With the Spring 2022 Career Conference right around the corner, it's the perfect time to discuss landing your dream internship or co-op. Guest Bethany Henthorn of Career Services details the four-legged stool method for ensuring you're ready for any upcoming professional opportunities. Guest and current UW-Stout student Nilu Umarova details her experiences with internships, Career Services, Career Conferences, and offers valuable advice to current and future students.
Spring 2022 Career Conference
Date: February 28 - March 4
Location: Memorial Student Center
Click Here to View Schedule
Additional Career Services Resources:
View Career Services Student Resources
Login to Handshake
Guests:
Bethany Henthorn, Cooperative Education and Internship Program Manager
Nilu Umarova, UW-Stout student, studying Hotel, Restaurant, and Tourism Management and Real Estate Property Management, and internship and co-op rockstar.
Co-Hosts:
Rachel Hallgrimson
Emily Laird
Follow us on social media:
www.instagram.com/uwstoutpics/
www.linkedin.com/school/university-of-wisconsin-stout
Visit our website: https://www.uwstout.edu/
With the Spring 2022 Career Conference right around the corner, it's the perfect time to discuss landing your dream internship or co-op. Guest Bethany Henthorn of Career Services details the four-legged stool method for ensuring you're ready for any upcoming professional opportunities. Guest and current UW-Stout student Nilu Umarova details her experiences with internships, Career Services, Career Conferences, and offers valuable advice to current and future students.
Spring 2022 Career Conference
Date: February 28 - March 4
Location: Memorial Student Center
Click Here to View Schedule
Additional Career Services Resources:
View Career Services Student Resources
Login to Handshake
Guests:
Bethany Henthorn, Cooperative Education and Internship Program Manager
Nilu Umarova, UW-Stout student, studying Hotel, Restaurant, and Tourism Management and Real Estate Property Management, and internship and co-op rockstar.
Co-Hosts:
Rachel Hallgrimson
Emily Laird
Follow us on social media:
www.instagram.com/uwstoutpics/
www.linkedin.com/school/university-of-wisconsin-stout
Visit our website: https://www.uwstout.edu/
Hello, everyone. Welcome to inside stout, a UW stout podcast that focuses on the stories of students, faculty, staff, and the entire campus community. I am Emily Laird
Speaker 2:And I'm Rachel Hogenson.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much for joining us. We're all about co-ops and internships. So Rachel you've had a co-op in an internship or
Speaker 2:Kind of,
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:So I went to UW stout, as I have mentioned many times before on the show and I was in the professional communication and emerging media program, our only English major, and I did not have a conventional co-op or internship. I did what was called a field experience. Okay. Which is allowed by some majors to replace a co-op internship. And a field experience is generally unpaid. It could be volunteer work. It could be a really anything. It just depends. What I did is I wrote and created content for the UW admissions blog.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:So that's what I did. And it was approved by my advisor and it gave me some experience.
