Folks join us, but welcome to How to Organize Your Job or internship search. My name is Jess. I am from Cornell Career Services. My role is the interim Senior Associate Director and I'm joined today by Janice, who is our peer advisor. Janice, want to say hi? Hi everyone, I'll be moderating the chat and I'm a senior in chemical engineering. So yeah, I'm excited to join you guys tonight. Awesome. Welcome, Janice. So a couple little housekeeping items I wanna let you know before we get started. We will, we will just dive in today. This is the career development cycle. We try to remind everybody about this for all of our presentations. So we try to point out that career development is a circular, lifelong process. So a lot of times you're making a career decision multiple times in your life. But some key elements are understanding yourself, your values, interests, skills, exploring options, what's available to me as a Cornell student. And then the taking action phase, that's the applications, letters, resumes, interviews. So some of the things we talk about today are actually going to be applicable to the entire circle. So here's my outline for today. It's kind of set up into three main parts. Big picture tips when it comes to organizing your life and the job search, like goal setting, time management. Next part is some tips for organizing the job search, specifically, like job search agents, how do you track your applications, setting, realistic, reasonable expectations, that kind of thing. And so I know that a lot of people wrote in the registration questions that they have questions about job searching specific tools. I have a lot of resources that I can tell you about for that. But the main purpose of today's presentation is about bigger picture organizing of your search so you don't get overwhelmed while you're doing that and managing your career workload. Or course load. Like I mentioned, the first section is going to be about this big picture organizing tips. So why bother organizing? Really making the effort now to organize your search is going to pay off later. And these organization skills that you're gaining are transferable life skills, they're going to help you in other areas of your life. So it's really worth it if you're not a naturally organized person to dedicate some time into figuring out tools that are gonna work for you. So first thing to talk about is just general goal setting, right? A goal is an idea of the future or desired result that a person or group of people envision, plan, and commit to achieve, right? So you have a lot of goals. Goals have sub-goals. Some goals are very concrete, some are more general. But we really recommend you think about breaking your goals down into what are called SMART goals. And SMART goals stands for specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and timely, or time bound. So that means as you think about goal setting, you're trying to clarify, what do you want to do. How will you know when you've reached it? How is it measurable? Is it setting your sights at a reasonable place? And the time bound piece is really key. So let's look at some examples of that. So suppose your original goal might be, I really think I need to network in my career field of interest. So some ways you might do that would be to break it down, right? I'm going to sign up for a platform called CUeLINKS. When I do that, I'm going to make a complete profile and I'm going to start a search or same with LinkedIn. Maybe I'm going to prepare six to ten information interview questions over the weekend. Or I'm going to reach out to a specific number of people with the goal of writing a personalized note. So the more you break down a big picture goal like networking into smaller achievable goals. It's a lot easier to track your progress, see how your doing, and adjust if needed. So another example would be getting a summer internship, which a lot of you are interested in. You might set goals like, I need to sign up for Cornell Handshake and I need to make a complete profile. Or I'm going to search Handshake, just to see what's out there before I even start applying. I just want to get a lay of the land. We recommend you get your resume, you update your resume, get it reviewed, and check out some of our other resources to help you along the way, maybe set a goal for yourself about number of positions you want to be applying for. So we can, this is just to get a sense of how you might break down some of these stressful sounding big picture goals. Another key piece would be time management. So imagine for a second that you need to fill this jar with some big rocks, pebbles, and sand. What are you going to put in the job first? In the jar first. Just think to yourself, right, what would your strategy be? So here are two ways that, that jar could turn out, right? So if you start by first filling the jar with sand, then pebbles, you're not going to have enough room for rocks. So imagine that the rocks symbolize those big things that are most important in your workload. Pebbles would be like the medium things and then sand is all those smaller, less important parts of your work. So the lesson, the metaphor here is right, if you don't put the big rocks in the jar first, they're just not going to fit in later. So time management is really about prioritizing those goals, how urgent, how important, and doing your best to manage and adjust. So one big picture tip, scheduling. It can be really handy to make a long range timetable. So as you're thinking about those SMART goals, give yourself some target dates, put some stuff in your calendar system maybe you use iCal or Outlook or Google Calendar. Whatever you're using, kind of use it to your advantage. Put in reminders, block off time where you're going to work on the job search for example. Another tip would be keeping yourself accountable. Maybe you have a friend, like