Tammy Browning
While the unemployment rate across the country is going down, even in Wyoming where the unemployment rate is only 5.8 percent, the market for new jobseekers can be intimidating, especially when students don’t know where to start.
The Center for Advising and Career Services is an on-campus resource for students looking for help with resumes, cover letters, job search techniques and internship placements.
Responsible for the upcoming career fair, the CACS invites some 600 different companies to campus twice each year to recruit students, Tammy Browning, Internship Coordinator said.
Most of the companies attending the fair this fall have ties to the oil and gas and geological industries, simply because they are the companies doing the most on-campus recruitment, Browning said.
“Students in arts and sciences may have a harder time simply because the companies looking for their majors don’t come to campuses to recruit,”Browning said.
For those students, one on one appointments can be made with a CACS advisor to try and find the best avenues for jobs and internships.
Internships, though they are often unpaid, give students the opportunity to build up their resume, gain experience, and get a foot in the door at companies, making them an incredibly valuable tool.
“They give students an opportunity to test drive their major to see if it’s really what they want to do,” Browning said. “A lot of companies hire directly out of their internship pools, too,”
CACS Director Jo Chytka saidsome of the employment buzzwords that scare students about job-searching are things they do every day.
“Ask faculty, career staff and friends and family who they know and then put together your list of questions or areas you want to get more information [about],” Chytka said. “Saying you are a UW student looking for a job is a great way to start a conversation with an alum or professional contact.”
The good news for new graduates is that Wyoming rates in the top three states for job growth in the last year, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. North Dakota and Utah rank first and second with 5 and 3 percent job growth, respectively. “Our post-graduation employment surveys for the past few years have shown that more graduates have been able to stay in Wyoming,” says Chytka. “But that doesn’t apply equally to all majors that UW offers.”
Students like Jesse Knoll, a senior Zoology major, are looking at fields where job retention is high, which makes breaking into the field more difficult.
“My next step is really to get internships and more experience in my field before I think about an actual job,” Knoll said.
“I just looked at the AZA (Association of Zoos and Aquariums) website and found probably 5 internships, none of which are paid.”
Knoll said he’ll find himself a stopgap job in between to pay his bills. In the meantime, he remains optimistic.
“I probably won’t have a position in my field in the next five years, but I am confident that I will eventually have a permanent position at a zoo that I enjoy,” Koll said.