Speaker 1:Well, that's awesome. Yeah. I also had a more untraditional internship experience. Okay. So I am one of those people who I'm just not afraid of the word. No. Okay. So I, I knew there was a manufacturing company, an apparel manufacturing company in this factory, down the street from where I went to school. Ooh. And one afternoon I walked in and found the owner and I was like, hi, do you need an intern for the summer? Cuz I'm that person? And they gave it to me. They were like, okay, I guess, yeah, if you want it, you can have it. So that's one of my internships was just,
Speaker 2:And you just walked in
Speaker 1:And yeah. I just walked in and got it. And that's the thing. And, and one thing I was gonna talk about, cause we're gonna hear today a lot of great advice from our guests. Yeah. Um, we're gonna hear about experiences, but we're gonna hear advice for how to really prepare and this advice is gonna be good for a potential student, a current student, or even if you're an alumni of stout. Yeah. So advice, what's your advice on this type of internships, coops, that kind of thing? Well,
Speaker 2:The goal of it is to gain experience. Ideally I think most maybe not even ideally, but most commonly in the career field that you are majoring in, that you're going to college to prepare for, but that's not always necessary. You can go into a different field or industry for your co-op internship to explore. So that's one thing is to keep your options open, but another thing, and it doesn't have to do really with co-ops, but it involves exploring. So if you have a company that you really like or a brand that you really like or anything like that, just call them up and ask to job, shadow a position for a day. Yes. And I think a lot of companies do allow that you, that way you can see what it's like physically in that and ask the professional what it's like every day. Um, is it boring and monotonous or is it really exciting? And you're doing something different every day. What are the challenges? What are the benefits? Things like that job shadowing can help with being anxious about out, looking for a job. Because when I was a student coming close to graduating, I had a lot of anxiety about the unknown of what my future would look like. And I think a lot of students do have had some student employees that have graduated when they were close to graduating, they were really anxious about finding a job, but then they did find a job and they were excellent and they just didn't see how awesome they were. However, the anxiety was still there and this would kind of help reduce that anxiety because you would know a bit more about what it would be like day to day.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. I agree with that. And I going along with what you said, my biggest piece of, of advice to anyone in any phase in their life is never be afraid of no stop being afraid to hear that because you're going to hear that. And the reality is if you ask someone, if you can work their job shadow there, get an internship there, whatever it may be. Yeah. If they say no, guess what the power's back in your court, because then you can ask why not? And they'll tell you why not, maybe you're not experienced enough. Maybe they've already hired someone. Maybe they're not looking to hire someone. But the great thing is now you're on their radar. And the great thing is now, you know, areas, maybe you need to improve or prepare better for in the future. So don't be afraid of no, but that's our advice.
Speaker 2:Take it or
Speaker 1:Leave it, take it or leave it regardless. We have two experts here. We're gonna tell you a little bit more concrete advice, uh, for getting those internships. And co-ops right here at did waste
Speaker 2:Out. Definitely. Let's get to it.
Speaker 1:First of all, I wanna thank you so much for joining us so our listeners know who we are, but let's go ahead and have you all introduce yourselves?
Speaker 3:Yeah. My name is Bethany Hanth Thorne. I am the cooperative education and internship program manager working out of the career services office.
Speaker 4:My name is Nelo Marva, the UW stout proud ambassador past president of the international club, outstanding student leader of the year and UW stout nominee for the national Cooper, dedication and student internship achievement award.
Speaker 2:We're in the presence of greatness,
Speaker 1:Royalty
Speaker 2:Kinda
Speaker 1:We're in the presence of greatness. Oh
Speaker 2:Thank you both.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Thank you so much for joining us. Thank
Speaker 4:You so much for inviting us
Speaker 1:So glad to have more qualified people to give us advice on these extremes.
Speaker 2:Yeah. If, if anyone's listening that listen to last week, we talked about applied biochemistry and molecular biology, which
Speaker 1:ABM B. That's how I
Speaker 2:Remember, which is now one. I mean Emily's hobbies. I
Speaker 1:Literally am going to start building my own east. So
Speaker 2:Yeah, we just ordered pipettes off Amazon to see where it goes.
Speaker 1:So not sure
Speaker 2:What that is. We'll see. We'll see. But today we all have something in common and that's we either have a career or we are in college to find a career that will fit today. We're talking about how to get an internship. What are the ways that students can prepare and what resources are here on campus to help them prepare? So Bethany, let's start with talking about internships and co-ops here at stout. What are the resources? Where should a student start
Speaker 3:In the short answer career services? So we have a whole office that's available to all of our students and alumni that if they're looking for a position, a cooperative internship, that we have tools and resources available there, we have tools in person they're welcome to come meet us in person. And also virtual. We have a lot of things available for them. So many students use the cooperative education and internship program to gain a experience through their major. Some of them have to do it, it's built into their program plan, but our office, the career services office and the career counselors are waiting, ready and prepared to help our students get into these types of experiences.
Speaker 1:So Nilu, you are a student who's been through that experience. So tell us a little bit about your co-op experience.
