Getting Started is EASY

First, register with the Career Services Office (CSO) at Skidmore CareerLink.

Career counselors, Donna, Mike, and Penny, are prepared to coach you through each of the following strategies and to make sure you’re comfortable with each of the referenced resources (as well as many others).

Keep in mind, it’s easiest to search for something when we know what we’re looking for. If you want help in exploring options and deciding what you might like to do after graduation, we’re prepared to assist – just schedule an appointment!

Strategy #1: It’s Not Who You Know, It’s Who You Get to Know (Networking)

Networking has been statistically proven to be the most effective job search approach for Liberal Arts graduates.

Contacting everyone you know and asking for advice, information, and job leads is critical to job search success.

Reach out to family contacts, faculty, former employers, and college/prep school alumni, as well as all your friends at your social networking sites like Facebook, etc.

Create a professional web presence at a professional networking site like LinkedIn.

Apply for our Job Shadowing Program for the chance to be matched to spend a day on the job with a Skidmore grad during winter break.

Visit the online Skidmore Career Network to run lists of alumni and parent volunteer advisors in fields and geographic areas of interest. They are waiting to respond to your career development and job search questions. [note: be sure to carefully review the User Guidelines before reaching out to career advisors to avoid potentially costly mistakes]

Join a relevant professional association as a student member. Network with seasoned members. Access member-only job listing databases. Visit the Gateway to Associations, use the Encyclopedia of Associations (found in the Lucy Scribner Library), or speak with alumni in the field to identify appropriate organizations.

Remember, Mike, Penny, and Donna are available to coach you through this important strategy.

Strategy #2: Locate the Job Listings (Applying for Known Openings)

[note: updated/targeted resumes & effective cover letter writing skills needed for this strategy]

Visit the Career Services Job Central page to log into Skidmore CareerLink. The Liberal Arts Career Network (LACN) consortium database of jobs and internships is also available via Skidmore CareerLink.

Identify the many opportunities to participate in on- and off-campus recruiting events, and other programs that will support your job search, by bookmarking and regularly checking our Events & Programs page and by visiting our Employment Programs for Seniors page. Don’t miss the CIC, ECCD Boston, and ECCD NYC program info.

Our Entry Level Jobs links will connect you to other useful sites for college seniors like SimplyHired, Corporate Training Programs, and Career Builder.

The Jobs By Field and Spotlight on Careers help you to locate collections of job listing sites organized by career field or industry of interest.

For job listing collections organized by your dream cities, try NewsVoyager, which links to local newspapers across the country and allows you to pull up just the job classifieds pages.

Skidmore provides access to several subscription-based online jobs newsletters like Current Jobs for Graduates. You can pull up all required passwords for our subscription-based resources with your Skidmore username and password. In addition, subscriptions to other print job listing newsletters are housed in the Career Services computer lab & resource center in Starbuck Center.

Utilize Optimal, our one-stop shop for making a good first impression. It’s an online resume and letter wizard (Penny, Donna, and Mike are available to review documents even in the rough draft stages). It’s also a portfolio site for housing files and images, and posting them on an Optimal hosted web page with your online resume.

You can also practice mock interviews with the option of simply typing your responses, and the better option of audio or video recording them so that one of us can critique the sessions(s) and provide helpful feedback.

Remember, Donna, Mike, and Penny are available by appointment all year-round, and during drop-ins fall and spring semester, to help you prepare and perfect the documents and techniques for this strategy.

Strategy #3: Go to the Source (Prospecting)

Identify employers in industries of interest to investigate whether they are hiring any college graduates for entry-level jobs.

Use Career Search, an impressive online database of business directories including over 4 million organizations searchable by industry and world-wide location, to identify potential employers. Visit company web pages to search for job listings, or contact the human resources departments to inquire about potential or anticipated openings.

Yellow page sites like Yahoo! Yellow Pages may be another way to identify target organizations in specific locations.

Again, Mike, Penny, and Donna are available to coach you through finding resources and making this strategy as effective as possible.

You Are Invited

If you want a more personalized map for your job search (and we highly recommend this), call Career Services at X5790 to schedule an appointment or stop in during drop-in hours.

Office Hours and Appointments

CAREER SERVICES PROVIDES SERVICES FOR ALL SKIDMORE STUDENTS AND ALUMNI.