Your Gifts at Work – Helping Students Find Careers

By Marie Rozenblit, Director, Career Services

Techno savvy students can explore enhanced career options and potential job opportunities with software paid for by generous grants from the UA Parents & Family Association. The 2006 grants to Career Services totaled $15,505 in support of DISCOVER, NACElink and WetFeet. Additional funding beginning this November will cover Career Search, CareerSpots, internships.com, Going Global and Vault online.

These software programs are powerful tools and this wide array helps students at every level in the university, from freshmen undecided students to graduating seniors looking for solid leads on future full-time positions. Students, already exceedingly comfortable with networking and researching information online, can find solid advice on these exemplary career-oriented sites thanks to the support of the UA Parents & Family Association.

The DISCOVER program, a computerized tool that helps students place their interests, abilities and values within the context of a career, is especially helpful to students who have yet to decide what career path they want to follow. WetFeet, is a career research site providing career management content, company research databases and an award-winning Insider Guide Series that can be downloaded and printed.

Here's what UA students said recently about how the DISCOVER program impacted them:

• "DISCOVER asks very good, realistic questions about what kind of workplace I would like to work in that I hadn't thought about before... Please, please make sure that the DISCOVER program keeps running for a long time. I really liked it and it helped me a lot, so I imagine it will help others too!"
• "DISCOVER helped me plan career goals that will keep me on track to graduating in four years and having a stable job when I do graduate."
• "It's amazing how much information I was able to obtain from this Web site. I think it’s a great tool for people like me, who entered school as undecided."

NACElink, powering our Wildcat JobLink, is a job listing and campus interviewing scheduling system. Students can access local and national part-time, internship and post graduation employment opportunities as well as sign up with companies like ESPN, Google, Nestle and Microsoft, who come to campus to interview. Wildcat JobLink had over 100,000 "hits" last year from students looking for work and statistics show that almost 1/3 of the total UA student population used Wildcat JobLink in the last year.

Since your support goes directly to benefit students, here are some of their responses to a Wildcat JobLink survey:

• "I received 5 job offers and my dream job using JobLink in only one semester. This versatile tool was invaluable to me and from my discussions with friends at other universities, it is somewhat unique to our university. Thank you!"
• "Wildcat JobLink is the only way to go to find your dream job."
• "I found Wildcat JobLink extremely helpful in finding an internship last semester which helped me get a full-time job."

These students have the UA Parents and Family Association to thank for these exceptionally robust online tools. Thank you from both Career Services and the students at U of A! For more information on Career Services and our programs, please check out our Web site at http://www.career.arizona.edu.

To donate to the UA Parents & Family Association, please visit www.uafamily.arizona.edu and click the GIVE link.

Marie Rozenblit may be contacted at marier@email.arizona.edu.