Speaker 4:Absolutely. Um, of course I've done three co-ops, um, throughout my college career and um, I did my first one right after college. I absolutely loved it. It was a great experience and it taught me a lot about the hospitality industry
Speaker 2:And that experience. Wasn't the typical one either, cuz you've been to the, the same place a couple times. Right?
Speaker 4:Absolutely. Um, even though I, uh, did all of my three coops in the same place place, there was a lot of opportunities for growth and development because they moved me up, uh, throughout my career. Uh, they gave me a lot of management experience and uh, a lot of, uh, the beginner experience also,
Speaker 2:That's incredible that you got promoted, you know, like in a co-op that's just not something that really happens because generally you're at a co-op for what, maybe three to six months, depending on what it looks like, you know, if you're there during the semester or not, but that's pretty cool. Like you got to see so many different sides of it because you arted from the bottom and you worked your way up. Thank
Speaker 4:You so much. I think, uh, I utilized COVID also in a positive way because yeah, uh, it was so challenging to work in the hospitality industry in the middle of pandemic and when we didn't know what was going on, so that gave me an opportunity to utilize a lot of, um, my management skills and learn a lot from, uh, the job supervisors and the company.
Speaker 1:And one thing that we actually all have in common, Rachel, myself, Bethany, we all know Nilu from your experience throughout this campus. So I think the really beneficial thing that you've practiced as a student here is how involved you've gotten. I know Bethany, um, encouraged us to reach out to you for being on the show today. And Bethany talk a little bit about why Nilu was your choice.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Ni is amazing. So in career services, we talk about Curry, your readiness a lot. And UW stout is known to help graduates become career ready. And Nilu has this amazing ability to bring career readiness to everything she's going to do. Even when I walked in the room today, um, Nilu presented career ready concepts to me, she stood up and she welcomed me in the room. Everything the student does revolves around her profession and her career. So she's absolutely the perfect choice to talk to students. She's been immensely involved. She's navigated adversity in her co-op internship search. I know it wasn't always easy for her to be able to get the position that she got. So she used her tools and resources she could there, but this is the girl that also comes and volunteers at the career conference and she lands interviews just by the way she presents herself to employers. That's so cool. Really? They come out of the room and say, I need to talk to you. And she's like, no, I'm volunteering right now. They're like, no, I need to interview you right now. And she has to leave her volunteer post. So she could go interview with an employer because they're so impressed with the way that she welcomes them to our campus. So she is absolutely amazing. She's involved in everything and our office just had the amazing ability to nominate her for a national award. We're only allowed to choose one student every year. Oh my gosh. And Nier was our choice and she's absolutely amazing. So we couldn't picked a better person to help guide us through this co-op and internship podcast.
Speaker 4:Thank you so much, Bethany for such a kind notes. Uh, I'm truly grateful that we have a career services office here at UW that helps so many group of students, no matter of their experiences where they're at in their college career, um, what they're interested in, we really have amazing counselors that would sit down like and help you with whatever you need. Um, I personally rely a lot on, uh, UW style career services counselors. They help me with my resume. They help me with my LinkedIn. They help me with my interviews. So I think students should really utilize the, um, opportunities that they have, the resources that they have. And my involvement comes from knowing the resources available and using them and volunteering at the career. Um, conference was one of the best opportunities, uh, that we have as students here at stout because, um, you get the first hand experience of introducing yourself to employers. You help them. Um, and they recognize that. And I think, uh, it's great opportunity for students to be more comfortable and not to be afraid to go and talk to the employers.
Speaker 1:What I think is so wonderful about everything you just talked about in Nilu is the fact that what you have done and what career service offers is accessible to all students here at UW out. Absolutely. And so, although, and I'm not trying to take anything away from you because you are a wildly overachiever and you have just been so successful, but other students can definitely apply themselves and do the same thing. And I think it's great that you've really taken advantage of that. And Bethany, you had talked to us kind of about the concept of the four-legged stool and the preparation that students can take any student can take.