a study buddy, but for job applications, maybe you just kind of put it out on your social media. Nobody bother me because I'm definitely going to work on job applications. So think about ways to keep yourself accountable to actually sticking with the schedule that you come up with. When you get the slides, you'll have a link to time-management apps that are recommended. And I know it can be hard, but remember those day-to-day needs too, right? Like sleeping, eating, even socializing and exercising. It replenishes your energy. If you take time to do those things, you'll be less burned out with the career search tools. And I moved past this other point. But as, once you learn of something, for example, career fairs, put it into your calendar and block off times leading up to it like, oh, I'm going to need to get my resume reviewed by at least a week in advance or things like that. If you're able to schedule that in you'll be set up for success. More tips for time management, reminders with alarms or your friends. So that could be on your phone or some other system that you have in place. The Pomodoro Technique is a really common time management tool where you do 25 minutes of really focused work. And then you take a five-minute break for that half hour chunk and then you do it again and then after a certain number of sequence, you get a larger break. Um, and it's called Pomodoro because of the Italian tomato timer, like in the picture there. But that works for some people. It doesn't work for everybody. The point of today is to really give you a lot of ideas so you can start thinking about, oh, that might work for me. I can integrate that into my schedule. But if you try time management tools like this one, it's less likely. You might lose track of time by getting distracted by a website or something like that. Minimize digital distractions. So maybe you're like me and you get easily distracted by notifications on your phone or social media or other websites. So you have a couple options here. You can use software that's going to temporarily block distractions, or there's built-in systems into your phone or your computer, do not disturb, Usually you have options, it's a time or it's location based, or it's task-based. But that can really work to your advantage too. Or maybe you are someone who just needs to put it in a different room, or totally disconnect from it. If you have a really important goal that you're working on. Next up, physical space, so arranging your workspace within what's possible can assist you in staying focused. So if there is an option for you to be somewhere where there's fewer people to distract you or you can put your back to the flow of traffic of things that are distracting. Or if there's anything at all you can do in your environment that will help make it more calm seeming. That can also help you stay focused on your search. And if you anticipate your needs like snacks or beverages or bathroom breaks, that can also help you stay focused and not getting up and getting distracted a lot. So little tiny tips and tweaks you can do to help ensure that you're kind of making the most of your limited time that you have to spend on job and internship searching. So next up we have tips specifically for the job search. First up, bookmarks and folder. So I highly recommend and Janice, maybe you can help us by pasting some things in the chat here. You bookmark Cornell Career Services homepage, the Canvas Career Development Toolkit, which I can show you more about later. Job search tools like Handshake, networking tools like LinkedIn and CUeLINKS If you have that all in one, go to career folder. That's one less thing you have to think about and worry about, you have a system and then every time you come across a new great job board, you can add it right there. Another tip would be folders or Google Drive or Box, whatever system you like. But have one system where, you know, you kind of funnel all of your career related things. Some things we recommend would be having a master resume. So what we mean there is it can be as many pages as you want, who cares? It can be as detailed as you want. And then as you're applying to each position, you kinda mix-and-match, copy and paste the most relevant experiences onto that one-page resume. And that can be helpful, especially as you gain more experiences you're trying to figure out if something from high school is relevant, you can keep it all on that master resume. You might have templates or baselines for your resume or a cover letter basic. And sometimes that's different based on the industry or if you're applying to a full-time job or a summer experience, if you've done some work in advance to have templates, you're gonna feel better once you find a job that's, now it's time to apply. Also, you might have email templates. If you're asking for a letter of recommendation or an information interview, you can put email templates in that folder. And maybe you're doing this already. But an email, it can be really handy if you have filters, setup, or labels. So sometimes we hear students get overwhelmed with all the emails they're receiving even from career services. So if you have sort of a filter that funnels them into your career folder and then you check it once a week to make sure you're not missing out on upcoming events or jobs. That's another way to kind of manage your workflow so you don't overwhelmed when you open your inbox. Job search agents and alerts. So most job sites have alert systems that notify you when there's new things that match your filters. So in general, the more filters you set, the fewer options there are going to be. But that can be really handy if you're only looking at a specific geographic area or you're an international student and you're only looking for ones that offer OPT. So sign up for a system. You can set your filters, you can set multiple