#BE

Tag: #BE

AI – Efficiency Tools to improve your chances of getting hired

A big part of job searching and applying for jobs is being able to use the resources you have available to your advantage. Over the last few years, I’ve learned about and used many different types of software to try to make this process easier. Artificial intelligence (AI) tools have grown in popularity in recent years due to their ability to provide valuable assistance in a wide range of tasks. Here are four free AI tools that I have previously used to help you stand out from the crowd and improve your chances of landing your dream job:

  1. Quillbot: This AI tool allows users to rewrite sentences in a more fluent, efficient way that sounds more professional. This can be especially helpful when writing a resume or cover letter, as it can help you present yourself in a more polished and sophisticated manner. Visit Quillbot’s webpage.
  2. Canva: Canva is an excellent tool for creating visually appealing marketing materials, such as LinkedIn header images or social media posts. By using Canva to create a professional-looking header image, you can make a strong first impression on potential employers and showcase your personal brand. Visit Canva’s webpage.
  3. VMock: This software is specifically designed for Lawrence students looking to create a resume from scratch or improve their current resume. VMock provides a score on how your resume compares to other Lawrence students’ resumes and offers feedback on areas for improvement. Visit VMock’s webpage (sign in with your Lawrence Email)
  4. ChatGPT: ChatGPT is a strong artificial intelligence platform that allows users to interact with it as if it were a person. By submitting your CV to ChatGPT, you can request a summary of your previous experiences or suggestions on how to improve your wording. ChatGPT may also assist you on ways to better highlight your skills and accomplishments, as well as how to tailor your CV to a certain position or industry. Visit ChatGPT’s webpage.

Whether I needed to rewrite my resume in a more professional manner, generate a visually appealing LinkedIn header image, or obtain feedback on my resume, I discovered how much these AI tools had helped me, and my hope is that after you read this article you will be able to benefit from them as well.

Don’t hesitate to reach out or schedule an appointment with me if you have any questions about any of these powerful resources, or if you need help with your process of looking for a job or an internship.

Oliver De Croock ’24, Student-Athlete at Lawrence University majoring in Economics and Career Peer Educator. Connect with me on LinkedIn.

Career Highlight: Consulting

Interested in pursuing a career in consulting? What is it exactly and why is it so important? Read more to find out!

Job Duties

Consultants are professionals who provide expert advice to other businesses. There are several forms of consulting, including strategy, operations, management, and financial consulting. Consultants can also be found in a variety of industries, including consumer goods, education, hospitality, government, and healthcare, among others. Each industry can be further subdivided. For example, the healthcare business is separated into Life Sciences, Health Systems, Digital Technology, HR, IT, Private Equity, and more.

A consultant’s job is to be an expert in their subject and provide counsel to businesses. A strategy consultant assists businesses in developing a strategy for how to proceed. After developing a plan, consultants must assist the organization in implementing that strategy and determining how to do so. Other types of consultants are function specialists, who specialize in a certain function, such as finance.

Where they work

Prior to the pandemic, consultants’ jobs required them to travel across the country to meet with clients. COVID-19, however, changed this industry by requiring everyone to work from home. Consultants typically work in groups of 4 to 6 persons on a given project. There is usually a manager who oversees the day-to-day operations, a few analysts who report to them, and a consulting partner who provides recommendations based on their knowledge in a specific industry or function.

Education and training

Although each organization is different, candidates for business consultants often need a bachelor’s degree in business management, marketing, economics, engineering, or a related field. When employed, employees often go through a training period that can take anywhere from 5/6 months to 1 or 2 years. While some students go straight into consulting, it is more common for students to start as business analysts and then become consultants after a few years of experience. Other abilities necessary for a consultant include:

  • a love of problem-solving
  • flexibility
  • understanding the client’s demands
  • demonstrating obvious value

Pay and benefits

Pursuing a career in consulting can be profitable in terms of both money and networking prospects. Being a consultant entails being able to communicate with a company’s CEO and board members, as well as spending a significant amount of time with them in order to assist their company’s success. A consultant’s compensation normally varies between $80,000 and $100,000 on average.

