Career Management Tools

Finding an internship or a final placement position requires time, effort and tremendous energy. Students should not assume that setting up a CareerWorks account and applying for positions will do the trick. To land a satisfying position, students must dedicate time to planning their career search, networking for opportunities and developing solid career-seeking skills. Peruse the resources we have available to you here, but understand that there is a multitude of resources available through websites, the McDermott Library and local bookstores. It is should be noted that the most valuable resource is developing your ability to network. The vast majority of positions are filled through networking connections. Build your network, enhance your skills and develop the professionalism to land your dream job.

Self Assessment/Focus

  • Visit the UT Dallas Career Center to access an extensive series of assessment instruments. Career Counseling and Assessment will give you further information and an e-mail link to sign up. You may also call (972) 883-2943 to make an appointment. Visit with your academic program director to help determine the specific career focus you might take within your major.

  • Visit a variety of student organizations to learn more about working in a particular field. Most student organizations have featured speakers on a regular basis and provide many co-curricular experiences to help expose students to the work environment in their field.

  • For the fast track students, you might consider taking the assessment entitled Career Leader. Call (972) 883-6916.

  • The UT Dallas Library has numerous books to help you assess your skills and vocational interests. Check out Richard N. Bolle’s What Color is your Parachute which not only includes assessment and targeting exercises, but is a great source of information about job hunting skills. It is available at the library and most bookstores. This is just one of thousands of career assessment books available. Check Amazon.com and other websites to identify other titles.

Research/Targeting

  • Wet Feet. The “Insider Guide” section contains over 70 documents (all over 100 pages) covering all types of business careers from general overviews to specific companies. Further it has information on all phases of the job hunt. Industries and Careers for MBA’s and Industries and Careers for Undergraduates are perfect starting places for your research. Of course if you have chosen your function and are doing a function specific degree, then you might want to just read the section on your chosen path.Digging deeper you will find much more focused guides going into specific functions, and in some cases, specific companies. Call (972) 883-6916 to obtain a login and password.

  • The Dallas Book of Lists, which is an invaluable guide to the major companies in the DFW area. Available in both the School of Management Career Center and the UT Dallas Career Center. The UT Dallas Career Center is located on the 4th floor of the Student Services Building and the Jindal School of Management Career Center is located on the second floor of the School of Management Building.

  • The UT Dallas Career Center also has a wide variety of resources along with a bank of computers for web searching.
  • Career Insider powered by Vault, which is similar to Wet Feet in scope, but with a different perceptive.

  • Career Search which is a database that allows you to find companies in a particular type of business by their location. It will even search for a specific kind of business within a given radius of your zip code. For instance, you can find all accounting firms within 25 mile of 75080. Very useful for finding medium and small companies.

  • Library Resources – UT Dallas’ McDermott Library is an incredible resource. You will also find contact information for research librarians who will be happy to give you personal assistance. See the library’s main resources. All of these are useful, but “LexusNexus – Academic Universe” is truly amazing. Before you use it taking the tutorial is strongly advised, as it is a very powerful database.

  • Networking – To truly understand what it is like to work in a specific function, industry you must talk to the people who are working. You must network. This word scares a lot of people as they believe that it means asking strangers if they know of job openings. Nothing could be further from the truth. It is making a systematic effort to meet people that can give you advice and information about your possible career choices.

Marketing

Resume – To begin to market yourself to employers you will need some marketing material, the most central document is your resume. There are almost too many resources out there for resume creation, so the CMC has created a simple guide based on what UT Dallas employers expect to see in a resume: Developing a Professional Resume.

Resume screeners only give resumes three to 15 seconds of reading before making the decision to request an interview or reject the candidate. For that reason, the format you see in the document above is very important. We do not want the screener to have to look for things. Follow the format exactly.

As is the case for most things in your job hunt, Wet Feet also has resume material. Killer Resumes and Cover Letters is the relevant Insider Guide. Its chapter on cover letters is extremely good.

Selling

The marketing portion of this process has a clear indicator of success: Companies call you for interviews. This is where you get the chance to sell the company your fit for their open position. Please note that this is different form “selling you.” An interview is not a judgment of you; it is an attempt by the company to determine whether you can make the necessary contribution to their organization. Read more about preparing for an interview.

