Finding Your Future: Carrington College Career Services

Career Services at Carrington College

The Career Services team at Carrington College works with students and alumni to guide them to a brighter future. Carrington College helps active students and graduates achieve personal, academic, and professional growth through networking, effective job-seeking strategies, interview techniques, and beyond. At each of our Carrington College campuses, we help with:

• Job-search strategies
• Job-market orientation
• Resume writing and optimization
• Interview techniques
• Extern-to-Hire opportunities
• Career fairs and special events

We help guide your success from your very first day. Whether you’re a recent high school graduate, looking to change careers, or enhancing your current professional skillset, Carrington College is dedicated to helping make your career goals a reality.

Carrington College has relationships with local businesses to connect students with the positions that match their skills and education. Career Services Advisors help you establish realistic career goals, and provide effective techniques and opportunities to achieve them.

Working With Career Services Advisors at Carrington College

Carrington College’s Career Services team connects students and alumni with local businesses. These introductions are the first steps to building business relationships, establishing externships, and creating employment opportunities in the local community.

How Career Services Advisors Work

Career Services at Carrington College helps students achieve their goals for life. From prospective students to alumni in established careers, Career Services provides individual guidance to connect learners with the careers they want.

In each of Carrington College’s programs, you will be assigned a Career Services Advisor at no additional cost to active Carrington College students and graduates. We offer the benefit of a Career Services Advisor for students at any point in their experience at Carrington College and beyond—alumni can stay connected with their Career Services Advisor throughout their careers. These advisors build and maintain relationships with employers in the local community, and any Carrington College student or graduate can benefit from these carefully-cultivated connections. Once you enroll, the Carrington College Career Services Department will connect you with your assigned advisor.

Your assigned advisor can offer assistance with:

• Resume assistance and workshops
• Interview skills workshops
• Professionalism workshops
• Externship placement assistance
• Career fairs
• Individual guidance

Writing and Optimizing Resumes

Writing a resume may seem straightforward or mundane, but it has a huge impact on your job search. Writing and optimizing resumes plays an important part in getting candidates into employers’ candidate pools, especially since many employers use ATS keywords to screen and qualify applicants. According to 2018 data from Jobscan, 95% of Fortune 500 companies use ATS systems to screen resumes. This means even candidates that meet educational and skill requirements can be eliminated from job opportunities for unoptimized resumes. The Career Services office at Carrington College helps students and graduates align their resumes to the positions they want through best practices and proven strategies.

“We ask staff to bring prospective students in to meet us,” says Diana Jimenez, Career Services Advisor at the Mesa campus. “We want to let them know even if they need a resume for a part-time job now, during school, or job searching tips—we can help with that.”

Having an optimized and well-written resume to present to potential employers is a crucial aspect of today’s job search process. Many job applicants write their resume without knowing what employers are looking for. For example, research from Cultivated Culture found that only 51% of the resumes surveyed listed important keywords and skills, and the vast majority lacked soft skills. These oversights may seem harmless, but when applying for competitive positions, every aspect of the applicant’s resume is carefully scrutinized. Career Services Advisors at Carrington College are experienced in optimizing resumes for selective employers.

Resume Keywords to Avoid

When written effectively, a resume can be a powerful tool to gain the attention of an employer and subsequently get hired. Conversely, knowing what to exclude from a resume can be just as important as the information you include. Just as employers know ATS keyword searches to find education and skills they want, they also use negative keywords to screen candidates. Some keywords may hurt your chances of getting the job, but Career Services Advisors know which words to include and which to avoid for the job at hand.

At Carrington College, your Career Services Advisor will help you craft an effective resume. These professionals are well-versed in a resume’s ideal verbiage, formatting, proofreading, information to include and beyond.

Your advisor will provide tips on building an effective resume, including:

• Contact information to include or exclude
• Personal details to include or avoid
• Experience and accomplishments to include
• Formatting and organization
• Optimized digital resume formats
• Tailoring a resume to fit a specific job role
• Proofreading and optimization
• Cover letter best practices
• How to update a resume periodically

Interview Preparation

Whether they are in-person one-on-ones, group interviews, or completely remote like a Zoom meeting, interviews are one of the most important aspects of today’s job applications. According to data from Forbes, the average job opening receives 118 applications. Of those 118 applicants, roughly 20% make it to the interview stage of the application process. For especially competitive roles, these rates may be even more daunting.