Speaker 3:Yeah. I think the first thing to know as a student is you don't have to have it all figured out to work with career services. So many times my conversations end with students saying, oh, I didn't know if I should come in because I didn't have, Aing all figured out. I don't ever want you to have everything all figured out. That's why you're coming to us and we're available virtual and in person as well. So with the, with job searching, I think it's really important for students to know that there's multiple pieces to the process. So every day you get up and you start searching for a job, you might not wanna be doing the same thing and that's okay. So it gives a lot of variety. The first thing we absolutely have to do is get your documents in order, you need to have a really strong resume and the career counselors can help you with that. And also a strong cover letter or letter of application when that's required. So we can get that taken care of. We also need to teach you how to get the most bang for your buck and actually looking for positions that are open. So handshake, every UW stout student should be on handshake. There's over 17,000 jobs posted to stout students right now. So if you're not on there checking out jobs, you need to 17,017,000.
Speaker 1:For those listeners who are not as familiar, maybe potential students, what's handshake.
Speaker 3:Handshake is our career services platform where we put all of the information for everything that's happening career related. So students can log in through the UW stout logins page in there. They can see employers that we work with. There's over 600,000 employers in the system. And there's 7,000 of'em that have been approved by UW stout to post jobs. So there's tons of employer to find there's job openings. There's events, events can be virtual. They can be in person. I was looking this morning before I came. I think there's over 125 different events in there right now. So students really have the opportunity, whether they wanna go to a career fair or a virtual one or in person, or they just wanna go to a workshop. They wanna go to a company presented information like target had something out there about presenting it, working at their company. Google has something out there. There's lots of opportunity that they can access right through the handshake platform.
Speaker 1:Okay. Did we get through the four-legged stool?
Speaker 2:I think we got through
Speaker 1:1, 1, 1 leg, one I'm gonna fall.
Speaker 2:We'll prepare your document
Speaker 3:All
Speaker 1:Over. Prepare your documents. Ready.
Speaker 3:You also to look for positions that are open, that are posted. So things that are available, you need to be looking at those types of things. That's where handshakes going to be really helpful for you. So there's two. Okay. So we have GA your documents in order start looking for opportunities, right? Perfect. We also need you networking like out in meeting in greets
Speaker 2:That's people a
Speaker 3:Scary one. Industry's that's scary. It can be, but career services has tools to
Speaker 1:Help you with not for me. I just walk in right. You know, hire me or what.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 3:Our large just networking event is going to be the career fair. So networking's really important, but you can also do it virtually, like LinkedIn is a great tool that a lot of our students have taken advantage of to be able to connect with people in their industry. Even talking to your professors is networking, talking to your peers about your career and your career plan is network. So there's lots of opportunity to get talking with people, but it is a little scary, Rachel you're right. It is scary. I
Speaker 2:Will say what you just said about your professors. That's that was actually a huge thing for me because I learned very quickly in my major here at stout, I was a communication and media student that my professor were not only very smart in the subjects they were teaching me about, but they also know so many people in industry. And that's a huge part of teaching. Here is some sort of connection industry. That's a bit stronger than other schools. And how I got this job is that I was referred by my, or who I had a really strong relationship with. Right. And I've gotten other opportunities from my professors as well. So I hadn't even thought about that.
Speaker 1:Yeah. I hadn't either.
Speaker 2:So yeah. Invest in your professors.
Speaker 3:Absolutely. All relationships. I mean, invest in those relationships. I think a big myth for a lot of students is they think finding a job is a perfectly straightly, oh my gosh, that I'm going, I'm going to apply and I'm going to get it. And it's gonna be this perfectly straight line. And that line can have lots of curves and circles and weird things. Like some things seem like divine interventions, some things are referrals from professors or friends or parents, even your parents have friends that can help out with this process. So your network is actually really big when a student comes in and sits down and says, I don't have anyone to network with. We just do a little power session on like, yeah. What if you were planning a wedding right now, or your graduation party? Like, did you have a high school graduation party? All of those people, that's your like immediate network. And then let's branch out and talk about people that have, you know, you've encountered it in college and friends you have, and the parents of your friends and going through that process. So the network's there. And if you feel like it's small, there's lots of opportunities to build it as well. So going to the career fair, joining clubs and organizations, going to conferences, taking part in events that are happening, you can build that network pretty quickly. If you, if you put some dedicated effort to it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, definitely. Neely. Were you gonna say something about, uh, stool leg number three?
