University of Connecticut students know the struggles of finding a job in this competitive market. The International Studies Association presented “Tandem Job Searches: Industry and Academia” to aid students in their application processes.
Sarah Dorr, the Director of Professional Development for ISA, opened the webinar with presenter Kay Kimball Gruder. Gruder is the Associate Director of Graduate Student & Postdoc Career Programs & Services.
The webinar detailed the hiring process for business, government, non-profit and academic professions. Gruder stated she “wanted to think about business being interchangeable with government and academia.” Her recipe for a good applicant is being strategic, recognizing planned happenstance and being persistent and resilient in the job search. Strategy refers to choosing your connections carefully and purposefully, while planned happenstance refers to “being open to initiating conversations with people,” Gruder said. Being persistent and resilient in your job search means that you are expanding on the areas where you are finding some movement and surrounding yourself with people who value you.
Gruder then described how candidates are assessed on the employer side of the equation. A major factor in this process is the Applicant Tracking System (ATS). These are “software that manage applications and applicants from as early as the first inquiry to hiring,” Gruder explained. They are also systems that organize applicants to how well they match the job descriptions — sometimes they can also serve as an onboarding site when it comes to employment forms and documentation. “We all want to know how we’re being evaluated,” Gruder emphasized.
These ATSs track information like the schools you’ve attended, your location, years of experience, skills and whether you’ve worked for a competitor. Some examples that Gruder points out are Greenhouse and PageUp. “75% of resumes are rejected by ATS,” Gruder noted.
Programs such as this pick the best applicants for hiring teams to interview, meaning that it’s crucial for students to add as much as they can to their resumes and portfolios. “Employers generally want to know if you can do the job, and how effective of an employee you’d be,” Gruder said.
The application process varies for certain industries. Gruder highlighted the necessary documents for each type of job. For academia, the required documents would likely be a CV, cover letter and some form of teaching/research/diversity statement. They may also ask for sample syllabi or your portfolio. With jobs in business, you’ll likely need a one to two-page resume with a qualifications section along with a cover letter. For non-profits, they’d usually ask for your resume, cover letter and writing samples. The last type of job covered was in the government. Gruder stated that this is where things get tricky, as you’d have to create a USAJOBS profile and attach any required documents with it.
The timelines for each of these areas range from a few weeks to an entire year. Businesses and nonprofits tend to take about eight weeks to complete their hiring process. For government jobs, it’s about 80-100 days. But for academia, it can start in the late summer and last until early spring. It can become even more complicated as the positions may change. “Sometimes the priorities change for them [hiring team], while they are going through the process they are learning new nuances for a candidate they’re trying to find,” Gruder said.
Generally, the best way to set yourself up for success is to “be more than just your degree,” Gruder noted. Possessing skills beyond what is required is something that recruiters notice, and UConn’s Center for Career Development provides other resources to help you in your career. Their website offers services such as guides to writing resumes and cover letters, along with appointments with career coaches.