Have you heard of Career Services at Tarleton? We had the chance to sit down and talk with Doug Smith, a Career Services coordinator here at Tarleton, and he was able to give us the rundown on all the great things they can offer students!

What does Career Services have to offer students? 

What most people think we do is just do resumes and job search – and that is some of what we do. We are first and foremost, wanting to prepare students to be successful in a career or their next steps. That might be grad school, professional school, military, whatever their next phase in life is. We want to prepare them for that and that involves professionalism, any documents necessary (resumes, et cetera), and interview skills. We want every student who leaves here to have a head start above most students. 

1. JOB SEARCH. Students come to us and say, “I need a job.” So we’ll help them find a job. [When] students come ask for a job – like “hey, can you get me a job?” I have to be very clear, we can’t get jobs. But we can give you all the right resources to help you be successful in the job search. We always recommend looking at Handshake. We have companies all over the nation on Handshake, but the simple answer is to stop by. We have coaches that will help walk people through that process. It’s very intimidating looking for a job, but we’ll sit down with the students and help them sort through all the steps and the resources. 
2. MAJOR AND CAREER EXPLORATION. There’s hundreds of majors and we want to make sure the student chooses the right one for them. We have career counseling [to help] with that. We have licensed mental health counselors on staff so we can cover more than just the surface-level stuff. 
3. CAREER CLOTHING FUND.  [The Career Clothing Fund] is up to $200.00 and you just apply if you need professional clothing for a job, a job interview, an internship, really anything professional. It’s a very simple application and you can spend it on your choice of clothing. 
4. WORKSHOPS. We have a workshop on every topic you can imagine.

Where do you find interview preps, resume preps, and other career service resources? 

Well, we have handouts, so anytime you come, we can give you as many handouts as necessary. But, for the most part, [students] come by appointment. You can schedule an appointment on EAB just like you would for an advising appointment, and in that appointment is when we can discuss all that. 

If a student gives us a potential job that they might apply to, we will structure about 10 questions about that job and have a mock interview with them and then give them additional tips and resources. 

Some of the additional software I think students would want to know about: 

• Handshake is how you schedule appointments and how you look for on and off-campus jobs. 
• Quinncia is an artificial intelligent software. It looks over your resume and gives you feedback on your resume, but also you can practice interview questions on it and it gives you mock interviews with software. So you can type in any job that you want – let’s say you want to be a math teacher, and it will give you a job interview over those questions and it gives you feedback. 
• Focus2Career is our career assessment. It’s basically a major exploration. 

What do you wish more students knew about career services? 

1. I wish more of them knew that we were even here, we are free, and that we are available. And it’s not just for seniors. Sadly, we’ll hear from some seniors who say, “oh I didn’t even know I didn’t know about career services.” 
2. Most people see career services and think “I don’t need a job yet” or “I don’t want a job yet.” But one misconception, in my opinion, it’s equally as important for incoming students as it is for seniors because of the major explorations or to get your resume started because you might forget what you’ve done in the whole four years if you wait till senior year to start a resume. 
3. We have a thing called on the website called the Career Cycle and it lists all the suggested techniques and activities that you could do to help you be successful throughout all four years. 
4. You can use us forever as alumni. People can pay hundreds of dollars for resume critique online but we can do it here for free until you no longer need a resume. 
5. A lot of people think you have to be a professional already just in the workforce, but we take all students and you don’t have to have a resume started. You can come in with nothing and we will help you create something. 
6. I think some students are intimidated to come in. They might think You have to wear a suit to come in here or whatever the intimidation factor is. People might be intimidated cause they don’t know anything, and we’ve all been there so. 
7. At job fairs, people actually get jobs there. It seems obvious, but it wasn’t to me. It’s not to most people. I thought that it was more of just a resource there, right? You’ll get your free shirts and pins, but we have students hired on the spot.

How do students find internships? 

We would connect them with our internship coordinator, Marcus Taylor. But beyond that, we would say Handshake again. 

Talk to your professors and your department heads, because sometimes they have very specific internships within your own major/department/college, and they’ll have connections as well.  

Now that you know all about Career Services, aren’t you relieved to know who to go to for career help? Career Services is just another great reason to choose Tarleton! We can’t wait to see y’all on campus and get you plugged in with Career Services!