Speaker 4:Absolutely. Um, yes. I agree. A hundred percent networking is huge. And I think the biggest thing that students can do for themselves during their internships is to network. Um, even if they don't talk to their supervisors every single day, um, they might be working for a huge company just even when they're dropping a coffee. For example, just saying something while dropping the coffee, introducing yourself. Yeah. The biggest thing that students can do is network. And as Bethany said, LinkedIn is huge. I I'm LinkedIn. A lot of students, uh, spend a lot of time on Instagram, TikTok, other social media platforms. It's LinkedIn for me, I'm obsessed with LinkedIn. I love LinkedIn. So if you're listening to me, go connect with me. I would love to stay connected
Speaker 1:Work and people find you on LinkedIn. It's just under your name then. Absolutely.
Speaker 4:Neil moreover. All
Speaker 2:Right. Which will be in the podcast details,
Speaker 1:Put in details. Link to it. Fine. So what's the fourth leg.
Speaker 3:Yeah. The fourth leg is actually what you did, Emily, where you reached out to an employer and asked them if they had an opening, you
Speaker 2:Skipped all three,
Speaker 1:This one leg
Speaker 3:It's Hey, you don't have to do it in any order. Well, I would maybe do the documents first, excuse me. But you, you can go out and you can reach out to employers that you think would be a good fit and we even have tools to help you figure that out too. Right? Yeah. I always tell my students, like just driving up and down Broadway, probably isn't going to help you, but depending on your major, your career track and where you wanna be, we have tools to be able to help you figure out, you know, what, if I wanna work cons in Colorado Springs? Well, let's look up all the construction companies in Colorado Springs and see if any of'em are interested. Wow. So we, we have tools to do that. Yeah. So we want my, the thing I tell the students I work with all the time is we want you to be effective and we want you to be efficient. The internet is very big and you can get lost that many website that may not be very efficient or effective. And what we wanna teach you is how to get the most bang for your buck with the time that you have to dedicate to that job search, whether it's a co-op internship position or even that full-time professional position after graduation, we wanna teach you how to be effective.
Speaker 2:So co-ops and internships can be treated the same at is looking for a career. Absolutely. Okay. When I was thinking about this episode and what to talk about, I wasn't sure if there was a difference, like, do, does your resume need to like have a statement? Yeah. That's you know, about the co-op or whatever it might be. So hopefully that's helpful to people preparing is that you should take it just to, because it is the same thing. Essentially. There is a little bit of safety, like we were talking about earlier, but either way.
Speaker 3:Yeah, absolutely. It's a professional experience or cooperate internship, maybe your first professional experience followed by your full-time professional job as a graduate, but yeah, absolutely. You need to put your professional, your best professional self forward in terms of what you look like, what your documents say. It's not, it's not something that you can just wing it. I mean, I think you should really get the help that's available to you to be able to make sure you have your best professional self ready to go for events like the career conference that's coming up.
Speaker 5:Excellent.
Speaker 4:Absolutely. And attending the career conference, building your network. I think it helps, um, a lot of employers to know about you and even if they are not currently hiring for that position, they can refer you to somebody else. Most of my jobs interviews always happen from referrals. People reach out to me on LinkedIn people reach out to me because they know so, and so that is recruiting. Okay. So that is a powerful tool. And um, again, for referrals on LinkedIn has a great feature where you can go, uh, look up a company, for example, Disney, um, go under the Disney and then you can see all the style alumnis that currently work for Disney. Yeah. And you can connect with them asking them, Hey, can you help me? I'm interested in getting a job with the company. That's
Speaker 1:Great advice. That is great advice. I had no idea, very easy and simple. And I think what's really incredible. And what we've been talking about is this notion of you have this whole team right. Dedicated to help you from start to finish from building that resume, building that cover letter, getting ready for career conferences, getting ready to put yourself in front of people and, and ask, yeah, can I work for you, but having the confidence and preparedness to do so successfully. And that's something even as a working professional now I don't have, you know, what I, and so to have this type of service and team available here at UW stout to me is incredible. And students should really take advantage of this. This is experience from someone who has been in the working world for over 15 years. Take advantage of this. You really should.
