The Five Course - Come and Get It!

Coming this February 11 - The Five Course!

Come and learn how to dine with members of the industry and learn how to make an ace impression while you're dining! If you're in the market for the job, you could very possibly find this useful, as it's common for recruiters and hiring managers to invite candidates out to dinner. Rest assured, though, that by dinner they mean interview!

If you're wondering what this even is all about, you should first read my accounts of last year's Business Etiquette Dinner. The details may change, but the overall goal is the same: get you ready for dining with professionals.

Here are the previous articles:
Etiquette Keepsake - How to Eat your Dinner
Etiquette Keepsake - How to Eat your Dinner, Part 2

Have a look, and sign yourself up on Career Services Online! The fee is $10 per head, and I have to say that's not bad for a five-course meal!

Oh by the way, the name was my idea!

Salary Negotiation Food-for-Thought

So you've jumped through hoop after hoop to score a job, and when you're offered the job your employer includes a salary number. Those of us who are a little less ambitious would take that offer on the spot. But I'm here today to write to you about how you can actually increase your starting salary through proper negotiation.

Today's economy is the basis of a lot of concerned feelings toward salary negotiation these days. But the reality is that if you do it right, salary negotiation is not inappropriate. But to do it right, you need to brush up on some very specific areas in the salary negotiation process.

The key to being a part of an appropriate salary negotiation is knowing your own value, and being capable of substantiating that value. Not everyone who is offered a job is just qualified. Some will be closer to over-qualified, and to be realistic, OIT students can often prove that they qualify for a job that requires a bit more experience than entry-level.

Why is that? Well, OIT's curricula focus heavily on practical application of what our students learn. The time that our DMS students spend in lab scanning can be equivalent to some experience in the industry scanning. The time our CSET students spend working in a team to develop a product for a client can carry that same significance. Mechanical and Manufacturing students can boast as well about their time spent working on projects for clients. This is the bulk of your worth. Being able to relate your experience as a student at OIT to the qualifications for the job is a very useful tool in salary negotiation.

Another useful tool is a general understanding of the market for people in your industry. How much are other entry-level employees making? Does the trend over the past few years show an increase in starting salary or a decrease? And most importantly, how does your experience level put you above or below what you were offered, with this in consideration?

Do more research than you think is necessary. In my field, technology changes very rapidly, and new technologies pop up often. Knowing that a company is about to release a new product from a department that you are slated to work in means that you are now negotiating for a job that is in high demand. To advance the technology, the company needs you. Knowing that sort of information gives you a little more wiggle-room. If a Doctor offers you a job working in his office, and you know that he just bought a new piece of equipment which you used directly in your lab, again, you now have some wiggle-room in the salary offer. Use research as another tool to assist you in backing any sort of negotiation you'd like to do.

Be creative in finding ways to substantiate your worth, and always know what you're shooting for. It can't hurt to try if you do it right.


With that said, there are very well defined ways to "do it right". Always keep in mind that most hiring managers have a limit to what they can offer you, and if they can't offer you a higher starting salary, sometimes they can offer you other benefits on the side. Then there's the odd case that there is no room for negotiation. But if you don't try it, you won't find out now, would you?

Before you even bother bringing up the idea of salary negotiation, you have to establish with the hiring manager that you are grateful for the job offer. From there you can ask if there is any flexibility in the offer that has been presented. Once you see your options, it's time to break out the tools and start carving a path for yourself in the negotiation. You need to have prepared for this before hand. Opening negotiations and then taking your time to do your part would be a huge turn-off in any negotiation, and when there's a large pool of candidates qualified for your job, some companies can get impatient.

On the other hand, remember that the hiring manager's job isn't to screw you out of a job, it's to help you be successful in the job they've offered you. They'd rather negotiate with you than have the offer turned down, because they've probably spent some serious time narrowing the candidate list down.

Of course, be polite! Being a jerk will never get you anywhere unless you're a CEO. That's a joke, but it's true. If you keep your cool, lay out your side of things, and allow the other side to do some work, you could very likely end up with an employment deal that you really like, given that the hiring manager has more to offer.


Remember, there are two hugely important things you need to be proficient at when considering a salary negotiation. You need to know your worth in relation to the company you're going to work for and the job you've been offered, and you need to be able to communicate those things throughout the negotiation in a way that doesn't corner or put-off your hiring manager. But at the same time, remember that you could just as easily come out of a negotiation in the same position as you went into it.

Upcoming Career.... Things!

Hey, everyone. It's time for a little news!

In the coming months, Career Services has a few career-related events coming up that could be quite interesting to some of you! Not only do we have visits from potential employers, but we've also got our annual business etiquette dinner (with a new name, which I don't know), and another Career Fair!