Job interviews are a two-way street. For employers, the interview gives them insights into an applicant’s professionalism, culture, fitness, hard and soft skills, education, personality, relevant experience, and other aspects that may not come across on a resume. For applicants, an interview indicates whether the position at hand is a job worth pursuing. Just as employers are taking cues of professionalism and integrity from the interviewee, the applicant can size up and scrutinize the interviewers. Our Career Services Advisors can inform applicants on best practices for putting their best foot forward in a job interview, while educating them on “red flags” to watch out for while being interviewed.

Job Application With Multiple Interviews

A significant number of companies vet their applicants with multiple interviews. A 2017 Recruiter Sentiment Study MRI Network reports recruiters say 82% of jobs require more than two interviews before a job is offered. This means most job applicants will most likely need to interview repeatedly for the same job. To maximize the odds of a job offer, applicants should not approach each interview the same way; subsequent interviews require different strategies than the initial interview.

Several important aspects influence the follow-up interview strategy, including:

• Interviewer changes between interviews
• Number of interviewers
• Time between interviews
• Titles and departments of interviewers
• Number of applicants in the running

Beyond making a strong first impression, interviews are opportunities to demonstrate consistency, professionalism, dedication, and initiative. If you present conflicting qualities between interviews, there is a good chance the position will be filled by another candidate. For this reason, the Career Services Advisors at Carrington College provide insights on multiple interviews. No matter how many interviews the application process requires, our Advisors are uniquely qualified to guide students and alumni with effective interview strategies.

Practice & Mock Interviews

Carrington College offers interview practice activities and interview workshops for students to help job applicants feel at-home and confident during interviews. Though it may seem uncomfortable at first, practicing an interview in a mock setting gives applicants familiarity with the interview process, with ample opportunities for Career Services Advisors to identify areas for improvement.

Interviewers are apt to ask “curveball” questions you have not prepared for. It is impossible to know what specific questions employers will ask, but Career Services Advisors can coach you through answering tough questions even when you are caught off guard. Sometimes, interviewers will give you points for how you answer a question you do not know the answer to. Advisors can prepare you for those tough and unexpected questions, while giving you strategies to address questions you are unfamiliar with. Practice and mock interviews give you opportunities to build confidence in preparation for the real interview.

“We help students prepare for interviews and help them practice — our main goal is to help students and graduates present themselves more professionally,” -Diana Jimenez, Career Services Advisor at the Mesa campus.

Confidence During Job Interviews

When it comes to interviews, confidence is key. According to 2020 data from JDP, 93% of job applicants experience anxiety related to job interviews. Appearing frazzled or unprepared in a job interview shows the interviewers you may not be able to manage the day-to-day stress of the job at hand, and that your temperament might not be a good fit. Conversely, appearing too confident can be a red flag for employers. Data from a 2019 TopInterview reveals 72% of interviewers rated over-confidence as “the biggest personality turn off.” It is crucial for job applicants to find the “sweet spot” between confidence and humility, and the Carrington College Services Advisors are uniquely equipped to coach students and alumni in this regard.

When it comes time to schedule your interview, we encourage students and alumni to speak with their assigned Career Services Advisor before the interview. Our Career Services office may have connections with the prospective employer, and may be able to pass along insights to dramatically improve your interview performance.

Creating a Job Search Plan

A job search can be overwhelming if you do not have a job search plan in place. A job search plan helps you stay on track during this process, and allows you to maintain focus and set goals. When your overall job search is divided into smaller, actionable parts, the process is much less stressful. Career Service Advisors can help you create an effective job search plan that aligns with your career goals, education, skills, and interests.

To get started, your Advisor will help you identify and list your professional skills, education, and strengths to help you determine positions that help you meet your career goals. Career Services Advisors help students and graduates monitor their job search progress to clarify and hone their goals along the way.

Maintaining open communication with your Advisor is a crucial aspect of your continuing success after graduation. Career Services Advisors help Carrington College students and alumni customize their job searches to help align with their employment opportunities.