The office of Career Services is hosting Sinclair Talks on May 30 at noon in the Library logia. The speaker will be Matt Massie, manager of the office of career services, who will be speaking on what resources his office has to offer students.
The good news is that the job market is looking up, said Massie. There are numerous industries that have shown significant job growth recently some of which is attributable to Dayton’s unique location near major interstates and Wright-Patterson Air Force Base.
“Supply-chain management has been a growing field, because of our intersection of [interstates] 70 and 75. It is called the crossroads of America,” said Massie.
The first step to getting help from Career Services is stopping into their office on the third floor of Building 10 to start the process.
“Most people walk by our office for two whole years and they never come in because they say I don’t know what you do. Come in and ask. Just coming in is the first step. Even if you don’t know what type of help you need, we’ll sit down with you and help you identify it,” said Lindsay Tate, one of two career specialists at Sinclair. “We want to help you. We’re trained to help you. Don’t be embarrassed and don’t be too shy. It is much better to chose you major early on, because of financial aid reasons, so if get to us before you start taking credit after credit it will be more beneficial in the long run…and you won’t feel this feeling of being lost.”
Identifying a career or major
There are stages in the student lifecycle in obtaining a career, said Massie. The first is identifying potential careers or majors. To assist students, Career Services specialists guide students through taking the discovery assessment tool and going over the results.
“When they are lost and don’t know where to go, we give them assessments to help them identify some possible majors and career options and they can sit down with a counselor and talk about the results which is the most beneficial thing you can do. After that, we give you information so that you can research careers on your own,” said Tate.
Through all of this, students do not have to make a career decision right away, nor are they cut loose after choosing a major or obtaining a job.
“It is ok to be unsure even after you talk to us, but come back again. This is not a one-time-stop deal kind of office,” said Tate.
Obtaining and maintaining a job
Once a career has been identified, Career Services will help students develop resumes, learn interviewing skills as well as plan for their potential career.
“People by nature are very short sighted…They think about what is right in front of them because that is practical, and that is understandable. But what we need to do is think about what is more long term, what is down the road, because if we start preparing for it early on we are going to be able to,” said Massie.
Connecting students with jobs
A misconception of the office is that it is only about applying for a job.
“We don’t get anyone a job, but I can help give you the tools and the resources to help you be successful searching for jobs,” said Massie.
Sinclair has numerous resources available for connecting students with jobs. An advantage that Sinclair students have over some job seekers is access to JobLink, a database on which local employers post open jobs.
This last stage of the student lifecycle at career services can not be done completely from Sinclair or from a home computer. People who are seeking employment should network, network, network, said Massie.
“Go out and talk to people. We have gotten into this mentality that I’m going to sit behind my computer and type away all day, and I will find a job that way, and that is ok. It is a good tool, but making connections, actually talking to people, getting out and presenting yourself, that is how you will find employment,” he said.
The Dayton job market
The Dayton region has seen significant job growth in numerous industries recently. From medical devices to parts that go into unmanned aerial vehicles, Dayton is a bed of innovation in manufacturing, said Massie.
“Manufacturing is not dead. It has just changed shapes. It has gone from put this bolt on this nut, and screw it together to high-tech, high-end manufacturing,” said Massie.
The quest
In the end, obtaining a satisfying career is a lot of work and more of a winding road than a straight line, said Massie. The professionals in career services have a lot of experience and many tools with which to approach this quest intelligently.
“Everybody wants to go from here to here in a straight line, and there typically isn’t a straight line. There are very few career pathways that are A to B with no side points along the way and you have to be strategic and think about it as you go along,” said Massie. “That is why career planning is more than just deciding what you want to be when I grow up. It is what do I want to be and how am I going to get there. What are the steps that I’m going to take, because if you do that early on, you reduce how many of those points that you have to go through.”