search agents. And that's really saving you time and energy. So you know, it's all just going to come to your inbox and you've already set filters on your email. So it's going to be really easy for you to manage and kinda delete the ones that don't matter and keep the ones that do. So. These are just some screenshots from Handshake, Idealist and LinkedIn of what those different safe search filter buttons look like. It's a little different on every site. If you're feeling totally confused and overwhelmed, because you don't know what, even how to start a job search, that's fine. We can recommend some other resources to you for how to do job and internship searching. So this is a little bit more of an advanced level, but handy for everyone. Thank you, Janice. And we'll, answer this one later. Job application spreadsheet. So I tend to be a person that loves spreadsheets. I like to have lots of columns. Work, work in your own style. So a lot of people like to make their own spreadsheet. Career Services doesn't recommend a specific type of spreadsheet. Make one yourself based on what questions you have. But so these are just some ideas of headings you might have. So you might want some just preliminary information about a job. So maybe what's the company, what's the position called? Where did you find the application link? Is there a name of a person listed and what are some pros and cons that you're thinking of right off the bat about the, about the position. So it can be really handy to put it all in one spreadsheet for your various summer applications. Especially if you're applying through different systems, then you can make, keep track of them all in one place. Here other columns that you might have, application status. So when is it due? Does it require a resume and/or cover letter? Were there any other materials they asked for like a work sample? When did you apply? Did you send a follow up or what's the status, are you waiting to hear from them? So keeping track of exactly where you are in that process and if you've done everything, maybe there was a letter of recommendation in there. And what do you know about the company? We're always saying research the company, find out what you know about them. So you might have different categories here, different things matter to you about the company, but you might have location, size, mission, do you have any connections there and Cornell alum you know, a friend of a friend, a parent? Who are the company's major competitors? Or if diversity is important to you, you know, what, what kind of rankings do they have when it comes to diverse employees or HR opportunities or that kind of thing. So start with these ideas, but you can definitely mix and match as many columns as you want in your own kind of system. And again, I'm going to email you these slides so you don't have to type, type it all out. Other job app tracking methods. So there's definitely apps for smartphones. There's plenty of them. Some people prefer like project management software like Monday.com or Trello, or Evernote. Some, there's job tracking software specifically called like Jibber. Jobber would be one example. And you could, maybe you're just like a pencil and paper kind of person. And that's fine too. So what you want to do is start a system that you are able to sustain. If you're aspirationally, you'd like to do a bullet journal and have it color-coded, but you know, you're never realistically going to have time for that, then just start with the system you know you can maintain. File names matter. This is another tip when it comes to applying for the jobs. Usually we recommend unless they give you different instructions attach as a PDF. This helps make sure the formatting is exactly how you want it and there's nothing lost in translation somewhere. Makes a good first impression. And having a good filename helps keep you organized so you don't accidentally upload the wrong one, right? So these first two are pretty bad. I don't recommend them as examples. Final, final version eight, with just your initials that, that can be challenging. And resume dot pdf is also a little challenging because they get a lot of things called resume. But if you have your full name written out in the title of the document, what the document is resume and you can even add, oh, what's it for? And this works for grad, grad students too as well or grad applications. So be thoughtful about the file names as you're making them. So then if you have a system and a good habit in place, it doesn't even take a second thought. When you're saving new ones. Janice is typing an answer, but yes, it is possible to access these slides once the presentation is over, I have a record of attendees, so I will be emailing them to you some point tomorrow. So here are just some suggested tasks from Career Services. As you think up, you know, what's in store for me as you're prepping for your summer internship search, cleaning up your social media presence. So what that means is kinda checking all your things, all your privacy settings. Are there any red flags an employer might find and not be impressed with? Can you untag yourself from things like that? And again, we've talked about SMART goals, right? So estimating how much time it's gonna take you to do some of these, that can be really hard if you haven't done them before. But it's good to just start to guess because then you can more accurately guess for next time. So you might review relevant modules on the career development toolkit which Janice put in the chat before. Update your LinkedIn and CUeLINKS profiles. If you do that now, before, it's much easier to update, you know, every six months or every time you have a new job rather than like a mega update, that takes a bunch of time. So if you do a little, little bit at a time and update regularly, you'll be in good shape. Update your resume, get it