» Wilkinson College Graduate Career Support

Your graduate studies will hone your critical thinking and research skills, as well as other strengths. It's equally important to develop those key experiences into your professional profile. The professional profile is your elevator pitch—the first impression and your introduction that serves as a starting-point to networking at job fairs or professional gatherings.

Today, the professional profile is more than your resume. A study found that 67% of employers screen job candidates through social networks. What they find is just as likely to land you a dream job as it is for you to be disqualified. The same study found 54% of companies have actually disqualified job candidates after viewing an applicant’s social media.

Below, students can use the Developing Your Professional Profile Worksheet to identify and frame their skills, strengths, and interests into their professional profile. Students can then use Drawing the Line: Professional and Personal Personas Online to make sure their online personas enhance their professional profile and image.

Finally, students can schedule a meeting with Wilkinson's Graduate Programs Coordinator and/or Manager of Career Development and Alumni Relations for review and feedback.

Resources:

• Developing Your Professional Profile
• Drawing the Line: Professional and Personal Personas Online

The skills you're developing alongside your advanced degree in the arts, humanities, and social sciences allows you to consider a surprising number of career paths, or, take the next steps in your current path. Students can use the Graduate Student Transferable Skills Analysis Worksheet to help identify their skills, interests, and values and choose the one that’s right for them.

Handshake is Chapman University’s one-stop shop for all-things career. Create your student account using your CU email address and log in to explore all Chapman- and employer-hosted career events, find and apply to jobs and internships, schedule career appointments, access resources, and more.

Resources:

• Graduate Student Transferable Skills Analysis Worksheet
• Handshake

“The old adage that people do business with people they know, like and trust still holds true today as much as it did 50 years ago.” The results from a 2017 LinkedIn global survey indicate that 80% of professionals believe networking to be fundamental to their career success, especially when it comes to job seeking and employment.

Networking will open doors to opportunities and careers you didn’t know existed. Learn how to develop contacts and build relationships. Leverage your circle of connections to find the right job.

Resources:

• Maximize Your LinkedIn Profile Basics For Graduate Students
• Chapman University’s Career and Professional Development Center’s Networking Tips

Join your program current student and alum LinkedIn Groups:

• MA English
• MA International Studies
• MA War, Diplomacy, and Society
• MFA Creative Writing

Learn to create resumes and cover letters that effectively convey your talents and experiences to employers. Develop a strategy to tackle the job search. 

Handshake is Chapman University’s one-stop shop for all-things career. Create your student account using your CU email address and log in to explore all Chapman- and employer-hosted career events, find and apply to jobs and internships, schedule career appointments, access resources, and more.

Students can schedule a meeting with Wilkinson's Graduate Programs Coordinator and/or Manager of Career Development and Alumni Relations for in-depth overview of these resources.

Resources:

• Graduate Your Resume
• Chapman University’s Career and Professional Development Center’s Cover Letter Tips
• Handshake
• CareerShift (Handshake account required) - CareerShift feeds postings from a variety of the most popular third-party job boards (LinkedIn, Indeed) as well as private company job pages. It also allows students to organize unique job searches with customizable folder and notes tools across documents and applications, jobs, employers and contacts, and allows users to find contact information of working professionals and recruiters, including over 16,000 Chapman alumni.
• GoinGlobal (Handshake account required) - GoinGlobal helps new and experienced globally-minded job seekers find opportunities both at home and abroad. Their database includes over 80,000 pages of content curated by local industry experts, providing country-specific career and internship resources for students and professionals interested in working domestically or internationally.

Interviewing takes practice. We can help you prepare by sharing commonly-asked questions and helping you frame your answers appropriately. And when you get that job, we’ve got tips to help you negotiate your offer.

Resources:

• Chapman University’s Career and Professional Development Center’s Interview Preparation Resources