resume-building

Clubs

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Why join a club? There are countless clubs at BYU to help you be as successful as possible. Clubs typically full under two categories 1) academic and 2) social.

Academic clubs are designed to help you land into a great job or graduate school typically. They help you network, practice for interviews, and find meaningful internships and jobs throughout the process. They are usually hosted through a college. For example, the Pre-med club falls under the College of Life Science.

Social clubs on the other-hand are designed to help you have fun, follow a hobby, make friends, and develop a passion. These clubs might provide leadership or volunteer experience but usually they are just for having fun. Examples include the ping-pong club, the chess club, the fencing club, etc.

In the Marriott school of Business, students are required to join a club. Research has found that those who do Experiential Learning, tend to have higher job placement and salaries then students who don’t. Academic clubs are designed to help students participate in Experiential Learning, through helping their club members finds internships, and engage in whatever profession in other meaningful ways. I strongly recommend you join an Academic club as soon as possible. If you join a club very early, you will likely become the President of that club before you graduate.

Go here to see a list of BYU clubs https://clubs.byu.edu/

Finding Internships

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There are three key ingredients to getting a good internship 1) finding opportunities 2) Networking and 3) Nailing the application

FINDING OPPORTUNITIES:

NETWORKING:

When it comes to working you want to someone at a company who has high decision power and someone who you can know very well. Having a strong advocate at a company goes much further than having a strong resume.

NETWORKING OPPORTUNITES

To network, start by identifying some jobs that you would like to work at (Facebook, Pfizer, Google, NIH, Nike, etc). Then use the tools listed above to find BYU alumni at these companies. Reach out to these people briefly introducing yourself and ask them if they have any advice on landing a job at XYZ company. Almost everyone I’ve talked to has been willing to help. Schedule a time to talk with them and prepare questions ahead of time. At the end of the conversation, ask them if there is anyone else they could connect you with who could help you. This has been key for me in getting internships. Have each person you contact connect you with a new person. You eventually form a “network” or a web of people.

Each person you talk to should lead you to another person. It’s usually thanks to the person at the end of the chain that you get the job

NAIL THE APPLICATION:

The last part of getting a job involves nailing the application. Your grades, and the networking you do helps your application get looked at. But then you need to come across to the hiring team. The application involves three parts 1) Resume 2) Cover letter and 3) the interview

Resume: To make a solid resume follow this template: http://bit.ly/2svDwyS

Cover Letter: To write a great cover letter check out this website: https://www.themuse.com/advice/how-to-write-a-cover-letter-31-tips-you-need-to-know

Interview: If you can interview well, life will be easy for you. Interviewing is by far the most valuable skill of these three. But it’s also the trickiest. There’s a lot that goes into nailing an interview. In fact, I could probably make an entire page just on what I’ve learned about interviewing. I think that the key to this practice. The more you practice, the more confident you will be (which is what interviewers are looking for). You can practice with counselors, with club members, with family members, etc. Make sure that you verify beforehand what type of interview you have. There are two types of interview: 1) behavioral and 2) technical. Behavioral interviews usually start with something along the lines of “tell me a time when you…” The key here is to identify the core values of the company and practice telling a story that highlights those core values. Technical interviews could be anything from coding to walking through a strategy case interview. It’s valuable to use website (even youtube), and on campus club resources to help you prepare. These tend to need more practice. But many of the highest paying internships require them. If you hope to work at google someday, then start investing a little bit of time learning about the technical interview portion.