reviewed, we do half-hour resume review appointments. So it's always great to get another pair of eyes on there. They might miss something. You've read it so many times. You kinda you don't notice a typo or something like that. So it's really handy to talk to someone about it. Cover letters, get them reviewed with Career Services. And maybe just do a little bit of research on identifying target companies. So you can see here I also wrote, How will you prioritize? Because I know this is a big list and that's kind of intimidating. You're trying to balance your coursework. So part of it is thinking again, what is your goal and what are the biggest rocks? If we go back to that time management metaphor. If the goal, if you know that you need to start applying right away and that you haven't ever made a resume before. Maybe something you need to do first is go through, learn what a resume is and you just have to dedicate time to that before you can learn how to customize it for each internship application that you're doing. And you can meet with career services if you have no idea how to prioritize and we can help walk you through where you are. What's a good next step? How do we set manageable goals and kinda keep your progress going? These are some of my other tips for working smarter, not harder. So treat applying for a job like the job itself. This can be frustrating, but sometimes it just takes a lot of time. So if you think about it like a part-time job is applying for a job, maybe that can help you mentally prioritize it. I've said this a couple of times, but again, putting in the effort now to have all these organization systems in place is going to save you time later. Another tip is to download a PDF of the job descriptions. So it's great if you bookmark it or put the link in your spreadsheet. But sometimes once you're into the interviewing process, the job description goes down, the link doesn't work. So if you save a PDF, you won't lose a description of it. Focus on quality of each application, not quantity. So I talk to a lot of students who tell me they've applied to 30 applications in the last week. But we really recommend you take the time to customize each one, write a new cover letter. It can be really easy to just hit, apply, apply, apply with the same resume. But if you put more effort into the quality not quantity, in theory, your outcomes, your results are going to be better. Only apply to legitimate positions you're qualified for. This one is a little bit tricky in terms of how do I exactly know what I'm qualified for? So some tips here would be read the descriptions, does it say must be studying biology or STEM related field? You know, that's a really big opening if you're in a field that could even be considered STEM at all. Consider applying. If it says required master's degree and you really only have a bachelor's. Don't waste your time, right? So pay attention to preferred versus required. Things like, and if you're having trouble, can you can meet with career service and say, I'm just really not sure, you know, is this one that sounds like a good fit for me. Because that, that can be really hard until you're used to reading a lot of these. Personalized cover letters and resumes, that goes with quality and quantity. Take notes after the interview. Sometimes your adrenaline can be spiking. It's kinda stressful to be interviewing for a job, but it's a really good idea to set aside some time after that interview to take notes on your impressions, the questions they asked you, stuff you meant to say but you forgot. And then you can follow up with your interviewer with a quick thank you note or an email to help get that good impression. And so if you have specific notes that you took, you, it's more likely you'll make a good impression because you can mention specific things. Networking and social connections. So we recommend you connect on LinkedIn with people you know, you can reach out to key folks and that can mean different things to different people, right? Depending on what your goals are. CUeLINKS is the networking platform for Cornell so you can find alumni there and really develop your own support system. Some people call it their board of advisors, but maybe it's your family or your friends, or your counselors, or your mentors or workers, friends at work. So the kinda, the more people you're able to rely upon as you go through your professional life you'll be set up for success. This next one is bold because it really is true. Asking for help is a sign of strength. I know that can be challenging sometimes. But if you can admit what you don't know and seek support, it's much more likely that you're going to have a successful experience. And again, Career Services we're here to help you. We know it can be confusing. If you're new to networking or maybe a first year. Not too sure about what these things are. Again, we have resources, we have networking presentations coming up next week where you can learn more from our experts on CUeLINKS Moving right along, and then we'll have lots of time for Q and A. So setting expectations is about if you have a realistic sense of what you're getting yourself in for, it's much easier to kind of proceed. So yes, searching is stressful. Not always, some people really thrive on it, but for a lot of people, it can be not a fun time. So there's multiple ways to land a job, right? There's no one magic way that always gets you a job every time. So there's a lot of different strategies. So sometimes networking feels less direct, but it's a perfectly legitimate way to move towards, move forward on that job search. Comparing yourself to others is usually going to leave you feeling worse. Sometimes benchmarking is helpful. But if, if you're in a competitive environment or you're feeling like you're not doing enough, it's going to hurt your motivation to do that. So to the extent