Speaker 3:Yeah. I always tell student you aren't born with this information. No one expects you to land at UW stout and instantly wake up with a beautiful resume, a beautiful introduction speech and the skills that know how to go to the career conference and rocket, but we can teach you. And we have a lot of really good tools, whether you like to watch videos, you like to read, you know, if you wanna read it in a book, if you wanna just learn in person, if you wanna learn it over the phone, whatever we have, the, we have a lot of different tools that students can utilize to make sure that they can present their best self at these events
Speaker 1:And Neely. You've done a great job of doing that. What advice do you give to other students about confidence or about presenting themselves?
Speaker 4:Absolutely. Um, my confidence comes from utilize the resources that are available like career services, even as a freshman, uh, in college, I used to always go to career services. I had mentors, um, even one of the counselors that time she used to help me so much, uh, was building my resume, was talking to employers was, uh, the correct way of networking and um, every single career services career conference that has happened at stout. I have volunteered for, for over past four years. I've been to every single career conference. So I think attending career conference, even if you can tier for one hour, that can help you greatly. And you can talk to, uh, other employers about it too, because employers love seeing students that volunteer. They love seeing students that are involved. They love seeing students that have leadership qualities and those qualities come from volunteering and getting yourself involved.
Speaker 2:Well, it sounds like practice makes perfect even when it comes to confidence, right? Like it sounds like you just put yourself out there, like you didn't have the confidence, but you just pushed yourself to do it. And then you gained more confidence as you did it more times, which I think is advice we should all be taking because especially after COVID like even just meeting new people, I feel like there's a weird, you know, kind of like a weirdness for people that haven't had to speak face to face.
Speaker 1:But if I have a potential employer yeah. And standing at my booth at career conference and you come up and start talking to me about positions, I already think you have confidence over a lot of your peers. Right. Is it it's an intimidating thing to do, but I think it's so great. Like you spoke to and Bethany, like you've also spoke to, if you have all your documents in order you your four stools, right. You've got it all set. You're gonna walk up and have that confidence because you know, on paper, you look good. You know, you've practiced this, you know, you've gone over it with your advisors. So that's really exciting.
Speaker 4:I think a lot of people, a lot of students, or from not having enough experience to go to career services or go to career conference, um, every experience matters. And no matter what you have done, you can use that skill because any job that you work teaches you some skill and knowing that everything that you have done matters and your story is powerful. Um, so get the confidence and go to career services, let them help you. Let them prepare you to be the professional you want to be.
Speaker 3:Yeah. I think it's really important for students not to sit back and think, oh, that's for the juniors and seniors, the career. I mean, everything career related is not for juniors and seniors. Not here, not at stout. Right's not the way we do things. Right? So it's something that you can start to way your freshman year. We can start working on those documents. You can attend the events right away. Employers want to meet our students. Yeah. And the number one complaint of any employer that comes to career fair is always the same. Not enough students. They never complain about anything else. Other than I didn't see enough students. And I always tell they're paying to come see you. When's the last time you had, we have 330 and change coming for the career fair. When's the last time you had 330 people line up and pay money to come talk to you. When's the last time that happened
Speaker 1:To you? It's never happened. Make sure Rachel, when did that last happen to you?
Speaker 2:Um, I went to the career conference, I think twice when I was a student. Oh. So two times
Speaker 1:I've been every year as an employee here just for various reasons I had to go and I have am always blown away by how kind of, like you said, all of these members from D front organizations are just standing there waiting to meet students and they're excited about it and they're almost like aggressive about it. Like they wanna meet you. They wanna know if you're interested and it's like, people go to websites, like indeed to find a job. Okay. Well you walk in and it's like a real life indeed. But all the employers are like, we wanna hire, come talk to us. And you'll never forget that again. So take advantage.
