When Nancy Cifrulak first took over as the special events and marketing coordinator last… When Nancy Cifrulak first took over as the special events and marketing coordinator last spring for Pitt’s Career Services, she knew one major thing had to change: Students needed to know about Career Services.

“This should be the most important office on campus, every student should register,” Cifrulak said. “But very few students do.”

Most students didn’t know that so much information and so many opportunities were available to them, Cifrulak noted.

So, with the help of several other people from Career Services, she completely reorganized the Career Services Web site.

“It used to be so hard to dig up information on the site,” Cifrulak said as she scrolled through the various pages of information. “But now it is much easier to navigate.”

Career Services offers several different programs to help students prepare for life after college, including mock interviews, career consultants and on-campus interviews with representatives from big-name companies like Coca-Cola and Mellon.

“With the on-campus interviews, employers are even getting frustrated because they’ll maybe have seven students sign up for an interview, but there are thousands of students on this campus,” Cifrulak said.

Before she was hired, promotion for Career Services was limited to student resident halls and the William Pitt Union lawn. However, Cifrulak knew that most students around these areas were younger students in their freshman and sophomore years. In order to reach the students who needed these services most, Cifrulak would have to find a new way to send the message.

“There’s a total of four different television programs on campus that [Career Services] could use to reach more students,” Cifrulak said.

Using student television, Cifrulak hopes to inform students from Sutherland Hall to South Oakland of the services available to them to prepare for the real world.

And while Career Services prefers that students sign up as early as their freshman year, most wait until their last year or even semester to register.

“It hits them when they realize they don’t have to schedule classes for the next semester.”

Career Services offers plenty of help to students who aren’t even sure what they want to do. The program has a staff of counselors who meet with students and help them plan a future based on their interests, values and personalities.

There are also career consultants available for each major who can help students find what options they can explore. And as students start to find job opportunities, consultants will help them build resumes from whatever experience the students might have.

“They will even take the experience of working at McDonald’s and incorporate that into your major,” Cifrulak said.

And they don’t just help with getting jobs.

Career Services also hosts graduate school fairs where students can join workshops to help them apply to graduate schools.

For law students, Career Services invites dozens of law schools from Ohio to New York to Philadelphia to come meet with Pitt students.

“It’s a wonderful opportunity to see all these law schools in one place,” Cifrulak said.

This semester’s job fair, which begins Oct. 4, will be the biggest of the year, according to Cifrulak. And on Oct. 19, Career Services will host a networking fair where students can meet with people from their chosen professions and may even have opportunities to job shadow with several of the professionals attending.

For information about Career Services or its programs, students can go to www.careers.pitt.edu or stop in 224 William Pitt Union for a brochure.