thiram Anhalagan
CO PY E D ITO R

With the advent of the hiring period,
the résume’ season is definitely in. In this fierce
coagulation of employers and students, there
are many key elements that help define this re-
lationship even better. One such factor in our
very own school is Career Services, and the
newly-positioned Career Development Coach.
One can see Career Services staff pushing the
social media boundaries and reaching out to
students on Facebook and Twitter. With pho-
tos of fellow students receiving career guidance
and complementary books becoming the norm
this spring, David Wilson Work is the man to
go if you want to review your professional doc—
uments before venturing into employer land.
In this exclusive interview excerpt, we capture
his thought process and how his organization
is pushing the boundaries on the career front.

First of all, a little background on
Work and the arsenal he brings to the table.
He is currently a résumé coach and is on the
panel of the Iob Search Counselors at Career
Services. His core competency is English writ-
ing and reviewing resumes. He marks them up
and corrects errors and provides plenty of sug-
gestions. He basically red-lines the documents
and drafts that students bring. He was once a
peer tutor at the Harold Washington College
and now has refined this to a more efficient
and refined capacity as a full-time counselor.
One can reach out to him and book an ap-
pointment by logging on the Iobs4hawks por—
tal and booking a time slot for a resume review
session under the calendar tab.

He is available on campus at various
places ranging from Crown Hall and Galvin
Library to MSV. His rough timings are around
3 pm. to 8 pm. on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
You can also send him an email at wwork@iit.
edu. One can only wonder if a more befitting
email address can be found in correlation with
what he does. He says that a big part of the pro-
cess is awareness. He jokingly states that social
media and now traditional media—starting
with this article—are used in that process. He
added,"We want you to know that we have
counselors available. You could see me with an
appointment or e-mail or meet the counselors
at Hermann Hall."

 

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Student newspaper of lilinois institute of Technology since 1928

Career Services make job search easier

Upon asking how the review ses—
sions are being received by the student coma
munity, he said that he is booked solid for two
weeks now and that is a successful experiment
so far. The next question shot at him was about
the primary goal of Career Services as a whole.
He had this to say: “Our main goal is to offer
extension services that are going to increase
accessibility of career services to our students
across the board and alumni. We want stu-
dents to be aware of what they have available in
terms of career services and also informational
resources such as Galvin Library.” Research li—
brarians are often not utilized by the students
and one can prove to be of great help with
industry and business position search. The
primary message from Career Services is that
academic skills are applicable to job searching.
It is a new experience for Mr. Work as well in
terms of writing and coaching.

There are few graduates who do
come back to get help with their resumes and
career guidance. Upon being asked to illustrate
the importance of Gerald Doyle, the Vice Pro-
vost, Work says, “It’s all about delivering better
value for the degree, and another big piece is
branching career service into campus culture
through different disciplines and departments.
That’s really a key thing Gerry is pushing.” The
study bubble is a concept that Work stirred up
in the interview. It’s merely a term for old con—
cepts. These days, the course loads are so heavy
and rigorous that students often don’t have the
opportunity to look ahead of what they are
doing academically and think of their careers
professionally. “We want to foster that aware-
ness across the board,” Work adds.

As the interview touched on vari-
ous topics, another familiar one sprung up
across the table, passion. According to Work,
although there are a variety of reasons to be
educated and earn a degree, namely cultural
and societal reasons, the number one reason
people want a degree is to get a job and in-
crease their earning power. He went on to say,
“You want an IIT degree to have a competitive
value in the educational marketplace, and on
the career services frontier you want to do a
good job educating the students about the op-
tions they have available while they are still in
enrolled so that they are enrolled and ready to
go ideally as soon as they graduate.”

The next question was about a key
member of this movement, Gerald Doyle, who
has been pushing this on social media. Work
considers Doyle a broad and forward thinker
whose methods and thinking are very much
up to recent times. The people in his office are
very active and well coordinated according to
him. “Everything we do is centered around
serving the students better,” he said. Where
Doyle comes in is coming up with new ideas
and new programs for getting things done.

He pushes the ethos and assembles a
team based on the notion that we put students
first. “Students first! Students first! Students
first! That’s essentially the mantra we work
with. Although it sounds like the official motto
for all IIT staff, in the Office of Student Access,
Success, and Diversity Initiatives (SASDI) and
Career Services live it.” he added. Secondly, the
Career Services extension is in line with the
success section of SASDI. Ensuring that stu-
dents succeed when they graduate is key in the
same way that SASDI has taken various initia-
tives. They key goal of this organization was
previously to get more students into IIT, and
currently their goal is ensure that the students
of IIT leave successfully into the job market.
“We already have a really robust input pipe-
line and now we want an equally good output
pipeline.” is what Work had to say when asked
about the workings of the organization.

The success shouldn’t necessarily
mean a Fordist economy, but making students
options more accessible and clear. For students
graduating this May, Work had some sound
advice, and this advice was two-fold. His first
piece of advice is to book an appointment with
Career Services and come see the counselors
in a one-on-one session. “Either myself or one
of the conventional CMC counselors would be
happy to help out,” he exclaimed excitedly. His
second piece of advice lies around the book
“The Two Hour Job Search." This book is being
handed out to students graduating this May
and is a ton of useful information and tips. The
book is full of sound advice for job-seekers
because clears out conventional clutter and
targets. Not only is it full of pointers, but it is
so comprehensive and detailed that you need
nothing else. It provides you with a protocol to
work with and it comes with specific instruc-
tions, so you can’t go wrong, and you don’t

 

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have to rely on someone or something else to
complement the reading. The book primarily
aims at teaching how to get an interview using
the internet.

Students are better off reading the
book before applying for jobs online and send-
ing résumés into the void. It also teaches you
to foster connections with people. Network~
ing is a key skill the book imparts and that is
something most people overlook in a social
and professional realm. It’s more of a buzz-
word and cliché these days, so it’s ignored, but
it’s actually critical. “It’s actually neologism for
what humans have done since the stone age,
exchange greetings, socialize, share strengths
and competencies and overcome difficulties
together,” says Work The challenge for an IIT
student at times is that sometimes we forget
the human part of the equation. One must nev—
er forget that we learn and do so much in our
jobs and internships for the purpose of helping
other people, to make this world a better place,
and in order to do that we need to meet other
people. We need to talk to them and befriend
them.

Part of the college experience is re-
finement of that process, learning how to alter
your modes of dress, speech, and action in or-
der to achieve this goal. David goes on to say,
“Learning the art of diplomacy is required, and
I think diplomacy is getting people to do what
you want them to because they want to do it.
Which is so much easier if they like you and
have their interests aligned with yours.” The
final part of the conversation lingered around
the next step from here for Career Services. As
per Mr. Work and his colleagues’ vision, the
next step is to identify best practices and scal-
ing them up, so that the whole student body
can be served. This would offer a richer ex-
perience to every student at IIT. The markup
practice, which has been active for a long time
now ,currently does quick reviews for a large
number of students, but the goal in the near
future would be to do a more tailored service
on a larger scale. We have a student body of
around 6000 people, and roughly a third are
taking advantage of Career Services as a fea—
ture.

Photos courtesy of Davtd Work