The Career Development office here on campus is truly an exciting educational office that educates and teaches students how to get a job. Not only after graduating from college, but through your whole work career. Career Development also teaches students how to conduct themselves around potential employers, professional development, and how to find jobs. So there are many benefits when getting help with your resume on campus. It is accessible to all students and the staff are always here for you. So are there any tips when it comes to creating your resume? Here’s what I found. “One size does not fit all,” Tina Boitnott, Director of Career Development said. “What I mean is that one resume is not good for every job you apply to. Every resume needs to be fine-tuned and tweaked so that it shows relevance to the job that you are applying for, and that’s the one thing that’s sometimes difficult to think about is I need to tweak this resume each and every time.” Similarly, when it comes to students who have little to no work experience there’s a way to work things into your resume. “You have skills that you gained co-curricular, or volunteer out in your community so there are skills set that you’re learning,” Boitnott said. “Maybe you have a leadership role in a fraternity or sorority or student organization, those are good skills that transfer into the workplace. So we just look at what you have done maybe volunteering and not actual pay work.”

In addition to this, anytime a student can show that they’re not only going to school but also work and are active on campus are things employers look at. “They want to be sure that you are well rounded and not just a 4.0 academia and that you’re an excellent student,” Boitnott said. “That’s definitely positive but they also want to know maybe you don’t have much of a GPA but that you are very involved.” Equally important is that a student should at least keep their GPA at a 3.0 since although some of the industries that you go into aren’t going to put as much weight on your GPA , it’s a nice average to have.

Finally, The Career Development are able to help students a lot when it comes to the various workshops offered here on campus. “We will have opportunities where we will invite employers to come in and network with you to teach you how to talk to and approach them, and then when we have the career fairs you’re ready,” Boitnott said. “We’re gonna have a career closet that’ll teach you how to put together a professional interview wardrobe so that when you go to that interview you’re dressed in a way companies and businesses would expect you.” The Career Development staff also goes into classrooms to work with students more one on one to try to create awareness on campus of who they are, and they’re truly remarkable staff. “The Career Development Office at A&M-Texarkana staff wants you to be successful, and the staff wants to help you be successful,” Tina Boitnott said. “We’re not scary, and we’re not intimidating and you don’t know what you don’t know. So why not come in a safe place, learn and get educated on how to do this in a place where people care about you.”