriculum vita into a one or two
page resume, becoming more creative in uncovering potential job opportunities,
and utilizing a variety of resources. UCS staff can assist with job-search
techniques, interview tips, and resource referrals/recommendations.
[Top]
Taking Time Off
If you are considering taking some time off before beginning any type of job
search, UCS can assist you with identifying alternate plans.
[Top]
|
