PATH 2200X Assignment Details

Why this task?

You need a high quality, strategic, professional resume, strategically written for the kind of work you want. You need a resume that makes it obvious that you’re a skilled person who do their job extremely well… and you need it to apply for internships! Take the time now to get that resume ready.

Task Summary

Craft your resume really carefully & strategically, using all the tools available to you, so it’s ready for applications for internships and other career experiences in the next couple years.

Task Specifics

1.Review the resources offered by the career professionals at CoW – APEX’s Career and Experiential Education (CEE) office – especially their resume guidebook. This will give you some ideas for the strategies you might want to use as you create/update a professional version of your resume geared toward a specific industry.

2. Do an internet search (or ask AI) for examples of strong resumes in your specific industry. Consider content and wording as well as format and appearance characteristics. You want your resume to look sharp and eye catching in a professional way, which varies somewhat between industries.

3. READ ALL THESE TIPS and use them to create or update your resume:

• Include your Pathway – Mention it in the Education section, after major/minor.  Here are a couple thoughts on the strategy:
  • You might label it “Career Focus” or “Concentration” as that will likely mean more to an employer than “Pathway.”
  • However, some students have reported interviewers being curious about what a Pathway is and being impressed at their answers, so it might be valuable to use that term. A related option would be calling it “Career Pathway”
• Format matters A LOT!! Be strategic!
  • Watch this video for great tips to make the top 1/3 of your resume truly eye-catching so your resume doesn’t go straight into the trash. Like most people, hiring managers won’t keep reading if the first part doesn’t catch their attention, so fill that first bit very carefully!
  • Review this article for up-to-date advice on what sections to include on your resume.
• Resume length: 1 page is the current recommendation for students and recent grads.  Resource. Note: CVs are typically longer and have quite different guidelines from resumes. Be aware of what the employers in your field are looking for.
• Put your sections in this order (experience and education swap places after you’ve had your first full-time professional job):
  • Name, contact info, LinkedIn
  • Option – short objective (I don’t love this for every type of resume)
  • Professional Summary
  • Education
  • Experience
  • Any other sections – Common options include: activities, skills (incl. languages), leadership, publications, etc – depends on you and the industry you want to work on 
• Use your bullets strategically! When you describe your experience:
  • DON’T just tell what you do in the job
  • DO focus on skills you’ve used/developed that are relevant to the job you want  
  • DO use industry-specific terminology- Consider using advice from this article about successfully incorporating resume buzzwords.
• Consider using AI – Review this short, helpful article for more detail.
  • **Write your own first draft and use AI only for refining it.
  • Always review AI generated content.
  • Be specific and clear in your AI prompts and requests.
  • **Never put your personal info into any AI. Delete such details from the version you put into an AI tool or replace with x’s or fake info. This includes:
    • Any names and contact info (including email or LinkedIn).
    • Names of schools, employers, or organizations
    • Dates

Additional Tips

• DO NOT include your picture on your resume; generally employers don’t want to see them to avoid concerns of unconscious bias and discrimination.
• Avoid using resume creation websites (generally). Typically you will have to pay for an ongoing subscription if you want to be able to update the file rather than start over. Instead, create your own template in MS Word (or similar) so you will be able to keep copies and update it regularly over your career.
  • Use COW’s Digital Media Bar to help you recreate an attractive professional template you find online.
• Remove most content from high school. If it’s only been a year or two since HS graduation, you can include high school experiences if they are particularly relevant to your career field, but simplify and condense that content as much as possible.
• Ask a COW alum in your field to review your resume and offer feedback. This might be someone you’ve discovered through your Pathway career planning assignments, LinkedIn, Ask A Scot, or conversations with your Pathway faculty/staff team. Start by asking if someone would review your resume for XYZ kind of job. When an alum has agreed to take a look at it, send it to them as a pdf via email.

3. (technical optional, but strongly recommended) Meet with a CEE staff person to review your professional resume. Your first resume review should be with a CEE Peer Advisor (“First Resume” appointment type).

To complete this assignment:

Upload your updated professional resume as a pdf. 

Why this task?

There are four key goals:

1. Get comfortable using this valuable, paid resource available to you as a student here and train its algorithms to produce results that fit you. 
2. Expand the list of possible job titles used to post the kind of work you want to do so you’ll have more search terms and be more likely to find the job/internship you want.
3. Take note of the different types of skills and qualities employers are looking for in folks they’ll hire to do the kind of work you want. This should give you more specific ideas for the skills you want to deliberately develop while you’re in the Pathway/college. 
4. The obvious one – find a good internship/job!

Task Summary

Use Handshake to look for internships and/or jobs.

