Mock interviews, resume tips and more offered
Building a resume and preparing for a job interview can be stressful, especially for college students about to enter the workforce. Del Mar College’s Title V Career Readiness Institute hopes to ease those fears and help students land good jobs.
“We all have walked into that interview where you kind of look like a deer in the headlights,” said Clarissa Torres, project coordinator for the Career and Financial Education grant.
Torres; Emma Sivas, project coordinator for Viking Connect; and Andres Garcia, assistant director for Title V for the Viking Connect, all have the same goal in mind — to give Del Mar students a place they can come to for guidance and re- sources when it comes to preparation to be workforce ready or career ready.
The Title V Career Readiness Institute can help students with “everything from getting your resume and cover letter ready to how do you dress in a interview,” Garcia said.
Some of the resources include a virtual career library, which is a repository of different occupations and gives you an idea of what type of income that you’re going to be making.
Part of that is “Focus 2, which are the assessments. So if they come in they can do a profile, they can do a career assessment to see what type of career fits best for them especially those who are still undecided,” Garcia said.
Also available is a resource called Purple Briefcase, which is a place where you can put in your cover letter, resume and similar things to make you a well-rounded possible employee. This software also allows employers to reach out and look for students themselves if they need to fill positions in their companies.
“The technology goes a bit further than just searching for the job. We also offer how to get ready, how to expect the unexpected,” Garcia said.
Mock interviews are also available.
“We want to be able to provide them the confidence and the tools that they need to be able to answer those questions,” Torres said. “We can always im- prove on something, and even though you can feel as confident as talking into a large group when you’re sitting across from three or four individuals and you’re trying to interview for a job you want to be able to put your best foot forward and be able to answer the questions and not stumble and be able to interact.”
The Title V Career Readiness Institute is available on both the East Campus in the White Library and the West Campus in the Barth Learning Resources Center and was made possible by two Title V grants, Viking Connect and Career and Financial Education.
“The main focus is career readiness, which we are focusing on that. We have the graduation coach piece as well as a financial planning counselor who is available to all Del Mar students to get financially ready for the workforce or to transition into a four-year college,”Torres said.
