How to make you resume and cover letter stand out from others?

What are some ways to keep students from be discouraged about finding employment?

How common is a college requring graduate placement documentation? Has anyone ever run into a situation where calling students every month or calling their employers has been considered a violation of privacy or harassment? I would think that more often students would just not pick up the phone.

I was wondering, what are Career Workshops that have worked for your students?

An employer is coming to speak to our students soon. What are some points that would be good for him to touch on? I suppose that #1 would be what are employers in your field looking for in an employee? What else? Thanks in advance!

I am the Director of Career Services for a fully Online degree granting institution. We have been offering courses for 5 years and graduating students the last 3 years. Our staffing model has changed 3 times to accomodate the growing number of graduates we have had year over year. Any advice or experience with the perfect staffing model to address the needs of students living in all geographical locations across the country? What is the best way to structure the Career Services Advisor's caseload to ensure an appropriate amount of time is being spent with each unplaced graduate while being able to contact employers too?

My college requires me to call the supervisors of graduates who have recently been placed in field, asking them questions regarding graduate employment duties, salary ect. I'm wondering if other Career Services Representitives have tips on how to go about this. My problem is three fold: 1. How to make sure Grduates are willing to stay in touch with me after they Graduate so that I can follow up with them. 2. How to convince students it is in their interest to help me contact their supervisor. 3. How to convince their supervisor that they should give information on graduates job duties/salary/ect. to me. Thanks in Advance!

How do Career Services Representitives get students to attend their classes? I work at at technical college whose classroom hours are heavily regulated by the FAA. I am not able to take over a class for a Career Services Workshop for this reason. What I have been doing is trying to make my classes as relevant to students immediate needs as possible, advertising my own classes a week before hand, coming in with a sign up sheet two days before hand, and bribing students with sweets. Does anyone else have any other ideas? Thanks!

So, in reading through the content of the first module, there seems to be dual suggestions - one that you need to set up the Advisory Board first, or two that you need to hire the Alumni Director first, and one of his/her responsibilities is to set up the AA? Which is recommended, preferred, better? My scenario is that we are starting from scratch, with no formal structure in existence at our institution?

One of our challanges is graduates that feel they can wait to start working. There is no waivers for refusal to work so this presents a challange.

In some industries, freelance work is a large part of the job market. What are some good ways to find freelance opportunities?

Please share your own examples to help others see real-world usage of social media by other Career Centers. Here are some examples below. Career Services Facebook Fan Page primarily being used to take advantage of the enhanced reach social media offers for marketing: http://www.facebook.com/mycareerservices Career Services department using Pinterest to expand marketing reach: http://pinterest.com/princetoncareer/ Career Services Department Using SlideShare to increase exposure to learning from their PowerPoint presentations: http://www.slideshare.net/MTUCareerSvcs Career Services department using Youtube to share informational interviews from interns to have students teach other students from their experience. Social media scales this strategy to reach more people! http://www.youtube.com/user/unlvcareer08?feature=results_main Facebook Alumni Group primarily being used as a community for networking with fellow alumni, sharing success, and for a support community to help one another. This is a strategy where Career Services can use the community to help themselves. http://www.facebook.com/groups/CollinsCollegeAlumniAssociation/ What are some examples you've seen that you'd like to share?

HOw do you tailor student resumes who have experience in many different areas?

For schools that do not plan to hire a director, how can a school effectively run a successful alumni assocation with the current faculty/staff in place?

The recommendation so far, is to make the alumni membership free. However, can a nominal one-time fee be assessed to offset the initial cost? If the alumni member benefits exceed the cost, then I don't see why it would be a problem. For example: Movie theaters and restaurants charge an initial fee to be a member. Yet the benefits over time long outway the initial cost.

We have not instituted a policy for student surveys as of yet but it is something the director is interested in. I was leaning towards an email survey as opposed to a regular letter. Our focus is on hands on training with minimal class room hours. I am thinking that asking our graduates who are all laborers to mail a survey back will not yield the results we are looking to document. 1. Is this method too informal? 2. How far back should I pull grad data from? (I was thinking at least the last year is a good time frame for graduate responses to be fresh- though I have data from the last 3 yrs)

Some of my graduates have decades of experience at many jobs so their resumes can be lengthy. Generally as a rule I know that most human resources would prefer to see a concise resume on one page. For example in the case of someone who has a solid work history dating back to the seventies who changed jobs every five or six years what do you date back to? The last twenty years? The last five positions held? Or in the case of a younger person who has changed positions frequently.

Many of the participants in our training program are coming through state grant programs and many times it is difficult to get participation since they are already working with a state agency. What are some fresh ideas for getting better participation rate (besides repetitive voice mail messages)?

When a student is placed we conduct a brief survey typically over the phone within the first few weeks of employment. My position is transitioning into job development and personally some the questions seem very sensitive to me and in the past students have been offended. How do you approach asking the student for sensitive information such as current pay rate and employment contacts?

Should negotiating salary be considered for entry level jobs? There are so many applicants and possibly applicants with experience that would take anything based on the job market. I wasn’t sure on how aggressive one should be when negotiating.