STAR Wars

Winning at On-Campus Recruiting

By Linda Bates Parker

There are galaxies of opportunities in the career universe, but you will have to stand out like a shooting star to outshine the competition in today’s job market. Make no mistake: you are in a battle to impress employers who are recruiting on campus in record numbers, but you will have to outsmart the competition posed by millions of other talented college grads for prized career opportunities as you enter the job market this year.

No matter how exceptional your academic and extracurricular achievements have been (and they do need to be exceptional), and no matter what college or university you attend, you should sign up for the on-campus recruiting interviews early in your senior year. You will have to be as determined and as prepared as a warrior going into battle to achieve your career goals. Here’s how.

On-campus recruiting is a service offered by most college career centers where employers conduct formal interviews for full-time, part-time and internship opportunities in their organizations. On-campus recruiting is the major campus resource, used by thousands of employers nationwide, to fill their college-level hiring needs. Employers target colleges that have top-notch academic and extracurricular programs, renowned faculty, talented graduates and high-level career centers.

Exciting career opportunities abound in all kinds of careers and with a diverse list of employers. Employers are hiring for careers in areas that today’s college students are anxious to compete for in art, business, education, health, the music industry, social sciences, and the federal government.

Because employers are looking for the “best and brightest” college students in this year’s graduating class, they search colleges as diverse as Morehouse and MIT, Howard and Harvard, Bennett and Baylor, Xavier of Louisiana and Xavier of Ohio, Central State and Florida State, to interview through on-campus recruiting. Black collegians are often unaware of how important a service this is and why they must use it effectively. Employers spend thousands of dollars to send representatives from their organizations to recruit on campus. Students seeking opportunities with these employers will be at an extreme disadvantage if they fail to interview while these employers are visiting. But to stand out and succeed in today's highly competitive on-campus recruiting process, students must do far more than just show up – they must STAR.

The four major elements of winning the STAR Wars in on-campus interviews involve:

S – Strategically position yourself for opportunity. To be well positioned for on-campus recruiting opportunities, start using the career center as early as freshman year to participate in workshops and classes on career exploration and preparation, including self-assessment, resume writing and interviewing. Effective interviewing is a skill that requires personal introspection, research on the employers and practice, practice, practice to beat out the competition. Do not wait until your senior year to arm yourself with this strategic advantage.

T – Take initiative; be proactive. Every year while in college, you should attend campus career fairs and similar events to learn the art of networking, to build your Professional Contacts Directory and to outsmart the competition. By your senior year you should have had lots of practice interviews, a marketable resume, and more than one internship or other real-world work experience in your area of career interest. You should also have lots of employers to contact to re-introduce yourself and to alert them of your readiness to interview with their organization. Conduct both an on-campus and off-campus job search, particularly if your employers of choice are not recruiting on your campus.

A– Articulate your value. You can totally undermine yourself and lose the interviewing battle if you don’t understand that this is your time to STAR. You have to articulate with intelligence, confidence and enthusiasm what you have achieved in college and how you can assist in meeting their hiring needs. The campus interview is a serious screening process and no place for being late, improperly dressed or unprepared. Bragging or trying to bluff your way through doesn’t work either. Campus recruiters have asked these same questions to hundreds of talented students at all kinds of campuses. And they’ve heard just about everything. It’s impossible to answer the employers’ tough, behavioral interview questions if you have not done your homework. You have to enter the war zone equipped and prepared to do battle.

R–Respect as you connect. You must be able to convey your professionalism every step of the way, and this requires a healthy and demonstrated respect for everyone you encounter in the process. This includes the professionals at your career center, at your preliminary interview, and all other personal or mail contacts. Brilliant students have been passed over because they were perceived as too arrogant, indifferent or disrespectful. Follow-up communications are important, and must be professional and convey appreciation for an employer’s time, for the career center’s assistance or to gently remind a reference of your prior request. No matter how many battles you have won leading up to the campus interview, if you fail at this step, you lose the war!

Linda Bates Parker is the Director of the Career Development Center at the University of Cincinnati. She has been the Campus Advisor for THE BLACK COLLEGIAN for 20 years and was recently selected as a Distinguished Fellow of the Academy of the National Association of Colleges and Employers for her work in career services.