Begin your career

Figuring out what to do professionally after graduation can leave many college students unsure where to start, but it doesn’t have to. IU Indianapolis offers several resources and opportunities to assist you with your career search.

We recommend that you begin looking for a full-time job during your senior year, especially as you near graduation, to boost your chances of finding and making a smooth transition into your new role once the cap and gown come off. This guide gives you tips to make your job search a success.

Like with any job search, looking for a full-time position begins with exploring job postings and deciding which to apply to. IU Indianapolis offers several ways of finding positions that interest you.

• Handshake: Every student at IU Indy has an account on Handshake created for them as soon as they enroll in courses. This job posting platform shares full-time, part-time, and internship opportunities from over 200,000 employers.
• Career events: Meet employers face-to-face and learn about open positions at their companies and businesses at one of the many career events that IU Indy hosts, including the Spring Career Fair, the Nonprofit Expo, and other networking opportunities.
• School-specific career services offices: Each school at IU Indianapolis has its own career services offices. In addition to providing you with assistance on your resume and interviewing skills, these offices can also point you toward jobs that relate to your major.
• IU Indianapolis alumni LinkedIn page: This page allows you to see where IU Indianapolis alumni work and to network with them.

As you begin your job search, it’s important to double-check that the jobs for which you apply aren’t job scams. These scams look real and aim to collect your personal information. To avoid giving away your personal information to such a job posting, take these steps:

1. Research the company before applying. Ensure that the employer is legitimate, has a website, and provides contact information on their website.
2. Keep track of the companies to which you applied. Do not respond to an offer or request for information from a company that isn’t on your list of submitted applications.
3. Consider the confidentiality of the information requested. A real employer will not ask you for information like a bank account or credit card number when first applying for a job. If they ask you for personal information, respond that you would prefer to provide it in person.
4. Examine the email. Legitimate employer emails will come from a business or company domain, and the domain will match the company name exactly, down to the spelling. You can also confirm that an email is legitimate if the “reply” email address matches the “from” email address and if there are few, if any, grammatical, spelling, and punctuation errors in the email.
5. Do not accept or send money prior to starting work. Legitimate companies and businesses will not ask you to do so.
6. Question if you receive an offer before an interview. You should not receive an offer for simply submitting your resume.
7. Be cautious of common types of fake job postings. Job postings with vague descriptions, promises of big earnings, and/or no experiece requirements may be more likely to be fraudulent.

Be sure to do your research to ensure positions are legitimate before applying to them. If you determine that a job posting is fraudulent, do not respond to the employer. If you’ve already shared your personal information, contact your bank and credit card companies to let them know of potential fraudulent charges. You should also file a complaint with the FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center.

Up to this point, all the advice given applies no matter what kind of job you’re looking for (e.g., full-time, part-time, or internship). Searching for a full-time job differs from other job searches in a few key ways, though. For one, you have more to consider with a full-time job. A full-time job is longer-term than a part-time job or internship, so you’ll have to decide whether the job location is someplace you want to live.

Applicant pools tend to be more competitive and experience expectations tend to be higher for full-time positions as well. To stand out and showcase that you have the right amount of experience for the job, you should leverage the internships, part-time jobs, and hands-on learning experiences you’ve had while at IU Indianapolis. Sharing about these experiences not only on your resume, but in an ePortfolio will give you an additional platform to explain how you approached your work and what skills you gained from your experience.