Job hunting tips from those in the trenches
Three college graduates and three college seniors share what they've learned about the job hunt:
Jaimie Jandovitz
Jandovitz graduated in May with a degree in graphic design from Emmanuel College. She is a junior graphic designer for Smart Destinations, a Boston company that created the Go Boston Card, which gives visitors discount admission to many of the city's tourist attractions.
How did she land her first job? "I had been searching for a while before I graduated, but it ended up being my internship that gave me a job," she said.
Jandovitz interned at the Daily Jolt in Cambridge last summer and then this summer at Smart Destinations.
Her best advice for soon-to-be college grads: "Definitely intern as much as you can," she said. "My college required it, but not all do. It's the kind of thing that employers want to see. They feel more confident if they know you have that experience."
Kris Kieltyka
Kieltyka finished his coursework at Northeastern University over the summer and will receive a degree in electrical and computer engineering this month. While he is now attending a master's program in engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, he credits his college's co-op program with jump starting his career.
What kind of experience did he get while on co-op?
"The co-ops I had at Sun, Intel and AMD gave me contacts I know will be helpful when I finish my master's," he said. "I worked for three different companies, and I have a broad view of different areas in my field. It let me try everything first."
His best advice for soon-to-be college grads: "If I had to do it 100 times again, I would do the co-op again and again and again," he said. "You have a terrific edge.
Your resume is twice as full as anyone else."
Beth McSweeney
McSweeney graduated in December 2003 with a degree in biochemistry from Smith College. She is now part of a medical research team at Harvard University's Jeruzalmi Lab, where she studies human proteins at an atomic level. She worked for almost a year at Clean Water Action, a nonprofit in Northampton.
Why didn't she go directly into her field?
"I took work at a nonprofit because it was something I wanted to do before I got too involved," she said. "When I wanted a science job, I set out and got one. When I was ready, I said I would give myself two months. I found all the jobs I liked in Boston, and five weeks after starting to look, I got the offer from Harvard."
Her best advice for soon-to-be college grads: "Don't limit yourself too much, there's a lot of things you can do in your field that do stretch the meaning of your education," she said. "Make sure you're happy in what you do. That was more important to me than other things like location and pay. I love my job. I work 80 hours a week not because I have to, but because I want to."
Jennifer Larson
Larson is a senior English and French dual major at Simmons College. Before studying in France last year, she wanted to get a master's in education and teach French language and culture, but now she wants to work with other students who want to go abroad.
Her biggest concern about finding a job?
"I don't want to find something that isn't that great and get stuck with it," she said. "My boyfriend graduated three years ago from MassArt and now works at a finance company and can't stand it. I don't want that to happen to me."
Her best advice for younger college students: Start small, even if it means paying your dues before finding a job you really love.
"This school year, I'm having a work-study job in the study abroad office at Simmons," she said.
"I really want to help other kids realize that they can go abroad too, because I know what a great experience it is. Even if I could be a secretary at a student travel agency, I would at least have my foot in the door to start on something better."
Alexa DeGennaro
DeGennaro is a senior magazine journalism major at Boston University. She has worked for Variety and at The Daily Telegraph in London. Now she's hoping those internships will give her an edge in the competitive world of print media.
Her biggest concern about finding a job? "That I'll be disappointed and have to move somewhere else to a small market where I don't want to be," she said.
"Also, I'm concerned that my writing skills might not be up to par for where I want to work. But I'm willing to do anything to get my foot in the door."
Her best advice for younger college students: Take as much internship experience as you can, and work for career-relevant student organizations, she said.
"I'd really like to be an editor, and I got that experience from working at the Daily Free Press," BU's student newspaper. she said. "I've gotten to work in ways there that internships wouldn't allow. Also, my internships reaffirmed that I don't want to work in a daily deadline environment. They've shown me what I don't want to do."
Lyndsay Wyka
Wyka is a senior child studies/health and recreation major at Lesley College.
Even though she'll have a bachelor's degree in May, she plans to return to her native New Hampshire to earn an associate's degree in speech assistance from a local community college and then earn a doctorate in speech therapy. She hopes to use her bachelor's degree to find a job that will pay her bills while she pursues a new educational path.
Her biggest concern about finding a job? "I want to find a job that I won't hate and that I can pay my bills with," she said. "Unfortunately, I'll just have to find something to get some money in my pocket when I go back to school. There aren't many good paying jobs out there in child care."
Her best advice for younger college students? "I think my school did a wonderful job preparing me for work, but I didn't study the right thing," she said.
"Make sure you know what you want to do. There's nothing you can do in the speech therapy field without a specific education."
Compiled by Nathan Hurst
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North of Boston Career Fair
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