Trone Student Center is full of various organizations that embody a student’s four years at Furman. One organization in particular located at the top of Trone focuses more on a student’s future after Furman. That is the Malone Center for Career Engagement.
The Malone Center for Career Engagement is a tool for students to become prepared for jobs after college. By critiquing resumes, having individual appointments and attending events students can utilize the center to better their future careers.
“The career center is a place for students to begin their career search,” said Assistant Director of Employer Engagement Steve Hairston. “We do that in a number of different ways.”
The career center combines different industries in order to help a student network with a variety of options. An example of industries combined would be science, health and technology, or arts, media and communication. Strength assessments, appointments, and other tools are used in the career center for all students, in order to help students find potential careers.
“As a whole we’re here as a resource for students to utilize, not just in the senior year, not just in the junior year, but with all the different tools that are available, to start in the freshman and the sophomore year so that when they become a junior, when they become a senior, they kind of already have an idea of maybe what direction they want to pursue,” Hairston said.
A brand new tool to Furman and the career center for students is an online career engagement system called Handshake.
Handshake is a new online tool that highlights career opportunities with ease. The system has job postings, and allows the user to create a profile. The profile shows work experience, organizations involved with on campus, major and classes taken, and so much more. Handshake will also highlight Malone Center for Career Engagement events and resources available.
“It is a database of information that has over 20,000 employers and probably close to half a million different jobs in it,” Hairston said. Companies, employers, organizations, students, alumnae and career offices across the United States have access to this system.
All Furman students have an initial profile on Handshake that they have access to. Once the profile is activated, the program will ask for some more information to develop a more advanced profile for potential employers to view.
“This will be the place where students will now sign up for interviews where they will register for events,” Hairston said. “Handshake is going to be the place where they can do a lot of research about different industries and about different employers within those industries.”
The bottom line is Handshake is going to be a vital tool for the career center, and vital for students who are looking to utilize the career center’s tools.
Just over fall break, the career center planned a career trek to New York City, which highlighted both communications, media and arts, and also finance career paths on the trip. A few more career treks will be coming up this school year, and more information will be posted on these trips in the near future.
The Malone Center for Career Engagement has a number of events for the fall, including specific programs for various majors. A Science and Technology Networking Night will be held in Plyler Commons Oct. 23 starting at 6 P.M., as well as a Business, Finance and Consulting Networking Night starting at 6 P.M. in Watkins Room on Oct. 24. For more information on fall events, visit Handshake or the career center’s website on the university’s page.