Now that summer is approaching, some students are either going to Summer school or just need that summer job to have extra money. On May 13, Master Career Development Professional Nancy Davis, and Student Services specialist Pamela Benge held a workshop in the Grossmont career center on “Tools To Land a Job”.

During this workshop, they had several exercises and one of them was called a SWOT analysis, which stands for Strength, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. Basically students listed their Internal Strengths and Weaknesses, which are the things that could be controlled, and their external Opportunities, and Threats, which are the things cannot be controlled but have to adjust to. Another exercise was “Tell me” which prepares students to be able to tell somebody about themselves in 30-seconds. Since networking is an important tool to help students land a job, this exercise prepares students for that.

Other than the exercises for the students, a Power Point was given where they talked about the seven steps to getting a job. According to Benge, “identifying your key skills, defining your ideal job, learning the two most effective job search methods, writing a superior resume, organizing your time to have two interviews a day, dramatically improving your interviewing skills, and to follow your leads.”

Other topics were also talked about; one was the five worst ways to hunt for a job and the five best ways to hunt for a job. According to Davis, “there’s a “5-28% chance you find a job when you mail resume at random, and a 86% chance you get a job when you have direct contact.” Other topics varied from the Ten Common Mistakes of Landing a Job, and Developing a Network of Contacts. Packets of worksheets and articles about landing a job were given to each student at the end of the workshop. For more information for landing a job go to the Career Center or go to www.Grosmont.edu/studentempservices