by sean@higheredcareercoach.com | Jan 26, 2010 | Job Search
Are You Ready for Placement Season?
Springtime…the sun is shining, the birds are singing, and at colleges across the country, a young person’s fancy turns to thoughts of…unemployment?
In Student Affairs, this can only signal one thing…placement season is here. It’s time to brush up the resume, line up the references, check job postings, write cover letters, practice interview, really interview, and hope for the best. One part of this cycle in higher education is the placement conference, where candidates by the hundreds can answer the cattle calls of multiple employers, line up several interviews, and kick their search into a higher gear.
The three-hundred pound gorilla of placement centers these days is the Placement Exchange. A joint venture of ACUHO-I, ASCA, NACA, NASPA, NODA, AFA and HigherEdJobs.Com, this year’s exchange is being held in Chicago from March 3-7, just prior to the NASPA Annual Conference. According to the Placement Exchange’s website, 5070 interviews for 359 positions were held at last year’s conference in Seattle.
Two other larger conferences also offer placement centers: ACPA and the OshKosh Placement Exchange. ACPA hosts Career Central at their annual convention, held this year at the Hynes Convention Center in Boston from March 19-23. The OshKosh Placement Exchange is hosted by the University of Wisconsin-OshKosh and is in its 31st year.
For candidates that have a more regional focus, several regional organizations also hold placement conferences, including MACUHO’s Mid-Atlantic Placement Conference in Lancaster, PA from February 26 to 26 and the Southern Placement Exchange from March 11 to 14 in Memphis, TN. There are more, but these are the ones I could find while preparing for this article. If you know of another, please send it along, and I will make note of it in a future post.
For candidates that have never taken part in a large placement conference, the prospect of competing with several hundred people for positions can be pretty daunting. ACPA offers a great Guide to Demystifying Career Central at the Convention as a downloadable .pdf.
This guide offers steps for success before, during and after the interview, sample questions to help candidates prepare, resources and tips on handling illegal questions, negotiating an offer, planning your relocation, and more. These practical resources should be an asset to anyone in the Higher Ed/Student Affairs job market. I recommend reading it through well in advance of participation in any placement conference. It will give you a great feel for the placement experience.
Best of luck to you if you are a candidate this hiring season! In my next post, I will share some tips of my own. Though I probably can’t be as comprehensive as the ACPA Guide, I have been on both sides of the interview table at placement conferences, and can offer you some perspectives that will hopefully set you at ease and be more confident, and more prepared.
I’d also like to try a Twitter experiment to help keep the conversation going this placement season. If you are a candidate with a question about placement or an experienced professional (or employer) who has advice and perspectives to offer, please hashtag your placement questions and comments with #saplacement. Users can then follow these comments using their Twitter client and those of us with employment-related blogs and websites can post links to the trending topic or incorporate a feed to help others follow the conversations and add in their questions and advice. Let’s see if we can create a huge collaborative conversation that will help our colleagues and students succeed this placement season!
by sean@higheredcareercoach.com | Jan 1, 2010 | Career Skills
I love to write, especially about life and career issues that people face in college, or when they work in Student Affairs.
Besides my two blogs, HigherEdCareerCoach and HigherEdLifeCoach, I am an occasional contributor to the Student Affairs Collaborative Blog, I have a Vimeo Channel, an upcoming YouTube Channel and I can share presentations on Prezi.
I feel great about the progress I have made over the last year or so in leveraging social media, and with learning to network and to market myself while still being authentic. I’m convinced I have a lot to offer today’s student affairs practitioners and candidates, and that if I just keep putting out who I am, what I believe in, and what I know, that I can help people discover their specific calling or purpose in life, rather than just doing what conventional wisdom says.
I thought that one way to give you a good overview of my passions, interests and areas of expertise might be to share some articles, presentations and videos I wrote, delivered or produced over the last year or so for other venues.
For part one, here are favorite posts I’ve written for the Student Affairs Collaborative Blog, the forum that reinvigorated my interest in writing and gave me the opportunity to join a network of professionals who are shaping conversations about the directions of the Student Affairs profession.
Visit theSABloggers.org for great posts on Student Affairs
- “15 Years in Indiana as a Cocktail Waitress”-My first post on this forum, which contained musings on career, purpose and motivation. Titled after the great song by Jack Logan.
- “Fire-ing the Canon?: Are the foundations of our profession being assaulted, or are we the barbarians at the gate?” A thought piece on the culture war that the group FIRE (Foundation for Individual Rights in Education) is bringing to campuses around the country. This started a long back-and-forth with some reps and supporters of FIRE and got me some interesting and unsettling e-mails. FIRE became one of my followers on Twitter! I followed up later with “FIRE takes aim at the University of Delaware-Again” The vitriolic commentary that followed both posts reaffirmed that people were reading the blog.
