Using the advice of career professionals from GST; Steven Schwartz, a professor of communications and media management at Fordham University who has been teaching job-search and interviewing techniques to students for over 30 years; and hard-earned lessons from their classmates who’ve spent time in the workforce, students will gain the tools necessary to get a leg up in an ultra-competitive and fast-changing technology job market.

“In today’s work environment students can expect to be working 10-15 different jobs in their career,” said Dr. Issac Herskowitz, dean of GST. “This workshop was designed to prepare students for the challenging environment that awaits them and give them an edge using proven methods as demonstrated by experienced professionals.”

The workshop will have multiple components:

One segment will feature a presentation with nuts-and-bolts guidelines for different aspects of the job hunt: useful ideas for networking, preparing and delivering a successful elevator speech, tips for job interviews—including what candidates should wear—will be some of the topics covered.

With regard to the always nerve-wracking job interviews, the GST career services staff will show attendees two video segments, one showing an interviewee doing everything right, the other with a job applicant whose performance is less than stellar. Comparing and contrasting the two will help students visualize how they should approach the interview.

Students will be given handouts which will include a checklist of questions that will better prepare them to create job focused resumes and job specific cover letters using guidelines provided by the career services team. Some examples: Is the cover letter focused on what the employer asks for in the job description?; Does it make the candidate sound interesting?; Are the job seeker’s strengths highlighted in the resume?; and is it concise and to the point?

“In keeping with GST’s commitment to uniquely assisting our students in their career development, students will learn firsthand what an expert in the field believes are the most important steps that one must take to further one’s career and to stay employed,” said Robert Grosberg, GST’s director of career services.

In addition to those in attendance who will be entering the workforce for the first time, Mr. Grosberg stressed that the workshop will also benefit those GST students who already have jobs by reinforcing the importance of acquiring new skills to keep pace in a constantly-changing field. Those students will also have the opportunity to share some of their own successes and failures with their classmates as a means of showing what has worked for them and to warn about some unexpected pitfalls.