Speaker 4:I think it's important to mention and to highlight that all the services that career services offers is free and available to students because, um, people pay hundreds of dollars to go and have that perfect resume or have their LinkedIn updated or get a career consulting or a counselor. And we have it, everything here at stout free, available to every single student. So they don't have to go out and pay money to, to get all of those services.
Speaker 2:So as we start to wrap things up, there are a couple things that we want to cover. One thing I wanted to ask Nilu is because I think that that could relate to a lot of students, whatever your answer might be, but what are some barriers that you've had to overcome? And what advice would you give to others who may be experiencing those same obstacles?
Speaker 4:Absolutely. I would say don't be afraid to try new things. Don't be afraid to go and talk to people to employers, go get the help that you need. Um, as an internationalist student, I had to overcome a lot of barriers. Being confident in your own native language is another thing. Being confident in a different language that is not your native that you had to learn is completely an absolute different level of confidence. And a lot of international students, I feel like struggle that they don't know enough in English to, to lend a job, to get a perfect internship or to even try. And I would like to encourage all students to apply, to not, to be afraid to utilize their services and get involved at stout.
Speaker 1:Oh, let's talk about the career conference. Oh
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:We gotta hear it. Let's tell.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So the week before career conference, I think is, oh my as important or equally important as the conference. So this week we actually have career Faire prep week happening where students can just drop into career services and get their resume reviewed, no appointments needed. There's also handshake open lab hours. So if you're a little unsure of the handshake platform or you're not really sure where to look for a certain piece of, of information, it is really intuitive, but students have questions and you're supposed to, so we wanna have a platform for you to be able to have those questions answered. And then on Friday we have our signature career fair prep event. It's called look good, feel good, do good. And it's going to be in the real price comments. Yeah. It's gonna be all day fun. It's 10 to four Friday in the me price comments. And it's really a one stop shop drop in. We know you're busy. So just drop in when you can, and we're gonna have resume reviews going. There's actually gonna be some free haircuts going. Those are book, but we have 20 people getting their haircut prepped.
Speaker 1:I want a haircut.
Speaker 3:I know we also have, um, helping hands is gonna bring their water up over for career essentials. So if you need to pick up a blazer or a tie or a button up shirt or something, um, the helping hands career, the closet's gonna be there. They're actually gonna set up over in the Royal price commons with us. We have some employers coming to give fashion advice and also just keep ponds. Um, we just have a lot, it's gonna be rocking that day. We're gonna have snacks. We're also gonna give every student a free portfolio that comes. So that's the little black folder that you could put your resume in when you walk around the conference and feel very fancy and professional. Yeah. We're we wanna make sure that you're ready to go for this event. So we wanna put all the resources in one spot and we want you to ready and prepared. And then the following week is actual career conference. So it's a hybrid event. It's Monday through Friday. The in-person events are Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday in the student center, upper level. We're gonna take over the great hall in the ballrooms. We're expecting 330 and some change for employers that are gonna become meme. And then on Friday is our virtual event. So we do have employers that are not allowed to travel yet. They're on travel restrictions. Sure. And we may even have students that aren't able to go to the event, cuz they may be in a situation where they're not able to be out in public right now, or maybe they're one of our online students. So we have employers, um, through the handshake platform on again, that that platform does a lot of things for us. We have the virtual career fair on Friday. So we have the, the times are in the morning. So it's nine in the morning until 1230 for the in person and then 10 to two for the virtual. But we will, we'll be rocking and rolling in the MSC and there will be lots of opportunity for students to come. So you can check out our web, the career services webpage. We have it all laid out very nicely on what groups of employers are coming at what time we did try and organize them by indu industry. So students aren't trying to go like five days in a row and we know you have class and we know you have commitments. So we tried to group the employers together the best we can. So you could pick a time and head to the event at that line that aligns best with your interest or your major.