- “Resumistakes! 10 Ways Your Resume, Cover Letter and Application can Sink Your Chances.” Based on real observations from both sides of the interview table, this brief article just tells it like it is, and that’s probably enough to say for now.”
- “Standing at the Crossroads, and sinking down?” explores the reality that higher education will need to accept that changes in media and communication represent a huge paradigm shift in how people interact, and not just the “latest technology.”
- “April is the Cruelest Month” provides some brief perspectives on what seems to be the longest month of interviewing at many campuses, after the equally busy months of February and March, when many of the national and regional placement conferences take place. Included links to general interview etiquette and dining etiquette advice.
- “Juggling without dropping the ball on your foot:How to evaluate, accept or decline a job offer.” Offers perspectives on how to handle the decision-making process, and avoid critical etiquette blunders so you can keep your options open, should other opportunities arise at an institution later.
- “You’re the best thing since sliced bread, and that generally meets expectations” offers some thoughts on how to approach the dreaded annual task of giving your employees feedback during performance reviews.
- “Over the Hedge” advises student affairs professionals to explore other professions and interest areas for ideas and perspectives that might change their approaches to work and life.
- “The ones that got away” explored what lessons you could glean from situations where students couldn’t stay in school, or passed away.
- In “What I learned from September 11,” I shared my personal story about how we responded at Penn State on September 11, and some perspectives I gained from that day.
- “They’re just not that into you,” gives some advice on handling rejection in your job search.
- “They wouldn’t listen to the fact that I was a genius,” offered 20 ways to blow your job interview, for those of us committed to failing in our careers.
- “Time to make the donuts!” celebrated the opening of the school year by comparing institutional efforts during arrival to the Sisyphean tasks of Dunkin’ Donuts tireless donut maker Fred the Baker.
I hope you will find these posts interesting, informative and entertaining, and that you will continue visiting HigherEdCareerCoach.com in the new year, as I work to build a site that is valued by readers for good content, delivered authentically, that provides insight and provokes conversation about pursuing careers in higher education. Thanks for visiting!
by sean@higheredcareercoach.com | Nov 28, 2009 | Career Skills, Coaching
As we get closer to spring each year, thoughts start to turn toward finishing grad programs, coming to the end of fixed-term appointments, or dreaming of better days ahead, new challenges and new opportunities. For some of us, less idealistic notions (like getting away from departmental politics, nasty co-workers, inefficient policies, etc.) drive us in a similar direction.
Whatever your reason, Spring is a season of renewal, or reinvention, of taking stock of our careers, and seeing what else is out there. For many of us, this means brushing up on the resumé, networking like crazy, and possibly registering for placement at the Placement Exchange, Career Central at the ACPA Convention, or a regional placement conference. Then, later in the spring, as campus interviews start happening, we drive ourselves crazy preparing for long interview days, juggling schedules, keeping our motivation, and making the best arguments for that next step in our careers.
I know, because I’ve been there, that this can be a hugely stressful time, and that it is hard to prepare and be ready for all that might be thrown at you in a long interview process (or two, or three, or more.)
I’ve also been on the screening and interviewing side of the table many times, and I can tell you that is hard work, too. For many positions, you may get 100 or more applications for one vacancy. It’s extremely important to weed out the chaff and keep the wheat, and the competition for top candidates is often stiff.
Are You Ready for Placement Season?
If you are searching, are you ready?
If you aren’t, there are many things you can do to be better prepared. One of these options is to hire a career coach. There are others, and I will likely return to them in later articles. But for now, I’d like to introduce myself, and tell you what sorts of coaching I can offer candidates.
My name is Sean Cook, and for 15 1/2 years, I worked in higher education. During most of this time, I worked for Residence Life at Penn State University. I began there in 1995 as a live-in residence life coordinator and eventually moved up the ranks, ending as Assistant Director for North and West Halls. I was fortunate to work for a great department at a top university, and I was given a wide variety of interesting tasks, including Welcome Week/Orientation, block-booking of programs, multicultural programming, oversight of resident assistant training classes, marketing, etc.
I was also lucky to take part in many selection processes, from student positions all the way to director, to lead placement interview teams at regional conferences, and to participate as a member of the selection team at ACPA. I estimate that over my professional career, I’ve seen several thousand resumes and done hundreds of interviews. I’ve always enjoyed the interview process, and I’ve helped many students and higher ed professionals with their resumés, cover letters and job search strategies. I get a lot of satisfaction from helping people find jobs they love, especially when those jobs are in higher education, where their impact can be deep, powerful and long-lasting.
