ESS 711: Career Center

Laura Vogt:
Hello, and welcome to the Not So Secret Guide to Being a Berkeley Engineer. I’m your host, Laura Vogt, the Associate Director of Marketing and Communications in the College of Engineering. And this week, we have two guests from UC Berkeley’s Career Center to tell us more about the resources that they offer. So, hello, Revae and Jesselle. I’m so glad that you could be here today. Let’s start off with introductions. Revae, why don’t you introduce yourself and tell us about your role at the Career Center?

Revae Contreras:
Hi, Laura. So good to be here. And my role is assistant director and career counselor for engineering students, physical sciences students here in the Career Center. I’ve been here for over three years now. And most of what I do is one-on-one meetings with students. If students are looking to get help with any aspect of their career, you can come and chat with me. And then, I also do a lot of events to help connect new students with employers.

Laura Vogt:
That’s awesome. Thank you so much for being here today. And Jesselle, your turn. Why don’t you tell us about yourself and your role at the Career Center?

Jesselle Hoque:
Hi, Laura. Thank you for having us. My name is Jesselle. I am the career counselor for engineering and physical sciences students. I have been at Cal at the Career Center for a year starting in August, so almost a year. Cal alum. I graduated back in 2016, and I work closely with Revae. And much of the work that I do is similar to what Revae mentioned. I do one-on-one counseling appointments with students, facilitate events and presentations. And actually, this upcoming academic year, I will be co-leading our peer advisor team, which is exciting.

Laura Vogt:
That’s great. Thank you so much. And again, thank you both for being here today. Let’s start off with an overview of the Career Center. Jesselle, can you tell us more about it?

Jesselle Hoque:
Yeah. So, I think the most important thing to mention is our location. Oftentimes, students are wondering where we are located. We’re located across the MLK Student Union, so on Bancroft, 2440 Bancroft Way. During the academic year, we’ll be open Monday through Friday in person. Currently, in the summer, Tuesdays and Wednesdays, we’re open in person. And Monday, Thursday and Fridays, we’re virtual. And the hours are 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM. In terms of the services that we provide, we offer counseling appointments in person, virtually, phone appointments. We also provide written feedback for students that would like feedback on their resumes, cover letters, grad school statements, and things of that nature. We facilitate presentations in person and virtually. We also have an employer relations team within the Career Center that put on career fairs. There are also alumni panels where Cal alumni come back and speak on their experiences to current students.
In addition to other events, there’s employer info sessions where an employer will host either like a hiring event or guidance workshop for students. There are, I mentioned the peer advisor program, so peer advisors also support with drop-ins. We also have on-demand career resources where students can access this at any time online. There’s also interview rooms that we have available for students if they need a quiet place to do an interview. That’s something that they can reserve. And recently, we launched the Iris Photo Booth that takes professional photos. It’s super easy to use, and it just makes professional photos accessible to Cal students.

Laura Vogt:
I like the idea of the photos because we often have to have events just to try to help get that better set up, professional looking photo that is not just a selfie that you took in your bedroom.

Jesselle Hoque:
Yeah. And it’s super easy to use. You sit in the booth, and you enter in your Berkeley email, and it takes three photos of you, but you can select and edit as you need.

Laura Vogt:
Oh, that’s awesome. And so, I know one of the biggest ways to connect with the Career Center is through Handshake, so there’s opportunities and newsletters that are all put through there. So, Revae, can you tell us more about Handshake and how to sign up for it?

Revae Contreras:
Sure thing. Handshake is like our one-stop shop where students can apply for jobs and internships, register for all of the events that Jesselle just mentioned, and sign up for career counseling appointments. And as of July 1st, all new students have access to Handshake, so freshmen, transfers, and grad students. So, I would recommend get in there early, start exploring before the semester starts. So, you can download the Handshake app or you can go online to berkeley.joinhandshake.com, and you just sign in with your CalNet ID and password. I should also quickly mention, in Handshake, if you go to your initials or your name in the top right corner, you can go to this section called Career Interests and sign up for weekly or biweekly career mails. And these are newsletters that we send based on different career fields that you’re interested in. So, you can get a tailored list of our upcoming events and tips for that career field.

Laura Vogt:
Oh, nice. So, if you’re not necessarily doing engineering, if you wanted information about teaching or anything else along those lines, you could also get emails for that.

Revae Contreras:
Yeah. Exactly. Teaching, education careers, healthcare. We’ve got several options that you can select, and you can get all of them if you want to.

Laura Vogt:
That’s awesome. Thank you so much. So, Jesselle, what is the first thing you think students should do when they start their journey looking for jobs and internships?

