Family

Welcome to the IU family

Students often mention how much family influences their career choices and we know that from talking with family members that you’re not always sure what kind of advice you should be offering. What is too much advice? Is this outdated advice? We understand, and we're here to help!

We often let parents know they should encourage their student to explore career interests early in their college career with a career coach, to get on track fast. We work tirelessly with students to identify their career interests while holistically discussing their skills, values, and personality. Next, we work to identify and prepare materials for part-time jobs, student organizations, leadership opportunities and internships that will help them achieve career goals.

Don’t be afraid to talk to them about what helped shape your career path—even the “mistakes.” Remind them that the Career Development Center is here to offer one-on-one career coaching and so much more.

Learn more about Career Offices at IU

How can I help my student prepare for a successful career?

Description of the video:

Hi, my name is Giff Reed and I'm the Associate Director for Exploratory Career Coaching at the Career Development Center at Indiana University. Over the next several videos, we're going to talk to you about what Career Services looks like on the IUB campus, and how you can help your students plan for career success. In fact, we're going to go over the top, the four main ways that you can help your student prepare for a successful career. But before we get to that, we want to talk about how career services works on the IUB campus. At Indiana University Bloomington, we Career Services function in what's called a "decentralized model." Which means that each school and the College of Arts and Sciences have their own Career Services office. >> Even some other organizations like the Athletic Department has their own Career Services professionals that can help your students make the next right step. No matter where your student is starting, they have a career services professional that can help guide them in what's called the "Career Development Process." No matter what, Career Services at Indiana University Bloomington is committed to meeting students where they are and helping them take positive steps towards career success. From students who are well on their way in the career exploration journey, to students who are veterans. Or are students with disabilities, or students who identify as part of an underserved population, we support them in their career journey. We engage students in under-represented populations through specific support. And we follow our national organization's guidelines on disability disclosures, EEO, and affirmative action hiring practices. >> All that to say your student will have a Career Services person that can help them every step of the way. >> Now, the Career Development Process, at least these first four steps, is something that no matter where your students starts, they will be guided through. The Career Development Center - where I work - is part of University Division. And we work with students in their first and maybe second years; who have not yet been admitted into their school or certified into their major of choice. We walk them through this process, where we help them learn about themselves, so that they can identify what options might be best for them. >> And then we help them learn how to explore those options, and then build experience and try out what they've decided that they think they want to do. >> And once they've found that sweet spot, we help them prepare for the job search. >> Every career services office is committed to guiding students through each of these steps. >> And so no matter what, your student will be helped, no matter where they are in the process. >> Now, something that I think is a really cool thing about the way things are structured at IU. >> What you're looking at now is a list of the top ten skills that employers seek. >> This is produced from a survey that the National Association of Colleges and Employers does every single year. They ask employers across all career fields, "What skills do you" "want to hire people" "who just graduated from college?" "What skills do you want them to have?" >> And every year, this list is virtually the same. The order may change a little bit, but more or less, they're saying, "We want "people who can communicate in writing," "who can solve problems," "who can work in a team, who can take initiative." "We need people who have a strong work ethic" "and good communication skills" "verbally, who are detail-oriented." What's great is that there is not a specific major or school that gives students these skills more than any other. So no matter which school or what major your student ends up in, they will be prepared in the classroom to take what they're learning, apply it to real-world situations, and really cultivate and hone these skills that employers tell us they are hiring for. And they'll have career advisors, career coaches, and other Career Services Professionals walking alongside them every step of the way, helping them learn how to market themselves for that future job search. >> Finally, I want to give you a teaser of the first of the four main ways you can help your students prepare for a successful career. The four ways are: by encouraging them in their exploration. We want you to encourage exploration. We want you to encourage involvement. We want you to encourage getting experience, and we want you to encourage active preparation. The subsequent videos will take each one of those in turn, and then I'll wrap us up with a few thoughts as to what you can do as we head towards the Fall to prepare and learn more. For now, thank you. And we look forward to serving your students soon.

Description of the video:

