New database will allow job-seekers to search for positions from across the country, compete with Ivy Leaguers
Diana Htoo
Staff Writer
When looking for an internship, Todd Wilkerson said there’s only one place to go.
“When you don’t know anything, you don’t know anyone to talk to or any Web site to go on, the Career Center is the first place you should go,” Wilkerson said.
For the past six years, the Career Center has been helping students write resumes, research companies and apply for internships. This semester, the Career Center will introduce a new internship database to Pepperdine students.
Though new to Pepperdine, the database has actually been around for five years. It was only this summer, however, that Pepperdine received and accepted an invitation to join the consortium of 18 colleges and universities already involved in the database.
While the participants represent less than 1 percent of colleges within the nation, the presence of Ivy-League schools such as Princeton and Yale make up in quality for what it lacking in quantity.
That is not to say that job offerings are few and far between. Nancy Shatzer, Pepperdine’s internship coordinator, said that with this database, students will have access to more than 8,000 job opportunities around the country.
But first the Career Center has to decide how to make the database available to students, either by linking it to the Pepperdine Web site or requiring students to come in to the office to learn about it.
Whichever option is chosen, students will still have access to new opportunities. While applications for business or communications-related internships are numerous, students looking for work in other areas of studies will be covered as well.
“A student that’s an art history major would have an opportunity to find out about museums across the country,” Shatzer said. “A student that might be a music major could find out what type of performing internship would be available – the same for theatre. And in the sciences there certainly would be research internships available with large companies that have research departments in the sciences.”
Although this database is not available to the student body yet, there are other means through which the Career Center can provide assistance, such as checking student resumes, or helping with the job application process.
By looking through the binders and directories at the Career Center, students can find descriptions of both companies and the jobs they offer. In other words, the office is a resource library in which students can research and review whatever interests them.
Some students, like Wilkerson, say though the Career Center is very convenient, it can do little more than provide information.
“They provide information, but they can’t help you get a job,” Wilkerson said.
Applying for internships can be a daunting task, during which students may have to go for many interviews, and might not get their first choice. That is why Shatzer said preparation and experience are crucial, especially when students apply for “companies that are high-profile or highly competitive internship positions.”
Shatzer said students should plan ahead.
“The first thing that’s most important is that a student would look for an internship one full semester in advance of the term that they would like to actually intern in,” she said.
For recent Pepperdine graduate Yuting Lu, the Career Center provided help with her job search. She also took the Myers-Briggs personality test there and went through one of the mock interviews that the internship workshops provide.
But still, she said it is difficult to get an internship.
“It depends on luck,” Lu said. “You have to compete with so many other students. It’s much easier if you have connections, and Pepperdine doesn’t have many connections as compared to the Ivy League schools.
“If you apply for an internship and the recruiter or hirer is a Pepperdine alumnus or alumna, then you’re more likely to get hired,” she added.
Nevertheless, there are students for whom getting internships is not as difficult, and Onur Aydin is one of them. After striking up a friendly conversation with Daniel Gutterman, the coordinator of Fox Sports Net, at a Pepperdine Career Fair, Aydin soon landed a summer internship with the company.
Of course, it helped that he has had a lot of work experience behind him, especially with the computer programs and video games he has helped create, and the personal company he heads in Turkey.
Although getting the internship seemed almost effortless for Aydin, he was grateful to Shatzer for helping in the registration process. Aydin offered some advice to students looking for an intership.
“First choose an industry that you’re willing to learn and work in, and after examining all the major companies, look for internship offerings through their Web sites or Human Resources Department,” he said.
“Also, before the interview, know as much as you can about that industry, that company, its functions and the department you’re applying,” Aydin said. Try to learn about the background and biography of their CEO, president and executives. If you can act intelligently and knowledgeable during the interview, they will accept you.”
09-23-2004