What should my résumé look like? How should I dress for a job interview? How should I address potential employers over email? How do I craft an elevator pitch?
The College of Business aims to have its new Center for Professional Development become the go-to place for students to receive answers to these questions and more. The center, established during the fall 2024 semester, aims to bolster students’ interpersonal skills to achieve professional success.
The center is modeled after similar efforts in the Department of Accounting and Information Systems, which has a longstanding record of placing 100% of its students into jobs after graduation. Administrators now want to translate that impressive feat on a college-wide scale.
“The center will take our students further along with sharpening their soft skills to make sure that when they graduate, they don’t just have a degree, but they have a job as well,” said Kevin Melendrez, the head of the Department of Accounting and Information Systems who oversees the center.
Melendrez said he’s working to replicate and expand what his department has historically done for many years. Long before he arrived in 2007, the department organized a career fair, offered a professional development seminar, and gave students the chance to participate in mock interviews and prepare for the CPA exam, among other resources.
Under the Center for Professional Development, Melendrez envisions hosting virtual and in-person workshops and seminars on topics from email etiquette to résumé-building and dressing professionally to networking. He’s also pledging to get alumni involved in the center, hoping to draw on their industry connections.
“The goal,” he said, “is that before students go to a career fair, before they sit for an interview, whether it’s virtual or in person, they’ve done at least one mock interview, have started to refine their soft skills and have had somebody look at their résumé, rather than just winging it and hoping it’s good enough.”
The center’s first workshops took place last fall. In general, student turnout was good, Melendrez said, but he encourages more to attend future events, especially those from first-generation backgrounds.
“This type of help can make such a huge difference – whether or not they get an internship or job or just develop those skills,” he said. “Many first-generation students haven’t had the opportunity to do these things yet. But if you give them a little nudge and give them those skills, they will flourish.”
Eventually, the center will have a physical location in the Business Complex, where workshops, seminars and related events like one-on-one meetings with potential employers and alumni or mock interviews will take place. Until then, Melendrez will coordinate events throughout the college in available spaces.
Last fall, the GECU Foundation awarded a $250,000 sponsorship to the College of Business to support the center’s operations. GECU will also work closely with Melendrez to participate in workshops and mock interviews.
A version of this story first published in the latest issue of the College of Business Annual Report. Read the issue here.