The Commerce Times

Prep work for information sessions

Students can get a headstart on their post-secondary job search by attending career fairs held at Ryerson. It’s a way to talk to potential employers, see what kind of jobs are available, and to acclimate yourself to what awaits you in the real world. However, there are some things that students are missing when they attend. Ian Ingles provides some advice on how students can make the most of this experience.

“Students could have been better prepared”

I heard this from an employer at one of the career fairs this fall. While it’s hard to expect everyone to be prepared and dressed to impress, everyone owes it to themselves to at least check who is going to be at an event beforehand. This way you can think of some more intelligent questions to pose to employers to demonstrate your preparedness, rather than “what type of jobs do you have?” While you do not need to be dressed in full business attire, it is expected that you will be dressed neatly.

“The attendance at our information session was not as high as other schools”

Getting students to attend an information session can be a challenge, depending on the event. This may be due to several factors, such as employers not having well-known names, schedule conflicts, or students simply not being interested. If it is a case of students not knowing about the event, then coordinators at the Career Development and Employment Centre need to do a better job getting the word out. Currently, information sessions are promoted through e-mail to the programs and years of study the employer has selected as their target audience, as well as creating and putting up posters for the event. A notice of the event is also posted on our events calendar at www.ryerson.ca/career.

“I haven’t received as many applications to my position as I have from other schools of similar size”

This can be caused by several factors. Maybe the job wasn’t that attractive or perhaps the position was only posted for a short period of time. Whatever the reason, students need to know that employers are posting new positions with the Career Development & Employment Centre on a daily basis. The jobs are being posted on CareerVault. All students should have an account on CareerVault (found at www.ryerson.ca/career) so that they are not missing out on opportunities that are being advertised including part-time, summer, and new grad jobs. Also, remember that even though it is only November, many employers are posting new grad positions for next spring and have been since the start of the fall semester. If you wait too long to start applying, you are going to miss out on many opportunities.