By: Emily Young MA ‘16

As college students, the best tool to network is informational interviews. Informational interviews allow you to become well-informed about the industry you’re interested in and are a great way to develop some contacts in your field. Top-level and mid-level executives rarely take calls from strangers, but for college students eager to learn there is an exception. Being a USC student is a powerful brand to get your foot in the door, so use it to your advantage.

By: Emily Young MA ‘16

There are many good reasons to make a budget, one might be that you realized you need to start saving for Spring Break after reading “Is It Spring Break Yet? Why It’s Not Too Soon to Start Planning.” Allow me to help you on your journey to becoming a financially responsible adult with my personal budgeting tips.

By: Judy Lee ‘17

1. How does this fit my career path?

By: Emily Young MA ‘16

Staying in touch with previous bosses, colleagues, teachers, and mentors via a holiday card/email is a subtle yet highly effective form of networking. It helps to keep you top-of-mind just in case Santa Claus didn’t bring you a nice shiny internship/job for Christmas.

By: Emily Young MA ‘16

Reality check, “the real working world” is approaching faster than you can imagine. While school has prepared you for a lot, it hasn’t prepared you for everything. Some of the most important lessons you learn in “the real working world” are from failures.

By: Emily Young MA ‘16

In last week’s Work On It Wednesday, I shared some tips to improve your resume. This week we are bringing it all together with: The Cover Letter.

By: Emily Young MA ‘16

This week I choose to tackle the resume after attending an Annenberg Real World 101 Workshop on Building a Winning Resume and Cover Letter featuring Annenberg alumni Whitney Blaine. Whitney recently wrote a a book titled “Stop Doing What you Should” that explains some of the common misconceptions millennials purse in their career development. One of the main topics in her book is improving your resume.

By: Emily Young MA ‘16

The USC Graduate School Fair is this Thursday, October 15th, along Trousdale from 11:00 AM - 02:00 PM. Attend the fair to learn more about graduate school, and receive information from over 75 schools including Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Harvard, Johns Hopkins, NYU, UCLA, and USC.

By: Emily Young MA ‘16

It’s hard to stay calm and focused when one test is worth 35% of your grade. It’s even worse when you have four tests and a paper due all in the next two weeks.

By: Emily Young MA ‘16

Writing college papers can be a daunting task: the amount of writing, the standard that teachers expect, the level of research behind it—and did I mention it’s due in a week. In high school, we wrote papers about our thoughts and feelings on book we read in class. Now that we are in college, we’re expected to use the book we read in class to stimulate a topic idea, research the topic more, and present unique arguments and critical thought. Not only is this style of writing new, but on top of that different professors may want different writing and citing structures that you might not be familiar with.

By: Emily Young MA ‘16

Career fair networking is different than an interview; it’s more like speed dating. Instead of a half an hour or hour for a typical interview, you have two minutes to break the ice and determine if you are interested in the company and if the company recruiter is interested in you. Luckily, company recruiters (who do this for a living) are friendly and genuinely want to get to know you. They’re not going to make hiring decisions on the spot, but leaving a lasting impression will help pave the way for later hiring interviews.

By: Emily Young MA ‘16

The first step to prepare for any event is to know when it is and RSVP. This Thursday from 10:00am-2:00pm, the USC Career Center is hosting their Fall Career Fair. There will be over 160 different company booths lined up across Trousdale Parkway with recruiters looking to network, collect resumes, and hire USC students. Use my timeline below to prepare and standout at the USC Career Fair!