First up is a visit from Fremont-Winema National Forests. They're going to be doing an information desk and workshop on Tuesday, January 18th in the College Union. While that's going on, they'll be taking names for people interested in interviewing for a summer job. Those will take place on the 19th and 20th here at Career Services! So just as a recap:
Information Desk: Tuesday, January 18 9am-2pm - College Union
Workshop: Tuesday, January 18 2pm - Mt. Thielsen, College Union
Interviews: Wednesday/Thursday, January 19/20 - Career Services

Make sure you stop by if you're interested!

Next up is a visit from Hewlett-Packard in Boise, Idaho. They're looking to hire a "Firmware Engineer" but from what I hear, that's not all! They'll be meeting with students on Thursday, January 20th between 9am and 5pm. But you have to sign up to meet with them! You'll need a Career Services Online account and a resume to post. Don't be lazy, though! Interview sign-ups will close on the 17th.

If you're interested in signing up, visit Career Services Online, create an account if you haven't already upload your resume, and do a search for Schedule ID 74. You can reserve a 1 hour interview spot there! Remember the interview I did with Clint Moran? This is how he got his job at HP.

Moving on to February...

The Oracle Academy will be stopping by to give a lecture on turning your collection of class assignments into a portfolio to help you snatch your job in industry. Look for them in Purvine 206 on Tuesday, February 8th at 11am if you're interested! It should be way cool.

Also in February is our annual business etiquette dinner. This is a great opportunity to learn how to dine with professionals! That lunch or dinner invitation you received from a recruiter? Yeah, that's an interview. Come to the event and get school on how to ace this interview without breaking a sweat. Event name is pending...... but it'll be GOOD! The event is scheduled for Thursday, February 17th between 5:30pm and 8:00pm. Contact Jan Goodyear for more details and RSVP information at 541.885.1023.

Lastly we have our Spring Career Fair. Scheduled for Tuesday, March 1st, it's another Career Fair as portrayed in my Career Fair Keepsakes. Companies that love to hire us and the SWAG (Stuff We All Get) that they love to give to us. This is an excellent way to get your foot in the door with your favorite company (if they're attending, of course). Come down and meet the recruiters on Tuesday, March 2nd from 1:00pm to 4:00pm!

It's going to be a busy Spring! Make of it the best you can! Signing off.

Take a Look at your Resume! Part 3

Hello! Welcome to the third (and maybe final) part of my "Take a Look at your Resume" series! Before I pick up where I left off, I want to apologize. It has been over two months since Part 2, and I had said that I would finish it much earlier! My only excuse is that it was a busy office here at Career Services, and it couldn't find a whole lot of time to do my favorite part: blogging!

So here we go!


Last time, I had you think about and write down your work experience and skills. This part of the process involves choosing what type of resume format you will use.

There are two popular basic types of resume formats: chronological and functional. A chronological resume is best suited for those with a pretty complete and lengthy work history, as it shows (you guessed it) your work experience in chronological order. A functional resume focuses on your specific skills and experience applying them, but it doesn't always show that you are qualified. My preference is to combine them, and target the content at the job you're trying to get. You've hopefully already taken care of the content after Part 1. But just for kicks, go ahead and look at the content you have and double check that it's really devoid of all fluffy stuff and things that wouldn't be necessarily be relevant to the field or job. If you're making this resume for a specific job post, sit the job post right next to your resume and make sure you've addressed all of the possible qualifications and requirements, and nothing more, with the exception of skills and experience that tie in very closely.

Remember that you integrated some of your skills into your list of experience in Part 2. Look through that list again and decide how you obtained each skill. If you picked up that skill from a class or some leisure activity, make a note of it. If you learned it through a class, try to remember what it is in the class that helped you pick it up. If you had to scan patients every Thursday, or had to program an inventory manager application for a client, those are useful experiences, and can be added to your list of experience. If you learned leadership skills through volunteering or even through leading your City-league basketball team, the Soft Loafers, that's also a useful experience! Throw things like this into your list of experience! Describe each your accomplishments in that activity using concise blurbs, and don't forget dates.

