Video 1: Before You Apply: Job and Skills Evaluation
School is over and it’s time to go out and get your dream job—but what is that, exactly? Determining a career choice, or a career path, is one of the hardest things to do in life. This video helps new graduates and beginning job seekers clarify their professional goals and find jobs that fit their skills, passions, priorities, and long-term plans.
Viewers learn how to use assessment tests—focusing on values, interests, or aptitude and achievement—to identify strengths and challenges; how to make the most of occupational classification systems that describe industries and labor markets in detail; how to obtain references and letters of recommendation that underscore past experience and future potential; and how to explore job training options, whether they involve on-the-job instruction, further academic coursework, or a combination of both.
Video 2: Before You Apply: Resumes, Portfolios, and Your Online Persona
Job hunting is about selling yourself—but to make a sale, you have to advertise. From traditional paper resumes to new-media methods of self-promotion, this video explores the best ways for applicants to showcase their talents, accomplishments, and potential value to employers. An in-depth discussion of resume strategy highlights objectives, structure, formatting (both hard-copy and electronic), and proofreading, followed by read-aloud examples that help clarify what employers do and don’t like to see.
Next comes a detailed look at creating work sample presentations, from basic notebook and photo-album layouts to digital and online portfolios. Visual demos show what might work in industries such as marketing, construction, and culinary arts. Finally, viewers are reminded that social networks like Facebook and LinkedIn are powerful promotional tools, if used wisely and professionally.