5 Job Search Tips for International Students

1. Start early. This is good advice for any student (particularly in the current job market), but it’s especially crucial for students from outside the U.S. It will inevitably take longer to find a job with an employer that sponsors employees requiring work visas, so the sooner you start to look for positions, the better chance you’ll have.
2. Become an expert on the laws. Take it upon yourself to become an expert on your situation. The more you personally know about visas, work permits, deadlines, academic requirements, etc. (check out the U.S. Citizen and Immigration Services website for lots of information) the better decisions you’ll be able to make and the more empowered you’ll feel. Yes, this is a lot of work, but it’s more than worth it.
3. Engage with career services. In addition to doing your own research, seek expert help. Particularly if you attend a school that has a large population of foreign students, your university’s career services office will have lots of experience helping international students. Take advantage of everything they offer! Attend any event specifically for international students, read all information your career services office publishes and set up an appointment with a career counselor to discuss your individual situation.
4. Network. As more and more international students attend U.S. universities, there is a growing community of alumni who have walked in your shoes. Meet these people and ask for their advice! Through your career services office, professors, LinkedIn and Facebook, seek out people a few years older than you who have come from your home country and managed to find jobs in the U.S. They’ll likely be happy to share some tips and possibly even introduce you to the hiring managers at the companies where they landed jobs.
5. Stay positive and confident. While it can be frustrating to go through an international job search and visa application process, remember that you have a lot to offer an employer. Fluency in multiple languages, knowledge of international business practices and a global perspective are all extremely valuable in the workplace right now. Make sure that you are confident in your own abilities so an employer will want to invest in you.
By Lindsey Pollak for Manpower

The Benefits of Taking Notes in Interviews

Any job you apply for will involve good listening skills. You have the opportunity to demonstrate that skill in the interview process. Like most everything else, however, good listening skills just don't happen; they take work. Active listening requires that the listener receive both the speaker's spoken and unspoken message -- which can be a difficult task. Too often the listener is so busy preparing a mental response to what the speaker is saying that he or she ignores much of the speaker's message, resulting in a less-than-perfect response. If you want to be an effective communicator, especially in the job interview process, you need to develop your active listening skills, one of which is taking notes.

Taking notes while you listen is another strategy for becoming a better listener. Doing so when you are in an interview has several benefits:

• Taking notes in an interview gives the interviewer a non-verbal message that you are serious and that you value what he or she is communicating.

• Having these notes helps you raise significant questions when the interviewer asks, "Do you have any questions?"

• Having these notes helps you with your follow-up communications because you can refer to specific comments or topics covered in the interview. The more specific and customized your thank-you follow-up is, the greater the chance it will make a favorable impression on the interviewer.

For more tips on interviewing, see CliffsNotes Delivering A Winning Job Interview, by Mercedes Baily, published by Hungry Minds, Inc.

Samurai Success Blog: Secrets Revealed!

So this marks the first official blog post from Success Samurai featuring me - the office director. One intrigued student reader Rin commented when we first announced the blog feature that "the name, while clever, does nothing to communicate the purpose of the blog" Rin is correct so I should explain...

First, many things Japanese intrigue me personally - I've been to Japan four times and each time has been a discovery of some new idea, an expression of art or philosophy or history which opens up new possibilities and understandings. How does this relate to finding a job you might rightly ask? It does, I can assure you, relate not only to that but also to much more. What I've learned over the long course of my own career is that your focus should always be on achieving not "a job" but on career success, of which the many jobs you're likely to hold are just a partial reflection.

In order to find a job AND achieve career success you must have the discipline, focus, and commitment of the traditional Japanese samurai - hence the blog name: Success Samurai.

Enough philosophy for this first posting - you'll read it again from time to time! On to other things.

I did an interview this afternoon with a writer from the local newspaper the Rochester Democrat & Chronicle. During the interview she asked what are the three most important things a job seeker should do in today's job market. Let me share with you my answers... (by the way knowing newspaper reporters and their editors, you'll never see this in the D&C the way I'm now presenting it to you!)

First: develop a plan. A surprising number of job seekers have not thought about their plan - What do you want to do? In what kind of organization do you want to do it? Where do you want to do it? Do your "selling documents" (i.e. resume; portfolio; recommendations; cover letters, etc) leverage your strengths and position you as best as possible? What specific steps should you be taking? Career plans are highly individualized and if you don't have one come into our office and let us help you to develop a plan right for you.

Second: commit time to the job search. I'm sure my readers are wonderful people and your families would be happy to tell me precisely how wonderful you are but in today's labor market jobs are not going to come find you. Set aside some time every day, every week, every month to dedicate to the activities your career plan demands for success.

Lastly: Networking through social media has NEVER been more important. Yes, yes I know - "Facebook is for my friends" and "I don't want to mess around in my personal space" but the reality is that ALL social media sites provide amazing networking opportunities which WILL contribute to your career success. In upcoming posts I'll talk more about this but in the meantime just do one thing - if you don't have a profile in LinkedIn, create one. Very soon it may be one of the most important tools you will ever use in your job search. More later!

Your comments and questions are always welcome!

Third

What Happened to the Class of 2009?

Results from National Association of Colleges and Employer’s 2010-11 Career Services Benchmark Survey show that:

• On average, less than 64 percent of the Class of 2009 had jobs within six to seven months of graduating, down substantially from the Class of 2008 (68 percent) and the Class of 2007 (75 percent) for the same timeframe.
• Although nearly 26 percent of the Class of 2009 anticipated going to graduate or professional school (source: 2009 Student Survey), only 22 percent actually did so. In comparison, 23.8 percent from the Class of 2008 actually went to graduate/professional school, closely matching expectations (23.8 percent reported such plans, in the 2008 Student Survey).
• Faced with a tough job market and, apparently, not able to wait it out in graduate school, more members of the Class of 2009 opted to start their own businesses than was the case in 2008. The percent reporting engaging in entrepreneurial activities rose from 2.5 percent among Class of 2008 graduates to 3.9 percent for the Class of 2009.

The 2010-11 Career Services Benchmark Survey for Four-Year Colleges and Universities was conducted September 15 through November 30, 2010. A total of 750 career centers took part, for a response rate of 54 percent.

Source: Spotlight for Career Services Professionals, February 2, 2011