Jesselle Hoque:
I definitely think the first step is identifying their interest and career goals. And that’s finding their career clarity, what direction do they want to head? And if they’re still undecided, we’re definitely here to help them explore career options. And I think another thing is to be aware of the recruitment timeline, especially for the tech recruitment timeline. It does start rather early. It starts in the fall for a summer start date. And this goes for internships and full-time jobs. Oftentimes, when I meet with students in appointments, they mentioned that they weren’t aware. And I totally get it, they’re very busy choosing their classes, making sure to get off the wait list, and things like that. So, that’s something that I like to share is it starts early. August, September is definitely when you want to start looking.
Another one would be to have their resume reviewed by either a career counselor, a peer, or anyone that has some professional experience with looking at resumes to make sure that it’s good to go for applications, and career fairs, and other career-related events. In terms of where to look, after speaking to recruiters at symposiums and conferences, something that the career counseling team asked is where do you look for early grad, or early talent, or students? And they said the main platforms they use for university recruiting is Handshake and LinkedIn. That was the common consensus that I kept hearing. So, I like to share that with students when they ask me, “Where do I look for these jobs?”
Of course there’s other listing websites, but I feel like for university recruiting, Handshake and LinkedIn would probably be the best platforms to start. And in addition, attending career fairs, which they could see on Handshake, and that’s where they can register, see which employers are attending. Typically, career fairs are structured by industry. For example, we have an EECS fair. We have a data engineering and technology fair. So, that’s how they’re structured.
There’s also, again, employer info sessions. Sometimes, a company will have an info session to discuss the opportunities at their organization. Sometimes, it’s more casual. There will be things like coffee chats. And all of these are located on Handshake under the events tab. And I think a final thing is something called setting up informational interviews. It’s not like a very formal interview. It’s essentially when you’re getting insight from someone who’s currently in the role or industry that you are interested in. And in partnership with the Cal Alumni Association, the UK Berkeley Career Center launched something called the Berkeley Career Network. It’s a free platform for students. They just need to make an account. There are Cal alumni on there who have agreed to mentor Cal students and you could send messages to that Cal alum or even request a meeting with them. And it’s really, again, just gaining advice about certain fields and roles.

Laura Vogt:
Awesome. Thank you so much. Revae, we talked a little bit about one-on-one appointments and how you and Jesselle are part of the team that has those. Can you tell me about how do students get the one-on-one appointments, and what do they need to do to get the most out of them?

Revae Contreras:
So, students can access those one-on-one appointments on Handshake. And when you log in, you’ll be able to see Jesselle and I under the appointment type for engineering and physical sciences. We also have counselors for students with disabilities and international students. So, if that fits who you are, you can make an appointment with those counselors as well. And to get ready for these appointments, there’s not much you really need to do. If you’re not sure what you want to get out of the appointment, come anyway. We’re happy to help you with anything and everything in terms of your career, even if you don’t know what questions to ask. Or if you are confused about your major, and you don’t know if you should be switching, and you want to talk about what’s a long-term career goal, and what major would be best to get there?
Or maybe you are ready to apply for internships or jobs, and you need your resume reviewed, you want to talk about your job search strategy, you want to do a mock interview, we can help you with those application pieces as well. And lastly, when you’re ready to graduate, you’re applying for those full-time jobs, we can support you with the salary negotiation part. We even have appointments available for alumni. So, once you graduate, you can come see us, we can chat about how things are going in your new job, how you can make connections, how you can talk to your supervisor about accomplishments, and promotions, and we’ll just continue to support you.

Laura Vogt:
Oh, I think that’s great that you can go from the very beginning of, I don’t know what I’m doing to, okay, now that I’ve made it, how do I continue to be successful?

Revae Contreras:
Definitely, yeah. Our goal is to help you all be successful in your careers during and after graduation.

Laura Vogt:
That’s great. Jesselle, you had talked about that you’re working with peer advisors. Can you tell us more about the opportunities that students have to work with the peers?

Jesselle Hoque:
Yeah. So, during the fall and spring semesters we have peer advisors available for drop-ins at the Career Center from 12:00 to 4:00 PM. They can help with things such as career exploration, how to navigate Handshake, resume reviews, looking for internships and jobs, how to network. And I think they’re such a valuable resource because they recently are currently going through the same things that other students are going through. So, their experiences are definitely relevant. Also, sometimes, departments are able to request workshops through the Career Center. So, you might see a peer advisor facilitating a workshop in your class or for your student org. So, that’s another way that you can interact with peer advisors. And something I wanted to highlight, so last academic year, Revae and the other former peer advisor supervisor, they launched the decal career exploration and planning, which is the first of its kind. And that’s facilitated by peer advisors. And I heard it was really successful. We actually have a new peer advisor that we hired who took the course. So, it’s like a full circle moment.

