ENC’s Career Week gave students a chance to trade in the sweats for slacks as the Career Services Department encouraged students to grow professionally in their career path. Headed by Krista Bogertman, the Brickley Center services set up the Mann Student Center with multiple career-orientated events.
To start the week, ENC’s resume guru Krista Bogertman gave students the opportunity to have their resumes proofread and critiqued by her in an event that she has called “Resumania.” Bogertman made herself available for two hours on both Monday and Tuesday to students with resume concerns and questions. Since receiving her national certificate for resume writing this past year, Bogertman has gained a new perspective as to what employers are looking for in this critical document.
“Making a resume provides a student the opportunity to market and brand themselves to potential employers. The hope is that the resume is well-organized and filled with content so that students can make the best possible first impression when applying for jobs and internships,” said Bogertman about the importance of resumes.
According to her studies, Bogertman estimates that employers spend between six and thirty seconds looking through a resume, so formatting is key. Some of the most common mistakes she found in the dozens of resumes she looked over during Resumania were formatting issues, incorrect verb tenses, and organization of work experience.
On Tuesday afternoon, Pastor Tim Bogertman, Krista’s husband, led a discussion titled “Discover Your Vocation: All of Life Redeemed.” Pastor Bogertman made his first appearance at ENC leading a discussion of how your choice of vocation allows you to fulfill God’s will. With nearly seven years of experience working in campus ministries across the country, Tim Bogertman was able to relate to the students that attended the discussion.
In response to his discussion, some students went as far as to say that they would like to see Pastor Bogertman speak at chapel one day.
“I think the discussion was extremely informative and Tim [Bogertman] was incredibly insightful in relating our purpose as a Christian to our goals in our career field,” said one student who attended the discussion.
Rounding out Career Week was the Job and Internship Fair in Hebrews Café. Out of the hundreds of invitations sent out by Career Services to local companies, thirteen of them decided to host booths in the Mann Student Center to recruit students as employees. This year, the companies were heavy on recruiting for Human Services as seven of the thirteen companies focused on that job market, including the YMCA and Bay State Community Services.
Of the other companies looking to hire, the jobs focused mainly on recruiting Business, Education, and Social Work majors with opportunities in early childhood education at Horizons for Homeless Children in Roxbury, Massachusetts, and accounting opportunities at John Galt Staffing Inc. located in Burlington, Massachusetts.
Career Week is not just a week of career opportunities; it also serves as a chance for Career Center Services to market themselves to students who may not know much about the assistance the Career Center can offer. Krista Bogertman hopes that if students only take one thing from Career Week, it would be the location of ENC’s Brickley Center so that they could stop by for ongoing guidance.