Career Counseling
The first steps to a successful career include assessing your strengths and limitations, pinpointing your specific career interests, and finding out what type of work environment you would excel in. We are fortunate to have a wonderful career counselor, backed by a phenomenal career center, to help you figure these things out. Kirstin Young, assigned to serve as the career counselor for the Nunn School, is available for career advice, resumé review, internship brainstorming sessions, and other career-related needs. Don't wait until the last minute to make an appointment. You should be exploring careers and internships at least six months prior to the specific time you would like to work. Contact Career Services to make an appointment with Ms. Young. You may also want to meet with the INTA academic advisor to see how your internships, externships, and career plans fit into your overall academic plan. Career Services can be reached at 404.894.2550. They also take walk-in appointments.
Career Paths For International Affairs students
Job Search Tips
Follow the Career Services advice for starting the job search.
Develop your resume and have Career Services review it.
Research companies and organizations that interest you.
Learn about networking and how it helps to get your foot in the door.
Sign up for CareerBuzz, Tech's job and internship Web site.
Use all the Career Tools available to you through Career Services.
Attend information sessions on resumés, interviewing, job search strategies, etc.
Attend campus information sessions given by corporations and organizations that are hiring. These are NOT just for engineers.
Start a list of Web sites you check once per week for job postings. This list should include general job sites and specific organization sites.
Your Job Search
We cannot stress enough that you must start the job search early. Graduating seniors should start the job search in the beginning of their senior year. Graduate students should start strategizing the job search in the middle of their first semester. Part of this strategy is meeting with the INTA career counselor in Career Services, to start narrowing down the career focus and creating a job search strategy.
Recruiters on Campus
Georgia Tech often invites recruiters to campus to conduct information sessions. In these sessions, the recruiters explain the mission of their organizations, the corporate climate, and the position openings they foresee in the next few months or year, and answer questions about employment at the organization. A full listing of information session dates is listed on the Career Services Web site. Organizations that have conducted information sessions on campus include Bain and Company, Intel, Wachovia, IBM, Capital One, State Public Research Interest Groups, Kimberly Clark, and Hewlett Packard. These sessions are not just for engineering students—if you go to an information session in which the presentation is primarily focused on recruiting engineers, stay to hear the full description of the organization and then ask the speaker for the name of the person who recruits for non-engineering positions. Make sure you follow-up with the non-engineering recruiter after the session.
Career Etiquette
Numerous books have been written on business and career etiquette. Although trends influence much of the etiquette we follow in business and our careers, there are some behaviors that are generally expected when "doing business" in the United States. Developing international business etiquette is a little trickier. It involves observing the cultures, speaking with foreign colleagues, and reading about history and current, international trends (or at least the information about the countries and regions in which you are interested). Here are a few links that might assist you:
2009-10 Employer Guide
