This past week, Career Services held its second Career Seekers Club meeting of the year, where students met as a group to discuss career opportunities and participate in activities to help strengthen their resumes, applications, and interview skills. The program, now in its sixth year, is planning to expand next year and begin meeting year-round after a successful short-term run in semesters past.
The Career Seekers Club is a small group, with only a dozen or so students registered every spring according to the program’s coordinator, Assistant Director of Career Services Jennifer Barrington. Every Thursday for six weeks in the spring semester, students will meet over lunch — provided by Career Services — to participate in activities and discussion regarding job opportunities, application-building and other skills relevant to job searching. Barrington started the club with the goal of helping students begin to think about their post-graduate careers while still in college.
“Swarthmore students are brilliant and very talented, they can do anything they set their minds to, but sometimes they have been so focused on being a student that they have not thought of a career path,” said Barrington. She said that she hopes the program can help students who are intimidated by the process of applying to jobs by bringing students in similar situations together, which makes the process easier and more enjoyable for everyone.
Members of the club enjoy benefits such as priority for selective opportunities like the upcoming dinner with members of the Board of Managers. Although Barrington says that members have enjoyed the opportunities that the Career Seekers Club has provided, many students still seem unaware of the club’s existence.
“I have never heard of the Career Seekers Club, although it sounds like it would be helpful for planning my future job endeavors. I think most people would be interested if they knew about the club,” said Stefan Laos ’17.
Barrington acknowledged that the group is not well-publicized, though she hopes that this will change in the future as the program expands over the coming year.
“We are hoping to offer more of the Seekers Clubs, with different focuses for different groups like a group for self-assessment and another for interviews, for example.”
Last Thursday, the students who attended the meeting represented all four classes, an indication of the appeal of the club as a gathering spot for students at all different stages in career development. The club serves as a first step for students who are unaware of Career Services’ offerings, and provides a broad overview of the many in-depth workshops that Career Services provides each semester. As Barrington said in closing, “Careers are chaotic. I just want to teach people how to manage the chaos.”