Hi there. My name's Rachel Gerber, and I'm one of the Assistant Directors at the Career Development Center. And today, I am excited to talk with you about how we can help you to prepare your child for a successful career by encouraging Exploration. >> Now, 80% of our college freshmen are going to, at one or another, sometime during their freshman year, probably change their major. This happens all the time. It's very, very common. And yet, I do really want to just pause and say that I recognize that it can be also a very stressful time, and a time of high anxiety for our students. And if we're honest, maybe even too for you as parents, watching them go through this. Because there's a lot of time and money and energy that's on the line here. And we want our children to be happy, we want them to feel successful, and we also want them to graduate on time. And graduate and find the career that they love when they do get out into the world of work. >> So how can we help them navigate through this? And as career coaches, we believe that beginning at the very beginning, through exploring all of the options is going to be a really great place to start. Because - listen - oftentimes, our children end up choosing majors or careers based on what they're exposed to. Maybe it's something that's within their own family of origin. >> Perhaps everybody's teachers in your family. And so they just assume, "It's in my DNA. That's what I'm called to do too." Maybe, but maybe not. >> Or maybe it's something that they see in their local community, or maybe even on TV, something that looks kind of fun that they want to do. Then, when they get to college and they start in those particular classes, and they recognize, "This may or may not be a good fit for us," then they start to wonder, well what now? >> And career coaches, we can sit down with your students and talk with them one-on-one about different options for them. What we like to do, is we like to affectionately call this their "VIPS." And we can have these conversations with them to help them to really dig in and learn about themselves. And we call it, like I said, our VIPS, or our values. >> What are those things that really, at the end of the day, mean a great deal to us? >> We look at their interests. What are they passionate about? What do they love to do? Have a lot of joy in doing? >> We can offer assessments about personality. >> Finding, like, what are going to be good environmental fits for them in the world of work? >> As well as their skills. What are they naturally good at? And where their strengths? And what do they want to do? >> And as we pull on these threads, we get to the core of who they really are. Not to who they think they should be, or what somebody else maybe wants them to be, but who they truly are. >> And then, we test that out. We invite them to test out these hunches by exploring these options. >> And we can walk them through this, getting them connected with informational interviewing and opportunities for job shadowing. Getting in there with actual people within the industry, to talk and to learn more about the ins and outs and the day-to-day jobs. We also have an extensive online research database that we work with lots of students here in our office. We're connected with Indiana INTERNnet Explorer, which looks at job growth and opportunities in the state of Indiana. >> And we also have a podcast that we do. I currently co-host it with Nathan Langfit, who is going to be in the next video, that you'll meet. And we talk about, we dig in a little bit deeper about our VIPS, as well as thinking about, how do we even make decisions and care for ourselves along the way? So you can even subscribe to it yourself. It's called "Major Choices," designing the life you want. And you can subscribe to it anywhere that you get your podcasts. >> So, parents, we understand, and we truly, deeply believe that you are the largest influencers in your child's life. So help us to help them by encouraging them to see their career coach. Because we believe that exploring all the options is the best place to begin.

Description of the video:

Hey there. My name is Nathan Langfit. I'm a Senior Assistant Director with the Career Development Center here at Indiana University. And I am so excited to welcome your student - your son or daughter - onto our campus here this fall. I'm here for a moment to talk to you a little bit about the number two way of the four main ways that you can prepare for a great career, which is encouraging your student to get involved on this campus. >> I always tell students there's really two reasons that we want to get involved. >> Number one, it's a great way to explore your interests, it's a great way to figure out what might be a good major and eventual career path to take. And number two, it's also a great place to start to get that experience that's going to lead to some opportunities to put on a resume and that first internship, heck, it might be even the volunteering, and that getting involvement could directly lead to an internship here locally that eventually puts your student on the pathway for a great career. So really getting involved, it's also just a great way to get connected to this community. And it can have huge implications for your student's career path going forward. >> So there's really two main ways that I like to tell students they can get involved and how IU can really support that. >> The first one is getting involved with a club, a student organization, an activity. >> And a great way to search those and find different ones is through what we call the beINvolved page. >> beINvolved as a website, beinvolved.indiana.edu, and it is a huge search engine. It's a resource, a depository of sorts of different opportunities, clubs, things, the students use to get involved. You could go in there and basically search any interest, say it is farming or video games or soccer or whatever that might be, search those things in this, and it can help students to know about all of the existing opportunities that might be out there to get involved. >> And this is important because let's say that a student wants to work one day in marketing, but they're really interested in video games. Maybe they could be the marketing person for the video game club. >> You know, it doesn't have to be that the clubs and the activities that we get involved in are directly the career pathway. It could also be that there's just some great opportunities within those clubs to get some skills and to test out different major and career pathways. >> The other thing that we love to encourage students to do is volunteer. Get involved not only here on campus, but also in Bloomington and South Central Indiana. And we have an amazing resource to facilitate that called the IUCorps. Students can go to iucorps.indiana.edu and search through tons of opportunities to get involved volunteering. >> These could be as short as a one-day opportunity, or as long as a recurring volunteering experience. And they can also be not only for one student, but also for a group of students. >> And again, volunteering is a great place to try out some of these different things that students may be curious about majoring in and eventually pursuing as a career. It also can give them that great experience and also help your son or daughter to give back to the community. >> So again, really excited that your student's going to be here at IU with us. It's going to be a fantastic year and don't hesitate to ask us any questions going forward. >> Thank you so much!