Speaker 4:Absolutely. And there is still opportunities to sign up to volunteer. So excellent. Make sure to do that.
Speaker 3:Yes. And that's on our web page too. So you guys will add the, add our career services, web page into the details of the podcast.
Speaker 1:Absolutely
Speaker 3:Will. And everything is right there. All on one page. When, where, what groups volunteering, it's all there.
Speaker 1:This has been incredible. Yeah. I have learned so much and I'm still kind of stunned at all the services and opportunities available as part of the career conference. Not only the conference itself, but everything prep leading up
Speaker 2:To it, the office, the whole office of career services. Yeah. Yeah. And we're open,
Speaker 3:We're open year round. A lot of people don't know that. So maybe you're having a really rough academic year and you can't think about this stuff till summer. We're here winter. Just time we're here. Yeah. So we're we're year round. So whenever you have the time to come and meet with us, talk with us or use any our resources, we're there for you.
Speaker 2:Excellent. Well, thank you both so much for coming and sharing all this wonderful information with us and our listeners.
Speaker 1:Thank
Speaker 4:You. Thank you. I think it's important to students. So thank you for inviting us.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Thank you.
Speaker 1:Well, after hearing all that, let's kind of go back to how we started this podcast today with advice. Um, I, I certainly still say, just ask, right.
Speaker 2:See what happens.
Speaker 1:See what happens. Um, but my biggest advice now yeah. Is take advantage of everything offered from career services because I can honestly tell you, it is not like once you have started in the professional world, you don't have a team of people really honing in and focusing on your professional growth, your resume, preparing you for interviews, that kind of thing. Um, you wanna start and get those fundamentals down. Now it's only going to aid in your success in the future. What would you say?
Speaker 2:Well, it seems like it's a two-way street. So career services, if you go there, they put in a lot of effort to serve you. They give you a lot of advice. A lot of resources show you how to do a lot of things, review your materials. But then there's the other side of the street where you have to put in the effort to take it. Advantage of volunteering, take advantage of networking with your family, your professors, people at career conference, dressing up and putting in the effort to look nice and to sound good and feel good when you go to the career conference. So check out that, that event that Beier is talking about. Absolutely. But just remember it's a two-way street. You're not here to, to just be served. You're also here to work and to put forth effort and it will only pay off, like if you learned anything from Neely's story it's that she was invested in, but she invested back just as much.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. And in that two-way street, I always remember, you're gonna get these amazing service here at stout that are gonna really help you and prepare you to be successful in your career. But when you get that internship and when you get that co-op you are representing team stout. You're gonna go there and you are going to be a member of our community. And as a current student, maybe a potential student, maybe an alumni, if you're listening, you know what that community means, right? We all try so hard. We give so much of ourselves to this. We're all extremely passionate about a variety of topics. Like you heard last week, me say, stout students come in with an agenda. They are here. They are ready to take on the world. And when you get out there in the real world, prove that we are a team and we're here to take on the world together. Right?
Speaker 2:Yeah. I hear a lot of employers and this is more secondhand, but I hear that employers will talk about the quality of employee of a stout student. Like that's like a well known thing in certain industries, especially hospitality. Yeah. Cause we're are one of the leading hospitality programs in the country. So just that fact is very cool. I also think it's the same for plastics engineering. There are just certain areas. Of course, every stout student stout employee, somewhere or stout student that is now an employee at a company, hopefully has a wonderful reputation and that we gain of that reputation over time. But hopefully everyone listening, if you're a current student or prospective student, please take to heart everything that Bethany Nilu talked about because it'll get you really far in your confidence and in your career and in your college experience.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. All right. Rachel, tell our listeners where they can find us
Speaker 2:All righty. So if any listeners have other topics that they like to hear on the podcast, or if they like to connect with us, you can follow us on social media. On Instagram at UW stout picks and Twitter at UW stout and searching university of Wisconsin, stout on Facebook and LinkedIn, please subscribe to inside stout on podcast, Spotify and Google podcasts. And we'll see you next time when we share even more stories that go inside stout.