Laura Vogt:
That’s great. I really think that peers are such an integral part to making college successful, so it’s awesome that you have this pathway for them to talk to them. Go ahead.

Jesselle Hoque:
Oh, sorry. Yeah, and the peers, they go through an interactive and extensive training by the career counseling team. Actually, this year, we have someone from the employer relations team who is co-leading, but we both have counseling backgrounds.

Laura Vogt:
Awesome. Revae, can you tell us more about the advising that’s available for students who might be thinking about grad school?

Revae Contreras:
Definitely. Here in the Career Center, we can give general guidance on applying to any graduate program. When it comes to specifics on graduate programs though, we may or may not know the answer just because they can have different requirements, different preferences. But if you want to chat through your grad school timeline, when to apply, when do different steps of the application, we can help you with that. If you’re not sure which schools you want to prioritize or choose, we can help you think through the different factors to consider. We can also help you with your strategy to ask for letters of recommendation and review your essays like a statement of purpose for grad school.

Laura Vogt:
Awesome. And we’ve talked about the workshops and events that are available. So, Jesselle, can you tell me more about the workshops?

Jesselle Hoque:
The types of workshops we have available for students, we have various topics such as career exploration, internship and job search, crafting a compelling resume, offer negotiation, interviewing. And something that I wanted to highlight is that for this fall semester, Revae and I are launching an engineering job and internship search boot camp. So, it’s going to be a series of workshops throughout the fall semester. For example, we have kicking off your internship and job search, technical resume writing. There’s going to be a career connections for engineering students. And career connections is essentially when Cal alum in the engineering field come back and speak on a panel, and also, interact with students. There’s also a technical and behavioral interviewing workshop. And also, Marvin is facilitating his resumes and LinkedIn workshop as well as his offering negotiation workshop, Deal or No Deal, which is part of the series as well.
Yeah, so I do think there’s a difference in how first year in transfer students should approach their first semester at Cal. Being a transfer student myself, I feel like hitting the ground running in terms of searching for internships, networking, and attending events, simply because there is one summer that you have to pursue an internship before graduation, unless of course you take a fifth semester or so while you’re at Cal. And I think for first-year students it’s really about exploring the online resources and using the career exploration resources on the website.
Career counseling appointments will be available for first-year students starting in spring semester, but we will have same-day mini appointments available for them at the start of fall semester if they would like to discuss about a quick topic, a career-related topic either with a career counselor, or they could see a peer advisor.

Laura Vogt:
Excellent. Thank you. Revae, is there anything that we haven’t talked about that you want to add?

Revae Contreras:
I would just like to add that the Career Center is really for anyone and everyone. As I mentioned before, if you’re really not sure what you want to do with your career, you’re not sure what steps to take, you’re not sure what resources are available to you, because we covered a lot today, so come on in, come chat with us, and we can sit down with you one-on-one to ask you more about yourself to just learn who you are, what your interests are, what kinds of skills you want to gain. And we’ll be able to help you individually with figuring out what your next steps should be or even planning out maybe a few semesters of different activities you can do.
One of the most important things to know as an engineering student is that project experience can really help you secure internships and jobs. Even if you don’t land an internship right away as a freshman or even a sophomore, as long as you’re getting project experience on campus, whether it’s through a student organization, or maybe a research project, or even doing something on your own time, you are boosting your resume in a way that’s going to help you get an internship or job later down the road.

Laura Vogt:
That’s great. Thank you. Jesselle, is there anything you wanted to add?

Jesselle Hoque:
Yeah, I think just the one thing I want to add is that everyone’s career path is unique to them. I know it’s easier said than done, but to not compare. You have your own trajectory. And sometimes, if your pathway’s not linear, mine wasn’t, and that’s totally normal.

Laura Vogt:
I like that idea because I’m definitely have taken a few left and right turns as we go through this life.

Revae Contreras:
Same here.

Laura Vogt:
Well, thank you both so much for being here today and for talking about the Career Center and all these resources that you have.

Revae Contreras:
Yeah, thank you so much, Laura. It was so great to chat, and I look forward to seeing you on campus this fall.

Jesselle Hoque:
Yes, thank you, Laura, for the opportunity. This was really cool. And it was my first podcast that I’ve participated in, so thank you.

Laura Vogt:
Oh, thank you for being here. Yeah, it’s crazy to think that we’re in our seventh season of this already, and I get to meet new people all the time through it and get to know people better. And thank you for everyone for tuning in to the Not So Secret Guide to being a Berkeley Engineer.