If you would like to have more information, please don’t hesitate to email me oliver.decroock@lawrence.edu or schedule an appointment on Handshake.

Oliver De Croock ’24, Student-Athlete at Lawrence University majoring in Economics and Career Peer Educator. Connect with me on LinkedIn.

Forage.com Highlight – Gain real-life experience for free!

Forage.com is an online platform that provides students with free virtual work simulations from corporations including JPMorgan Chase, Citi, Accenture, Goldman Sachs, and others. Each application is meant to mimic a real-world working environment and the types of activities that may be encountered if you worked for one of these firms. Students can obtain more knowledge about whether they are truly willing to work in that field and have a better chance of getting employed by displaying a proactive approach and readiness to learn by finishing one of these programs.

These seminars might last anywhere from two to ten hours. As a result, they are brief yet intense courses. Even if they’re only a few minutes long, they’re still a terrific way to get some exercise and gain long-lasting experience.

You can sign up for Forage at this link.

Please don’t hesitate to reach out to me at oliver.decroock@lawrence.edu or grace.kutney@lawrence.edu if you have any questions, or to make an appointment.

Join the LU Business Networking Club

We’ve discussed how vital it is to meet new people, network, and form relationships with individuals in the business world in previous newsletters. However, having to reach out to someone you don’t know and ask them questions might be really awkward. What if they don’t want to be bothered? What if they think that we are just wasting their time?

To solve this issue, a group of students came together and decided to create the Lawrence University Business Networking Club. Every week, they attempt to bring a speaker who is eager to answer any questions from students. “The idea is to have a typical, casual chat with the guests, in which members can ask any questions they want, even if they aren’t immediately linked to the guest’s field of expertise” (Oliver De Croock, Vice-President of the LUBNC). When they are not able to connect with a guest in time for their weekly meeting, they use that time to learn from each other and share information to help each other succeed.

In the past two months, Oliver says “We were able to connect with a diverse spectrum of outstanding people from a variety of businesses. Some of them were so thrilled with the idea that they opted to drive hours to meet with us in person!”

A list of some of their previous guests:

  • Kazuma Noguchi, Restructuring Analyst
  • Harry Rivas, Consulting
  • Colling McCanna, Marketing
  • Bethany Larsen, Investment Banking
  • Martin Alwin, Analyst
  • Jon Anfinrud, Regional Executive – Commercial Banking

“Every single visitor that came was able to add incredible value and insight, providing us with legitimate ideas that we could instantly implement. They also offered to be a referral for anyone who was there if they were interested in an internship or a professional position with the firm for which they worked”. In the future, they intend to bring in even more guests, including people with more experience in other industries, entrepreneurs, as well as people with Human Resources and recruiting experience, to help the students understand more about what recruiters are looking for and to receive tips and advice on how to use platforms like LinkedIn or Handshake to jumpstart their careers and gain a competitive edge over other people.

How to JOIN and EXPECTATIONS

“As students, we all have busy schedules, and there is always something that we need to get done. If you opt to join our club, we will require you to invest one hour every week to actively participate in meetings, ask questions, and push yourself beyond your comfort zone. We already spend too much time in class, so the idea here is to establish a conversation in which anybody can enter at any moment, with any sort of question, even if it is not directly linked to the guest’s field of expertise”.

If you would like to join, please send an email to oliver.decroock@lawrence.edu explaining what industry you are interested in and why (this will help them reach out to guests that could be interesting for you).

Oliver De Croock ’24, Student-Athlete at Lawrence University majoring in Economics and Career Peer Educator. Connect with me on LinkedIn.