Description of the video:

Hi again! It's Rachel Gerber, Assistant Director at the Career Development Center. >> And in this video, I'm going to talk with you about how you as parents can help your student and get them set up for career success by encouraging them to get out there and to build some experience. >> Now we all know that experience is absolutely key and critical to landing that first-time, full-time job after graduation. And that's what we all want for our students, right? >> But here's the million-dollar question: What do we actually mean by experience? And how in the world you start going about getting it? >> Well, the short answer is this: it's that anything, really, can be considered experience if you know how to articulate it. If you think about it. >> Giff at the very first video, he talked about all of the different transferable skills that employers are looking for. Well, all of those things can be really learned it in a lot of different ways. >> Even just a summertime job at Dairy Queen, you can learn good teamwork, you can learn good communication skills, quality control, working with technology, problem-solving. >> All of those things can be learned from part-time jobs. >> Doesn't even just have to be an internship, but an internship is also a lovely way in order to get in the radar of employers and future employers. >> Because 70% of successful internship opportunities oftentimes lead to full-time job offers. >> It's a great opportunity for employers to "test drive" their future employees. >> But in the same breath, it's a great opportunity for your child to also sort of "test drive" that employer and that industry of choice to see if it's going to be a good fit for them. >> So I'm going to show you my screen here about some other ways with some particular websites that you can make sure to check out. >> As the Career Development Center, we actually host a student employment site where we have job postings both on campus as well as in the greater community with employers that are looking to hire part-time workers, IU students. And these are great opportunities. They're super flexible because they know they're hiring students. And it's a great opportunity to get out there and to build some experience. >> We also have tons of career fairs that are hosted by our particular schools. >> And they have recruiters come in from particular industries that are looking to hire IU students. This is an awesome opportunity for students to go, not only to see what employers want, IU students, but also to be able to have that one-on-one conversation with these recruiters to ask them about, in particular, what kind of things are you looking for? What kind of experiences are you looking for? >> And then they can be intentional about creating those types of experiences here while they're still in college before they graduate. >> So they're going to be poised and ready to launch into the world of work. >> Even for first-year students, I really recommend students going to these job fairs when they're able to. Because like I said, it gives them that inserted look about what, and to be strategic about how to actually craft the next four years of their lives so they're going to be ready to hit the ground running. >> So, and also, I should also mention that a byproduct of having part-time jobs, doing internships, getting involved with volunteering to build that experience, that when students are doing something up to ten hours a week apart from their studies, the best byproduct is that it oftentimes makes their GPA go up because of time management and all that other stuff. So, that's a great byproduct building experience. And who doesn't want that?

Our services for your student

If your student is in not yet officially admitted into a school, they are part of what is referred to as University Division at IU. Your student will work with us, the CDC, until they are admitted into their major degree-granting school.

To make things easier, we have assigned a specific career coach to them, so at any time they have a go-to person for their career planning needs. One of the most common ways to connect with a career coach is through a one-on-one career coaching session. We most commonly cover the following topics:

Career and Major Exploration
Career Fair Preparation
Resume and Cover Letters
Part-time Job and Internship Search Strategies
Interview Preparation (includes mock interview)
Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) and Strong Interest Inventory (SII)
Networking

During your student's first year at IU, they might consider getting a part-time job to help cover some financial responsibilities and develop relevant skills to market to future employers and graduate school acceptance committees.

Each year the Career Development Center hosts two job fairs. Information for these fairs is below on our Student Employment website:

Summer Jobs & Internships Fair

Fall Part-time Jobs Fair

We host events throughout the year on various career topics including resumes and LinkedIn. Your student might see us present in a class or for their student organization.

Your student's Handshake account gives them access to thousands of part-time job postings (includes work-study positions) and internships. This isn't just another random job board, but rather a place where employers come to recruit IU students.

Your student can also do the following in Handshake:

Post resumes and cover letters
View upcoming events
Sign up for interview times when employers are visiting campus
Browse a database of thousands of industry contacts
View lists of employers scheduled to attend upcoming career fairs

Your student can begin researching careers, downloading career handouts, and reviewing industry specific resources in our professionally curated career resource library.

CDC Resource Library

Our team created 7 career communities, containing 25 career guides that offer resources for career research and ways to get involved on campus and in the Bloomington community.

CDC Career Communities

Ways to get involved

Division of Student Affairs

Keep up-to-date with the Hoosier experience with the Division of Student Affairs. Sign up for the family newsletter, join the Hoosier Families Facebook group, and check out our events.

Stay connected

Recruit IU students

In addition to sharing your career stories, experiences, and connections with IU students, you may be able to provide a work opportunity that could uniquely influence a student’s career path.

Partner with the CDC

Your student's rights

Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA)

Release of Student Information Policy

Support the Career Development Center today

Ensure that students are able to take advantage of summer internships and gain the skills they need to build a strong foundation for career success.

Career Development Center

Family

Welcome to the IU family

How can I help my student prepare for a successful career?

Our services for your student

Ways to get involved

Division of Student Affairs

Recruit IU students

Your student's rights

Support the Career Development Center today

Links to related websites

Students

Employers

Partner with Us

Staff

Family

Welcome to the IU family

How can I help my student prepare for a successful career?

Our services for your student

Career Coaching

Job Fairs

Career Events and Workshops

Online Job Portal

Online Career Resource Library

CDC Career Communities

Ways to get involved

Division of Student Affairs

Recruit IU students

Your student's rights

Support the Career Development Center today

Links to related websites

Students

Employers

Partner with Us

Staff