After a lot of research and some testing out, I decided to pursue certification as a Life and Career Coach. I am currently finishing up the certification process through the Life Purpose Institute, and expect to be certified by early 2010 (hopefully the end of January).
As a career coach, I am specializing in work with candidates in higher education, because I believe in the impact they can have on college students and our society. Working in higher ed requires a different mindset than the corporate world. As someone with a lot of experience with higher ed selection processes, I understand that they are different beasts altogether, with daylong (or longer) interviews, involving all sorts of constituencies, including students, faculty, and at times people outside the department or from the executive suites of “Old Main” buildings. I’ve been on both sides of these processes, and I can offer you the perspectives of someone who has been there, as well as the lessons I learned from my personal successes and failures.
If you are a higher ed professional, and plan to go through placement this season, I would like to offer you my assistance with your search. Here are some services I can offer:
- Resumé/Cover Letter Assistance and Editing:
- Resumé /Cover Letter critique (general comments and editorial advice, but you do your own editing.) $50
- Resumé/Cover Letter revision (extended comments, reformatting, editing, and consultation over e-mail) $125
- Extensive Resumé/Cover Letter revision/re-writing (all of the services of resume revision, plus up to one hour of individual consultation over the phone/Skype or another chat client.) $250
- Placement Preparation Teleseminar:
- This will feature an overview of a typical placement center, and advice on placement center procedures and etiquette
- Overview of placement center interview strategies
- Advice from experienced candidates and interviewers
- Question and Answer Session
- Multiple sessions will be scheduled. If you are interested, e-mail sean@higheredcareercoach.com to be notified about upcoming times.
- Teleseminars will be 90 minutes long, and held over a telephone bridgeline. Space will be limited to 15 persons per seminar.
- Seminar registration will be $50/person. If you are interested in participating as a group, contact Sean to discuss a group rate.
- 1-on-1 Coaching
- Pay-as-you-go Rate: $100/session (can be scheduled weekly or biweekly; sessions are 45 minutes each.)
- Placement Prep Packages: For higher ed job seekers taking part in placement, I am offering some 1-on-1 Coaching Packages at a substantial discount from my regular rates.
- Student/Recent Grad Rates & Packages:
- 1-on-1 coaching only: $50/hour. (Must commit to at least 3 sessions between January and April 2010 to get this rate.)
- Package 1: 6 sessions of 1-on-1 coaching, plus resume revision. $350
- Package 2: 10 sessions of 1-on-1 coaching, plus resume revision and Placement Prep Teleseminar: $600
- Other custom packages available by individual consultation.
- Experienced Professional Rates & Packages:
- 1-on-1 coaching only: $75/hour. (Must commit to at least 3 sessions between January and April 2010 to get this rate.)
- Package 1: 6 sessions of 1-on-1 coaching, plus resume revision. $500
- Package 2: 10 sessions of 1-on-1 coaching, plus resume revision and Placement Prep Teleseminar: $750
- Other custom packages available by individual consultation.
Whether you decide to work with me or not, I wish you the best during placement season.
Good luck with your interviews!
© 2009 Sean Cook/HigherEdCareerCoach.Com
Permission is hereby granted to others to repost this article, link to it or syndicate it, as long as they leave in the copyright statement and link back to higheredcareercoach.com
by sean@higheredcareercoach.com | Nov 19, 2009 | Career Skills, Coaching
My relocation is now complete, and I am in my new home in Athens, GA, though not completely unpacked. Glad to be back online! I am ready to dive in full-time to this new adventure.
Besides all the moving-related stuff (buying a house, selling the old one, packing, unpacking, frequent trips to Goodwill, etc.), I have been meeting with my first round of clients. So far, I really enjoy the interactions I’ve been having, and it’s really neat to see people start to set goals for their lives and careers, and to see them make some progress.
Though I do miss State College and Penn State, I haven’t really missed my old job yet. I guess I really haven’t had the time, but if I have, then I’ve filled it with excitement about my new path as a life and career coach. I will be back to blogging about working in higher education, managing your career search, preparing for placement, and related issues, and developing this blog as an informational resource for higher education professionals seeking to take their career to the next level.
By January, I will have hopefully completed my certification requirements, and my goal is to have 10-15 paying clients by the end of March, and to be ready to offer workshops, in-person and online, to help higher education job seekers prepare for placement and succeed in their jobs.
Stay tuned as well for new editions of “Take 5″ and a series on getting ready for placement. If you have topics you would like to see me cover, please drop me a line at sean@higheredcareercoach.com.
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There’s a lot of talk in marketing about “branding,” but it’s also useful to look at your job search in a similar light. After all, you are selling your most important product: yourself. For your consideration, here are five articles that explore the concept of personal branding in the job search.
