Career Milestones

Participating in the career milestones exercise made me realize I have accomplished more “milestones” than I would have ever thought. Beforehand, I only thought obtaining an internship and landing your first job were considered career milestones. I am going to walk through each milestone and explain my experiences along the way.

Truthfully, I did the steps out-of-order and I never knew if I was 100% on the right track throughout college. Going into college I had no idea what career path I wanted to take so I chose something general; Communication (BS). I knew there were a ton of different jobs I could use my degree in and was planning on adding a more specific minor/certificate later. I viewed the “career outlook” on my undergraduate program information page and the career options I was interested in were: entrepreneurism, event planning, human resource management, marketing, public relations and sales. I knew this general area is where I could see myself. Therefore the first two steps, “establishing career interest” and “career/degree alignment” happened simultaneously. As far as networking, I created a LinkedkIn but I didn’t attend a career fair or employer info session, which I probably should have. I did attend a PowHER conference with my chapter and listened to GoDaddy and a couple other companies speak but that was about it. I joined an organization my first few weeks of college, my sorority, Alpha Phi and later a club called Page Turners. Being apart of an organization and the community service I participated in with Alpha Phi was a great start to my resume. I started looking for experience the summer between my sophomore and junior year. I created a resume in order to apply to internships. During my 5 internships I was able to develop skills and gain experience.

Now that I am nearly done with college, I have been looking for job opportunities. I have officially switched the option on Handshake from viewing internship to full-time jobs. I have been able to practice interview skills through this course by watching helpful webinars but the more interviews I actually participate in is what will really help me. By applying for multiple internships, even the ones I didn’t get, I’ve always gained something even if it was just interview practice. I’ve also maintain references and now have three letters of recommendation.

As of now I am in the process of the last milestone, applying and interviewing for jobs. I didn’t know this resource was available until my senior year so I was happy to see that I had already taken a few of the recommended steps when I first filled it out. I picked the picture of the quote “I don’t know where I’m going but I’m on my way” because I felt that it applied to my situation in college. I didn’t know exactly what career I was going to pick or what my passions were but I was taking the small steps I needed to simply move forward.