Steve Zollinger Seminar Speaker

Today in seminar we heard from Steve Zollinger who is the Internship Coordinator for the Ag & Life Sciences Department. He basically spoke about resumes and interviews. He started out with resumes by saying that there are no uniform or standard rules for a resume format, but there are, however, do's and don'ts which are on a handout available in the Kimball building. On average, a resume is only glanced at for 10 SECONDS! That's not very much time to grab their attention. Resumes should be neatly organized, with not too many words, plenty of white space and only one page. We, as students, need to taylor our resume for the specific job opening we are applying for and show the employer what they want to see. The best way of doing this is to research the company and network.

With regards to the actual content of the resumes, we should show accomplishments, honors, teamwork, creative thinking, and how you added value to the company. Brother Zollinger talked about using action words and verbs to help to promote each bullet point. A good list of verbs to use in a resume can be found here. Commonly, resumes have bullet points and sentence fragments to create focus with each achievement. Be specific and give numeric values to your experiences. There are great resources from the Career Preparation Services online that help with resumes, cover letters, interviews and general guidlines.

A few good rules with regards to interviews are:

• Be on time (or a little early)
• Dress like a professional for that specific field (don't over dress)
• Be prepared (know your behavior based questions)
• Express yourself clearly
• Ask questions! "Questions are good, but they need to be good questions." --Zollinger
• Follow up (initially give a thank you, call or send a note saying you are still interested; DON'T BUG THEM!)

A few other things he mentioned to be aware of are your MySpace and/or Facebook page. Employers look at any social networking site you may be a part of. Don't have embarassing, immature things on your profile page. Also, your cell phone answering machine should be professional and to the point. You should get rid of the corny stuff you say on it. Finally, attitude and personality matter. People generally hire those people that they like that they think would fit in well with the company.

Go out there, be yourself and be professional. Be proactive and find great jobs and internships like the students we heard from last week.