Finding referrals using LinkedIn

LinkedIn can be a very useful tool if used the right way! In this short, 1 minute video, I explain a simple trick that not a lot of people know about that you can use to find people that are in a company that you are interested in, or that have the job you would like to have in the future. The chances of you getting hired exponentially increase if you have someone as a referral. So, making this step could be the difference between you getting the job or not!

If you would like to learn more about using LinkedIn to its full potential to make more connections, please don’t hesitate to reach out to me (oliver.decroock@lawrence.edu) or Grace Kutney (grace.kutney@lawrence.edu).

Oliver De Croock ’24, Student-Athlete at Lawrence University majoring in Economics and Career Peer Educator. Connect with me on LinkedIn.

Job-search websites reviews

There are many job-searching platforms out there. Some are bigger, such as LinkedIn and Indeed, and some are smaller. Although using the bigger platforms is important to network, meet people, and build relationships, knowing about smaller platforms that are focused on specific niches can be to your advantage when looking for a job. In this article, I tried to find some of these smaller platforms to see what advantages there are about using them, why you should sign up for them, and if they are worth the money they ask for.

Ihire finance

If you are looking for a job in finance, IHire Finance is very directed towards finance jobs. On this platform, you will find job opportunities from Budget Analysts, Corporate Financial Consultant, Investment Banking Analyst, Equity trader, compliance managers, and even VPs of Finance. Although this platform focuses mostly on higher-paying jobs for more experienced people, I was able to find some entry-level jobs as well as even internships related to finance. While this platform offers a lot of very good information about the jobs and gives very useful insights, it does come with a cost. The cost to become a premium user for IHire Finance is $35/month and it comes with resume guidance, your resume will be highlighted to employers, a dedicated support team ready to assist you, and salary insights. If you are looking for a job in Finance, I would recommend signing up for this platform as it could be a good investment to find the best fitting job for you.

Link to iHire Finance website

Pathrise

If you really want some extra help in finding the best possible career in industries such as software engineering, marketing, data science, or sales, Pathrise offers a service in which you will be able to work 1-1 with a personal mentor that will help you focus on what you need to do in order to land your dream job. Based on their website, their service is free until you’ve already landed a position at a top technology company. Pathrise has both customers that have many years of experience and want to try to get a better job and customers that are right out of college and want to try to find the best fitting job for them. Although I personally didn’t try this service, it might be interesting to work 1-1 with an expert to see what they think you need in order to get to the next level and find the perfect job.

Link to Pathrise website

MarketingHire

MarketingHire is considered one of the best Job Boards for Marketing and Advertising Professionals. If you are looking for a job in Marketing or Public Relations, this free website is a great tool that you could use. Based on their website, companies like Microsoft, 3M, General Electric, Google, and many more posts their job offers on this platform. Applying to these postings on a smaller platform could differentiate you from other people. This website is useful for both higher-paying jobs and internships.

Link to MarketingHire website

SalesJobs

SalesJobs.com is a leading job board that works with more than 200 partner websites to promote job ads. It offers a wide array of useful resources, such as a resume database, candidate matching, and ATS integration. SalesJobs. com is helpful for someone looking for a sales job in the future, as it features opportunities for sales professionals in various industries and locations.

Link to SalesJobs.com website

Many other job searching platforms could be useful to find your dream job. Although I tried, finding the perfect one isn’t easy. The best thing to do is to try them out for yourselves, see if there are opportunities on some of these smaller platforms that you think could be good for you, and apply. Platforms like LinkedIn and Indeed are very important and you should always keep using them. However, having another way in through a smaller platform will show employers that you are looking for new ways, you are doing your homework and you are willing to be different than everyone else and go the extra mile to find the job you want.

If you have any questions about these platforms, or you would like to talk to me about more platforms that you found that could be useful for other students, please don’t hesitate to email me or schedule an appointment with me.

Oliver De Croock ’24, Student-Athlete at Lawrence University majoring in Economics and Data Science. Oliver works as a Career Peer Educator at the Career Center and is the President of the Lawrence University Business Networking Club. Connect with Oliver on LinkedIn.