Not every summer is going to be filled to the brim with shiny internship oppurnunities. Sometimes there are more humble summers where an internship oppurtunity may not have been in your immediate future. It can be even disheartening seeing your peers excel at their individual internships in the city or abroad alike, when you are at home not doing that. However, it is important to not let this fact get you down too much. We have all felt that struggle.
The thought of having to go back to serving for the summer made me cringe. In the beginning of the summer, I was so sure that I was going to be able secure at least one internship, and add to my résumé. Building my résumé while school is not in session was all I could think about in May.
When studying public relations, it can feel, at times, that there is a race against the clock to get internship and field experience. Every moment feels crucial, adding weight when you weren’t able to take advantage of every oppurtunity.
Going back to work as a server left me with a lot of downtime to think about how to make the most of my résumé for the public relations employers I plan to meet. A swift glance at my own showed me that my résumé is tailored to the wrong industry. Upon further inspection, I found errors like unprofessional formatting and typos. I soon found out that the best part of all of this down time, is it allows for you to reflect and better yourself. In my case, instead of sitting in the dark all summer, I have decided to take advantage of the resources still here on campus so that I am readily available for the upcoming school year’s multitde of oppurtunities.
It is important to remember that here at Temple, you have access to resources, even in the summer time. Just because you may haven’t been able to secure that internship during the school year, doesnt mean it is time to throw in the towel when it comes to bettering your career path.
Temple’s Career Center has been open all summer. It is located in Mitten Hall on the second floor. They offer services like career coaching which includes resumé and LinkedIn assessments. Additional to that, they offer their expertise when it comes to choosing majors, connecting you to industry internships in the city as well as campus student jobs. Most convienent of all, they sessions are brief and straight to the point.
The Career Center offers 15-minute same day walk-in appointments, 30-minute scheduled appointments, and group workshops that are tailored to your needs. You can sign up for an appoinntment using the Career Center tab in your TUPortal. There, you can book a 30-minute appointment with the office online.
From the Career Center I have learned, the more marketable you look to your audience, the more likely you are considered by an employer to join an agency or organization for an available position. Here are some tips I have picked up:
Look for keywords in the job postings
Think critically about your audience for this résumé
Include only the most relevant information and put the most important information first
The icing on the cake is, because it's the summer time, the Career Center is able to offer you a more extensive and thourough look at your materials than they would be able to during the school year. Everytime I have gone in there it has been completley empty, which adds an extra atmosphere of peace to the office.
It’s no secret that living in Philadelphia is a future PR practitioners dream with all of the media oppurtunity around. Instead of waiting around for the next oppurtunity to just fall into your lap, it may be in your best interest to make sure you are in the best shape possible. That way, you have the confidence to seek them out.
This blog post was written by Ola Coleman, TSG Representative.
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