Cookies and coffee help remember the art of networking.
Career Services hosted their monthly Career Cafe on Monday, Oct. 26 at 2 p.m. in the Multipurpose Building room 201.
Shannon Estrada, re-entry resource specialist, said, “The general idea of Career Cafe is to kind of let students know where we are, give them a chance to meet our career counselors one on one.”
Career counselors prepared two activities for attendees.
For the first activity, students were each given a nametag. The nametags had a question that the students would have to answer in order to be able to engage in conversation.
For the second activity, students were each given a worksheet to make a personal commercial.
A personal commercial is a basic job searching tool, which students can use for introducing themselves to networking contacts or employers and gaining self-confidence in the job search process.
Amongst the attendees was, nursing major Jonna Barcelona said, “From the activities that were given to us I learned a lot about others and what we have in common. I think it was a great way to network.”
Career Cafe chooses different topics that will be meaningful to students. This time the topic of conversation was: the art of networking.
Opportunities to network are important as students begin to explore different majors and different career choices.
Career Services Counselor Clara Ross, said, “We need people to network, it’s not something that you just do once and not think about it again. We are constantly connecting to people and through those connections there could be different opportunities.”
Career counselors expressed how important being able to network is for students.
They also prepared students to gain some networking skills that give opportunities from employment and or just meeting people with similar career choices.
The top five skills students and counselors came up with were:
- Being able to network online.
- Linking up
- Who you know
- Branding
- Transferable skills
“This was my first time attending the event, I definitely want to come back to the next one. With all that I learned I am going to practice my networking skills,” Barcelona said.
Career Cafe will have another meeting on Monday, Nov. 30 at 2 p.m. in the Multipurpose Building room 201 to have another conversation with a different topic.
