By Noah Leavitt, director of the Career and Community Engagement Center.
As we’ve discussed this semester, America’s economy is supercharged and adding jobs at breakneck speed. However, it is important to be clear that the energized and permeable economy in itself does not guarantee that students will be successful simply by submitting applications and sitting back hoping for the best.
My colleagues in the CCEC and I have had numerous conversations with students this semester who expressed surprise that they are not hearing back after they submit their materials to potential employers. In general, applying to positions online without taking additional steps offers only a low level of potential success. A student’s goal should be to apply to positions in a way that increases potential success of the application.
We often tell students that a productive way to increase the possibility of success is that rather than applying generically to positions they find online, they should instead try to draw on connections with mentors, friends, former supervisors, faculty members, Whitman alumni and others with whom they have built a relationship in order to develop a list of options where they might be successful.
Often, we suggest that a student spend less time submitting applications and more time building connections that can make the applications they do wind up submitting more targeted, well-informed and stronger. We particularly encourage them to work with their sources of support and information, sometimes called a network, to help them in their search.
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