By Tris Lashea ’22
Check out these upcoming events from the Career Center that will help students (and alumni!) gain new skills and new confidence in our career endeavors.
Cover Letter Week 03/08 to 03/12
Before coming to college and applying for internships I never knew that cover letters were even a thing. I ended up using whatever templates I could find on the internet with constant proofreading and trying to make it showcase my personality. To avoid awkwardly inserting generic and obvious templates from Google, learn how to make your cover letter truly your own during the Career Center’s Cover Letter Week. Start from scratch or revise the letter you already have to show why you are an asset as a hire and guarantee future job opportunities. This is great for students, alumni, and even professionals who struggle with cover letters, because they’re different from how many of us are taught to write and speak about ourselves.
“We recommend checking out our Cover Letter guide on Handshake under Resources before submitting your cover letter and using that to help write your cover letter. Then simply email us what you’ve written at career@unca.edu and we’ll be happy to give you feedback,” says Cate Marshall, student engagement coordinator for the Career Center.
I recommend taking advantage of this opportunity to gain professional writing experience to use for years to come, and to avoid the embarrassment of sending an unedited template. Join the Career Center for the week of March 8 to 12 to focus on cover letter reviewing services they offer.
Interview Workshop & Mock Interview Week
Interviews can be nerve-wracking and hectic, so it is great to have as many skills under your belt as possible to make them go as smoothly and un-anxiously as possible. I have had some terrible interviews in the past due to my lack of awareness of what was expected. The Career Center is offering interview preparation and mock interviews the week of March 22 to 26 to help you walk away from the interview confident and happy with your interview from now until you land the opportunity of your dreams.
In the mock interviews, students will be interviewed by the Career Center staff members, who will ask a series of common interview questions. Notes will be taken by the “interviewer,” and the staff will give feedback to the student on what they did well with and what areas they could be improved on.
“We encourage students to check out our Interviewing A-Z document in the Handshake Resources and attend our Interviewing Workshop on Tuesday, March 23 from 4-5 PM (register on Handshake),” says Marshall.
Attending the interview workshop is not a requirement to set up a mock interview with the Career Center, but it’s a good idea.
Salary Negotiation Workshop, March 30, 4-5 p.m., RSVP to career@unca.edu
Negotiating for better pay can be intimidating, scary and an uncomfortable part of moving forward in your career. I have struggled with this in every single one of my jobs I have had, including asking for promotions, especially as a female. I was raised to think that if you work hard and long enough one day they will notice. But in most cases in 2021 if you want something you have to ask for it. People make it sound so simple, but it is hard to do that especially with authority figures who control if you work there or not.
“Always negotiate!,” said Lisa Mann, director of the Career Center. “This advice is easier said than done. The Salary Negotiation workshop is based on information from AAUW.”
The Career Center offers this workshop to give actual useful resources and information in order to calculate how much you need to live and how you can ask for it, while also covering topics around salary such as the pay gap and how not negotiating disproportionately affects people who identify as women. This skill can be used for any career plans now and into the future.
Budgeting workshop, April 6 4-5 p.m., RSVP to career@unca.edu
Budgeting is a skill I’m just now starting to learn as a senior in college, though I wish I would have learned about this way before, I can’t imagine the money I would have. Unfortunately, I was never taught the ways to budget or save money, and coming from an impulsive and huge spending family, those habits rubbed off on me. As a senior graduating in 2021, learning how to budget in order to pay off student loans after I graduate is incredibly important. Hopefully, by attending this workshop the shock of entering the “real world” of adult responsibilities will be easier to manage. This workshop will be co-led by Nikki Spang of Sallie Mae and Lisa Mann of the Career Center to focus around how to budget for life after college.
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