Posted on Tuesday, October 10th, 2017
The environment in which you do your co-op placement may be vastly different from the school environment. You may find yourself on a construction site, in a hotel, out in the field, or—in many cases—in an office.
The transition to an office environment can be jarring. You go from a school environment where your day is broken up between class, homework time, and free time, to a place where you sit at a desk for 7+ hours a day. That change can be rough on your health. To help you stay happy and healthy in your office, here are three tricks.
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Posted on Thursday, October 5th, 2017
We’ve all been there—there’s someone at work who, despite your best intentions, you just don’t like. The little things they do annoy you, the way they talk annoys you, the way they do their work annoys you. There’s nothing particularly awful about them, but you simply just don’t like them.
That’s natural—no one likes everyone. In your personal life, you can usually move away from people you don’t like, but in a professional environment you’re often forced to work with the person—whether on a project together, or even just in passing conversation in the office.
Learning how to manage difficult people is an important skill. Once you’re comfortable navigating these kinds of relationships, you’ll be in a position to better handle whatever kind of personalities the work environment throws at you.
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Posted on Tuesday, October 3rd, 2017
We’re getting into the busy part of the semester, when the list of midterms, projects, and assignments you have to do is starting to get pretty real. When this starts happening, it’s easy to get overwhelmed and lose track of what needs to get done.
This is why time management is so important. And while we’ve looked at the basics of time management on this blog before, there’s more to discuss.
So today, we look at three ways to master time management and conquer your to-do list.
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Posted on Thursday, September 28th, 2017
Job hunting is a highly competitive world, and finding a way to stand out can be a challenge. It’s important to know how to write a strong cover letter, or interview well. But to really stand out to employers, you need to represent yourself in a positive way—you want to build a positive reputation that follows you. This is called branding, and we’ve talked about why it’s so important before.
Think of branding as advocating for yourself—you’re telling your target audience (in this case, employers) about why you’re a great hire. All aspects of your job hunt—from your resume to your interview to your LinkedIn—should be in line with your brand.
But to take your brand to the next level, at least online, you need to go a step further than the regular job hunt materials. You need to build a website.
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Posted on Tuesday, September 26th, 2017
Whether you’re looking for a co-op placement or a permanent position, or even if you’re looking for a part-time job through school, you’ve probably discovered that it’s a competitive world out there.
You’re probably already aware that to have a successful job hunt, you need to share not only your hard, industry-related skills, but also your soft, transferable skills—those skills that are useful and important in any context.
But what soft skills are employers looking for? There are dozens and dozens of transferable skills, but some are in more demand than others. How does this help you?
By knowing what employers are looking for, you can seek out opportunities to develop these skills further. You’ll also know that if you do have experience with these skills, you should be emphasizing them during your application process.
So here they are—the top three skills employers are looking for.
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