Task Specifics

1. Create or update your Handshake profile.
   • Note 1: Personalizing your account to a greater degree allows Handshake to fine-tune your searches to better match your career interests. 
   • Note 2: The more searches you run, the better recommendations Handshake will give you. 
2. Explore internship and job opportunities.
   • Play around with filters to get results that interest you.
   • Search for a variety of job titles. To find more job titles related to the kind of work you’re interested in, try:
     • Use the O*NET database to search for occupations and possible job titles using keywords related to your job duties.
     • Ask AI for a list of search terms related to the jobs/careers you’re interested in.
     • Look back at your PathwayU results to see if there’s anything there you want to look for
3. Create a list of 3-5 specific internships/jobs of interest. For each, include:
   • The reasons you’re interested including how it would benefit your career
   • Anything you’d need to do to become a stronger candidate
   • Your application plans – yes/no/maybe? Why? If yes/maybe, when?

To Complete this Assignment

Upload your list as a pdf.

Why this task?

COW alums are an amazing resource available to you as a Wooster student.  They work all over the planet in every industry (as far as I can tell!) and many (most?) of them are eager to share advice and ideas with students. Use this assignment to find alumni who are doing the kind of work you’re interested in so you can build your professional network.

Task Summary

Discover COW Alumni you might want to learn from and/or network with using a variety of resources.

Task Specifics

1. Look at Pathway-linked Alumni

• On your Pathway’s website, click the Networking button. SELF Pathway students: take a look at alums on Pathways that are adjacent to your goals. 
• Review the alums listed there, especially those that aren’t recent graduates. These are all alumni who know about Pathways and have indicated that they would like to connect with students on your particular Pathway.

2. Use Ask A Scot (link) 

• Use this website to ask career-related questions. It utilizes AI tools to scour our database of 10s of thousands of alums and send your question to specific folks who seem to have related experience.
• When you receive a response to your question, you should follow up by email (at least a thank you!) and potentially connect more deeply with an alum who answers.
• Consider requesting an informational interview or simply emailing back and forth with very clear, specific questions that will help you on your career path.

3. Find interesting alums on LinkedIn (link)

• Create a LinkedIn account if you don’t yet have one. Add some information so alumni you contact can tell you’re a real person 🙂 Click here for some tips on crafting a strong profile.
• Add some connections to increase the number of people you’ll see. Adding college employees helps a lot with this!
• Search for the College of Wooster. Once at that page, click the alumni tab (see screenshot). 

• Filter alums:
  • Click on a bar of interest under the various topics (where they work, etc.)
  • Type a job title you’d be interested in having into the filter bar (see screenshot). You might also try other searches depending on your interests.
• Scroll down to see the alumni who match your filter.
• Spend some time reviewing profiles to find some folks who have career path details in common with where you want to go

4. Contact interesting alums who’ve had career experiences adjacent to your interests.

• This step is optional but strongly recommended. 
• Review the videos at this link, especially the “Quick Tip” video, for ideas about how to best communicate in these networking conversations.
• Ask them specific questions or request an informational interview.
• Reach out to the Career & Experiential Education office if you’d like tips on conducting an informational interview. Click here to see their resource and scroll to page 2.

5. Create a list of 3-5 (total) alumni found through this assignment who have had experiences relevant to your own career goals and with whom you might want to network. 

Include their:

• Name,
• Current position and company
• LinkedIn URL, website, and/or other contact information
• Aspects of their professional history that might help inform your next steps as you get established in your career, such as:
  • what they studied at Wooster
  • their initial job(s) out of college
  • any other schooling or training
  • details about their career path so far
  • etc.
• Contact plans – yes/no/maybe & why or why not + when if applicable

To Complete this Assignment

Upload your list with all collected information. Be sure to keep your copy handy for future use!

Why this task?

After this class, your next Pathway requirement is to have an “authentic” career experience. The purpose of this task is to nail down some specific hopes and goals for what you’ll try out and learn from your career experience (internship, job, volunteer experience, etc.). Identifying your hopes and setting goals should allow you to decide what kinds of career experiences you’ll pursue, select one, and then complete that career experience with purposefulness, maximizing what you get out of it.

Task Summary

Thoughtfully complete a number of sentence stems and determine your priorities to create goals for your career experience.

Task Specifics

1. Complete these sentences about your future career experience.

Finish each with a few items, written as a bulleted list. 

• By the end of my experience, I want to understand…
• Some skills I want to improve are…
• I want to try (job tasks)…
• By watching and speaking with folks at my job/internship, I want to learn… 
• I’m eager to ask people in this field…
• I’ll know this experience was worth it if…

2. Review your answers and highlight:

• Color 1 – must-haves
• Color 2 – would really like to have
• Color 3 – want but could live without

3. Review your now-colorful list and complete these goal statements based on your priorities:

• I will pursue a career experience that…
• While I’m completing my career experience, if at all possible, I will:
  • improve my skills in…
  • try…
  • ask about…
  • observe…
• By the time my career experience is done, I will try to have…

Click here to see an example of how a completed assignment might look for someone who wanted an career experience in filmmaking.

To Complete this Assignment

Upload one pdf containing:

• Your highlighted list from #1 with a color key.
• Your career experience goal statements.