Pitt’s Career Services provides services to help Pitt students get careers

Senior Katie Noris never set foot in Career Services until she got a job at the office.

“I… Senior Katie Noris never set foot in Career Services until she got a job at the office.

“I really do think that I wasted a lot of time because I didn’t come to Career Services as a freshman,” Noris said. “In hindsight, I could have saved a lot of time. Knowing all the resources that we have here, I should have come in.”

The Career Services office is stocked with information on a variety of jobs, what you can do with your major and people who are willing to answer any question that you may have.

It also offers information on how to apply for and ultimately be granted an internship, as well as access to job openings through PantherTRACS, an online job resource.

Noris is a peer career adviser, a student who is employed by Career Services to help other students.

She said that she usually sees two types of students coming into the office to ask for help.

The first is the undecided freshmen who come in for advice. These students are referred to a peer career adviser who specializes in a field of their interest. The students may also be asked to take a personality inventory test, such as the Myers-Briggs or Strong Interest Inventory.

The other group consists of students in need of concrete help. These students usually have questions about their resumes, cover letters and interviewing skills.

According to Noris, she is most utilized for resume critiques. She believes that, “As students, you have to learn how to write resumes and cover letters just as much as you have to learn anything else.”

But Career Services is good for more than just resume advice and personality inventories. The office instated a new policy of stopping students who are inappropriately dressed before entering job fairs on campus so that every student has the opportunity to make a positive first impression on potential future employers.

Annie Palaika, also a peer career adviser, said that potential employers that attend Pitt’s job fairs seem to be impressed at the level of preparedness of the students attending these fairs.

“An employer came up to us once and said, ‘I just really wanted to tell you how great a job you do preparing students,'” Palaika said. “He had just been at a job fair at Ohio State the day before and told us that the students didn’t know how to interact with him properly there. He said we were so much better prepared.”

Despite the fact that employers are taking notice of how prepared Pitt students are, Palaika believes that many students do not take advantage of all the opportunities that are presented to them.

She thinks that the resume building process is a four-year affair that the office can help with.

“We are an underused office that should probably be the most well-used department of the University,” Noris said. “Students don’t seem to become aware of the department until they are seniors, when visiting here is something that they should be doing as freshmen.”

Originally, Career Services was designed specifically for seniors and it was called the Placement Office.

Founded more than 50 years ago, the office offered senior-oriented programs, including an on-campus recruiting program, according to Marvin Roth, the director of Career Services.

Approximately 10 years ago, Pitt realized that a lot more than on-campus recruiting was needed in terms of preparation.

It was only within the last four years, however, that Career Services became as comprehensive as it is today. Barbara Juliussen, associate director of Career Services, has seen much of this transformation.

Juliussen started with the department 11 years ago as a counselor with the College of General Studies. When the focus of the department switched to career planning, she became a liberal arts counselor. Eventually she was promoted to assistant director and then elevated to the post she holds today.

A recent addition to the services offered through Career Services is the Pitt Career Network. The department hired a consultant to make a network full of Pitt alumni in different fields.

Currently, the database has 1,200 alumni, but according to Roth, the goal is to have 5,000 members within the next year.

“Now, if a student comes in and says he wants to work for the CIA, I can call up the database and look in there for a person who works for the CIA,” Juliussen said.

She believes that there is no better way for students to get information about a career than from someone who is currently experiencing it.

The database could also be useful for finding internships for students.

“Employers are sending out a critical message: You must have experience. An internship is a way to do that,” Juliussen said.