Interweave these new things into your work experience chronologically. If these happened within a time range of one of the listed work experiences, put them underneath that particular entry. So for example, if you were working as an Office Administrator from 2008-2010, and you designed an efficient office layout in an interior architecture class you took in the evenings in 2009, you'd have something similar to this (but prettier):

Some Job
Some Company | 2010-Present
-blah blah blah

Office Administrator
LoaferSoft | 2008-2010
-Increased employee production-happiness ratio by over 1,000,000% through the implementation of a new office layout

Office Layout Design
Grizzly Bear School of Design - ARCH352 | October 2009
-Designed an office layout with productivity score of 5.9 out of 6 - ranked Top 10 most productive office layout in class history

Some Job
Some Company | 2006-2008
-blah blah blah

The two pieces don't necessarily need to be related, but it's even better if they are! Some people seem to think that a chronology like this should only include work experience, but to me, experience is experience, whether it's in the industry or in school or in your free-time. Just make sure that there is some sort of accomplishment you can use to add emphasis. You might also try to find a non-intrusive way of differentiating work experience from other experience, if you're concerned. If your Soft Loafers basketball team had a losing record of 5-13 over the course of a season, it's probably best to leave that out. Instead, mention that during your time as captain, the team's season win-loss ratio increased by some percentage.

By now, your list of skills should hopefully be getting shorter, but if you notice that it still takes noticeably more paper space than your experience, you'll put that first. Otherwise, your experience should always go first. Having a bunch of skills is great, but whoever is looking at your resume will find it easier to make an analysis on your qualification if he can see how you've applied those skills first.


Alright. Looks like this is long enough for this part. I think I'll write a Part 4 to really tie things together, and maybe I'll put together a sample resume for some fictional character to help the ideas sink in!

Thanks for reading! See you for Part 4!

Yet Another....... Career Fair Keepsake!

A whole year has passed since my first Career Fair blog, and here we are in the wake of another successful fair. Instead of just going over the events like I did last year, I'd like to delve a little deeper into the goings-on of this year's event. This year, I made it a point to talk at-length with a few of the recruiters - not about the companies or myself, but about our students, and why they come to OIT. And while I didn't take any notes, much of the feedback is fresh in my mind, as there is a common train of thought amongst the recruiters I spoke with:

OIT students, in general, seem more prepared to enter the field than students from other schools.

There's no hidden meaning here. Our programs and the faculty who run them have convinced some employers that OIT produces some of the most well-prepared graduates of any schools in the area. As a student here on the Klamath Falls campus, I'd like to thank the faculty for giving us all a better chance at being successful in our careers, and ultimately, our lives. To hear this sort of feedback from recruiters really puts a smile on my face. So, kudos.

With that said, it's about time to talk about the students. This year, we recorded around 150 attendees, which points to a decent turnout. Close to one third of that number were Seniors, and a handful were alumni. It's hard to interpret these numbers, though. Here's why:

Generally, we should expect to see a great number of Seniors attending the Career Fair. And this year, yeah... we saw a large portion of Seniors there. But when we take the percentage away, does 50 Senior attendees sound like a large number? Considering that I have nearly 30 classmates in my Senior Project class, I would say we're left with some to desire. But why is it that we don't get the attendance we would love to have?

Well, there are a few possible reasons that arise every year. First, I don't think the student body as a whole fully appreciates the power of the Career Fair. Recruiters absolutely love to talk to our students, and moreover, they love to hire our students! There's no better way to get your foot in the door than to make their trips down here worthwhile, and have a little chat with the recruiter, and of course, drop off your resume.

Real quick, with that said, I'd like to touch on appearance. I notice time and time again that a large majority of our attendees are a bit under-dressed, and believe me; if I notice, the recruiters notice, and chances are they're taking notes. A couple of the recruiters I talked to did mention that they'd like to see students dressed more appropriately.

But what is appropriate? A common misconception about the Career Fair is that it's just a time to meet with recruiters. Actually, the Career Fair is much more than that. It's the first time anyone from the company will see you. It is the same as an interview! And first impressions are a huge deal in the industry. If you come prepared with a resume and dress like you're ready to interview, not only will the recruiters notice, but they'll remember, too! The next time they look over your resume, they will have a solid first impression to work off of, and will be more likely to pass it on to someone important.

Here's a little pro-tip: recruiters love to take notes after they meet you. Keep that in mind.

This year, we had only a single health provider registered for the Career Fair. Shortly before the fair, they had to cancel. This brings up another unfortunate detriment to our attendance. There literally is nothing there specifically for our health majors! We're working on it, we promise! However, if you happen to be here for health-related degree, you can likely come to the Career Fair and have a talk with one of the military recruiters. There are tons of great reasons to work with the US military, and the recruiters will know them all. So, if working with them in a field related to your degree sounds appealing at all to you, stop on by! They're always there, and are always willing to chat!

Another issue that is hindering our attendance is time conflicts. Tuesdays tend to have a lot of labs going on in that 1pm to 4pm time slot. We understand this, but that slot is what seems to work best for everyone. We also understand that we wouldn't have nearly as good of a turn out without the support of the faculty. So, as a Career Services employee, I'd like to ask and thank the faculty for its continued and improving support for our Career Fairs. Please and thank you!