that you can, try not to do that. You're going to feel like there's more you could be doing. But for your mental health you've gotta set some boundaries. So what we talked about before, if it's a choice between I have to sleep or I could, you know, reread another page in the Canvas module, you should probably sleep that's going to help your energy. Bigger term goal setting, right? Common occurrences. I have this on here just again, this part is about setting expectations. So sometimes you just don't hear back from an application and it's really unfortunate, I wish it just didn't happen, but some employers just they receive your application. They decided they don't want to proceed, but they never tell you that directly. So don't take it personally if you can. It's just sort of their process. And it happens sometimes. Other common things, just not being sure where your application is going after you hit submit online. ATS stands for Applicant Tracking Systems, you know, is there an algorithm that's going to read it before a human ever sees it? Is going straight to HR? Is it going straight to the department I'd be working with? It's pretty common that you're not exactly sure from the job description where it's going next. Other common things, conflicting advice or values. So maybe you talk to people in your major, professors, Career Services, they tell you something a little bit slightly different. That can happen sometimes and sometimes people are coming from a different place. They're valuing, you need to get a job where you make money, but you'd rather have a job where you give back to the community. So it doesn't, it's useful to keep asking those questions where you're getting conflicting advice. But you can also work with career services to separate it apart and start to understand where the different pieces of advice are coming from. Last common thing is entry level jobs that, let's say require two to five years of work experience, which can feel really frustrating, especially if you're on the job search looking at graduation and you're trying to figure out, am I qualified? Should I apply? So sometimes you can contact the recruiter or HR and say, you know, I think I'm qualified, I love this position, could you tell me more about the requirement for two to five years. But sometimes other ones kinda look past that. They count your internship experiences as half a year, things like that. So, but you might get disheartened if you're searching Google for entry level jobs and you're finding things that really don't feel entry level. Just some things for you to know, to help you set expectations. Things that impact how long the job search is would be the state of the economy and the job market. Economic conditions in specific areas if you're like geographically bound. The number of jobs in your location of interest, the credentials that you have, or the demand for the skills that you have, your flexibility, the amount of time and energy you have for the job search, and the quality of your materials and the quality of your job search strategy and networking. So that, again, that's part of, you know, organize yourself now, figure out what needs to be done. Figure out how to fit in those, those big pieces like getting things reviewed prior to hitting submit. Staying positive. Also important to do, right? This is a marathon, not a sprint for lots of people. Our association, the National Association for Colleges and Employers, says that on average, the timespan from interview to offer notification for new college graduates is 23 days. So that's a stressful number of days waiting to hear back, right? So sometimes it just takes longer than you want it to. Sometimes you need to just step away from the search. Maybe it's prelim week and you just don't have time to do that, that search stuff on top of it. Remember that nobody wins at everything and you can't get every single job that's not realistic. But if you're going in with a growth mindset, if you can learn from disappointments or uncover a new opportunity or make a connection with a company even if they don't have a position for the summer internship, maybe you can apply next summer. And they take notes. They remember you, they remember how interested you are in the company. So that can be another way to move past being stressed about the job search. Ok, so I have a few more wrap up slides just telling you a little bit more about career services. And then we will do Q and A. Final tips. I've talked a lot today about organizing yourself, but I want to remind you that you should avoid over planning and perfectionism. It's gonna get in the way if you spend too much time making your to-do lists. So there's some sort of balance in between no organization and complete organization. And as you track your progress, you can see the momentum. You can see that you're making progress towards your goals even if you, it's been a week and you haven't submitted another application. If you've been doing some of those other key steps, that's still making progress towards your ultimate goal of getting a summer internship. So this is some information about Cornell Career Services, which is my office. We have online scheduling. We have different kinds of appointments for resume, cover letter, LinkedIn reviews, job and internship appointments if you want to talk about strategies, there. Practice interviews, that kind of thing. And then we're also a network of career services. So you can go to your college office Career Services too. And because we've been talking about stressful things, really important to know that Cornell Health has a lot of virtual mental health services, telehealth options, et cetera, tips for coping during COVID and the pandemic. So if you're not already aware of these, it's really important to, to check them out. And again, seeking support is that sign of strength. That's a smart strategy.