Workshops

The Jindal School of Management Career Center offers weekly workshops on a variety of career related topics including: resume writing, interviewing skills, using social media and networking just to name a few. Check out the bulletin boards on the second floor for upcoming workshops. In the near term you can link to the Career Development Career Tracks for more information on monthly workshops and career guidance sessions.

Check the Career Management Center Development track specially designed for international students. Sessions are available to help you with job search strategies, interviewing American style and American style resumes, just to name a few.

Useful Links

  • Association for International Practical Training (AIPT) – works with the company and trainee to arrange visa sponsorship, required insurance and provide program support for individuals to complete on-the-job-training assignments in the United States. AIPT can also arrange work permits for students and professionals to go from the United States to one of 80 countries, and provide program support before and during the international assignment. Visit AIPT for more information.

  • UT Dallas – International Student Services Office provides information on visa regulations and employment.

  • INNternationale is a residence, conference center and world cafe for international students and visiting scholars at UD and in the community.

  • AsianDiversity.com Sponsors a career expo with a broad cross-section of corporations, government agencies and non-profit organizations seeking workforce diversity.

  • ForeignMBA.com This site has useful information for international MBA students.

  • The Bureau of Citizenship & Immigration Services provides names of 102 companies that had more than 60 INS -approved petitions. You must have Acrobat Reader to view or print these reports in portable document format.

  • InternationalStudents.com was started by a group of international students living in New York City with the goal of helping other students deal with American immigration authorities and the education system.

  • National Society of Hispanics MBAs NSHMBA fosters Hispanics’ leadership through graduate management education and professional development in order to have a better society. NSHMBA organizes an annual Conference and Career Expo for Hispanic students in the U.S.

  • Jobs in Australia with Jobstralia

Indeed.com Job Search International Sites
Visit the UT Dallas Career Center home page for a multitude of other resources that will help you in your internship or final placement job search.

Using Social Media

The majority of job offers today are rendered as the result of a networking occurrence. While companies will continue to post positions on their company websites and on various online providers, the bulk of the positions will be filled by the recommendation of a particular candidate to a hiring manager, a human resources manager or a particular company representative. With hundreds of people applying for a single position, the likelihood of being hired by the simple submission of your resume to an online posting is remote. To combat these challenges and to embrace today’s hiring process, those seeking employment must use social media and social networking to identify potential recommenders, references and key hiring managers.

Steps to Use Social Media

  • Buy a copy of Joshua Waldman’s Book, Job Searching With Social Media for Dummies. This book provides the novice with the basics of getting started with social media sites.

  • Create a social media brand and keep the brand consistent across all media

  • Reach out and develop relationships with people who can help you network your way into a particular company or job

  • Be relentless. Using social media well takes lots of time and patience.

With the unemployment rate at 9.8 percent, and the real unemployment rate at 15.6 percent, there are even more people fighting for the jobs that are out there.

This is why we have been working with OneWire, an online Career Management Tool that creates precise career connections between individuals and opportunities.

Unlike old–fashioned job boards that rely on keyword matching, OneWire uses a two–step process to ensure that you are matched only with those opportunities that precisely meet your goals and experiences.

  • Create Your Profile: Using our proprietary classification system, quickly and easily create a faceted, detailed profile that includes your education, interests, and work experiences.
  • Get Matched: OneWire’s patent–pending algorithms use the structured data in your profile to accurately match you with opportunities at finance firms.

How is this different from my resume?

Your resume is a finite space — often one or two pages — that fails to capture all of your experiences, skills, and interests. How do you anticipate what information each hiring manager will find important? OneWire allows you to store all of your experiences, skills, and interests in a single place. Your information is confidential and secure — although hiring managers can search on certain criteria, they will never see who you are unless you explicitly grant them permission to do so.

Which firms are using OneWire?

While they can’t publicly disclose this information yet, they do say top firms including a Major Global Investment Bank, a Premier Global Financial Services Firm, a Global Alternative Investments Firm and a Boutique Investment Bank are currently using OneWire to search for candidates to fill open positions. Each week, new firms are being added, and more opportunities are being sourced through OneWire.

Join OneWire today and set yourself apart from the competition.