I absolutely love our Career Fairs! I haven't had a chance in the last couple of years to make the best use of them for myself, but I've had a blast experiencing them, and subsequently, writing about them. Hopefully we can have more successful Career Fairs in our near future. Just remember that they're incredibly important, and that they can be immeasurably useful to both you and your future!

Thanks for reading!

Take a Look at your Resume! Part 2

Alright. Welcome to part two of my resume revamp series!

So right now you should have a list of things you're going to put on your resume. Let's do something with that list! This is the fun part, but it can also be tedious. So be ready.

What we're going to do is take that list of things you wrote down, and make them resume-ready. There are a lot of things to consider, and most of them have to do with how you present the "thing". Let's get it started!

We'll focus on the experience stuff first. Look at what it is you've listed, then think about how it benefited whoever you were working for/with. Instead of just listing the experience, write down in what way you benefited the company or group in order to obtain the experience. And don't be soft with it. Make sure whoever is reading your resume really feels that your experience benefited the company. The way to do that is to word the description strongly. Instead of "led a team of programmers and designers to project completion," you "managed a development team that consistently completed projects on time". Make sure there's no doubt about how you accomplished something when gaining your experience. Numbers are also always a great thing to include.

Here's an example of how I'd revamp an experience blurb:
Before: "Rebuilt a website with a gallery, forums, and marketplace for Loafersoft Solutions"
After: "Developed a portal to facilitate stronger visual representation, community development, and e-commerce for Loafersoft Solutions"

The more creative you can get, the better and stronger your blurb will sound, and the more impressive it will be to the reader. Just make sure if you gave your resume to your grandmother, she'd understand it.

Along with your experience blurb, elaborate on any accomplishments your achieved along the way. If you sold a record amount of t-shirts, or even if your new marketplace for Loafersoft helped them sell a record amount of t-shirts, put it down! And don't forget the dates!

So now that you've got your experience list with blurbs and accomplishments and dates, take a look for holes. If there was a period of time where you weren't working, think of something that filled it. Really think about possibilities like volunteering, continued education, etc. Then accompany those things with a little bit about why there was no prominent work experience, but stay away from sounding like you're apologizing.


Let's get to those skills. First, look through those skills and think of a time where you may have been able to apply it to the experience you've already listed. Go ahead and add it to that experience portion as a relevant skill. Next, try to drop the remaining skills into categories that would be relevant to whatever type of job you'd be using your resume for.

That's all for today. Check back on Friday for the wrap-up!

Take a Look at your Resume! Part 1

I don't know about the rest of you, but OIT has a career fair coming up just around the corner, and that means it's time to revamp your job search tools!

There is one thing that you should always bring to a job/career fair: your general resume. Since we're a couple weeks from our career fair, I figure it's a great time to start looking at resumes and giving them some new mojo. In fact, I'm not the only one, since Career Services is sponsoring a Resume Doctor event all the way through next week! (October 18-22). So let's have a quick look at some things we can do to spiff up our potentially very dusty resumes!

The first step, if you ask me, is to start a new one. You don't want what's already on your resume to impact how much you put on your fresh one. Think about it this way: If you buy a new home, and you just move all your old furniture in, will it fit? Will you need to buy new furniture? And most importantly, will it be comfortable? Well, sure. But think about how much more satisfying it would be to just furnish the new home with brand new objects! Okay, money is an issue. That's why we're making resumes, right? Don't throw away your old resume just yet. We'll have a use for it soon.

Start drafting out this resume just like you did your old one, but apply your most recent experiences, skills and recognition first. Just list them all out. This is your brainstorming phase, so don't judge what you put down just yet.

Next, write down what it is you are making the resume for. Since it's most likely going to be for a job, write down what type of job it is, and if you're tailoring your resume to a job posting, write down all of the key qualifications and requirements for that job. When I'm consulting resumes for my friends, I generally like to draw lines between qualifications/requirements and the experiences/skills that associate with them. Doing this will help you narrow your list of "stuff" down, and keeps out some of the potential "fluff" that could actually hurt your resume. Also, just for good measure, take out any of the "stuff" that you aren't really comfortable doing, or aren't particularly good at. Leaving these things in there may help you land an interview, but chances are your interview will test you on them, and then you may end up looking like a fool.

Rewrite those things down so you have a fresh list of "stuff" to work with. Look at the list of "stuff" and decide whether you have more skills listed or experience listed. This will dictate the type of resume you write, or which will come first in your resume.

While you're doing that, I'll start writing the next part!