Finding Your Future: SJVC Career Services
SJVC is committed to the personal, academic, and professional success of its students and alumni. That’s why the College’s Career Services teams at all SJVC campuses provide guidance and training to help SJVC students and alumni reach their career goals. This is a key way that SJVC furthers its mission of emphasizing education that is directed toward career professional development and advancement.
Guidance the Career Services team provides covers the gamut of job-preparation skills, from resume writing, creating a job search plan and interviewing techniques, to externships and employment opportunities to help you get hired in your field of study.
SJVC connects with employers in campus regions to help you find positions after you graduate with the necessary job skills. Our programs and courses equip you with the skills employers want. The College has an enduring reputation for supplying qualified candidates to employers from its student and alumni base.
Career Services Advisors will work with you to help identify your short- and long-term goals and offer methods that support your goals in your job search plan.
Working With Career Services Advisors at SJVC
SJVC students and alumni work directly with each campus’s Career Services Advisors. Advisors also work directly with employers to build relationships, coordinate externships, and identify employment opportunities within the community for our students and graduates.
When you enroll in any of SJVC’s programs, a Career Services Advisor is assigned to you. SJVC students and graduates receive guidance from an advisor. This service is offered at no additional charge. That’s another key way that SJVC can help prepare you for a career during your journey with us and beyond.
SJVC alumni can benefit from staying connected with their Career Services Advisor throughout their working lives. Career Services maintains constant communication with employers looking for employment opportunities for SJVC alumni and students. Employers often reach out to the College looking for candidates who have several years of experience, too.
As an SJVC student or alumni, you’ll work directly with your assigned advisor and with employers in the community to build relationships and identify and coordinate externship and employment opportunities from which you might benefit. After you enroll, you can contact the SJVC Career Services Department to learn the name of your assigned advisor.
Your assigned advisor can guide you on:
- Building resumes
- Creating cover letters
- Practicing interview skills
- Creating a job-search plan
- Locating externship program opportunities
- Networking
- Creating a job search plan
Devon Dilley, a Career Services Specialist, trains and supports SJVC’s Career Services Advisors. She also organizes each campus’s Advisory Board. “For us, a successful student is one who graduates and is employed in their field of study,” says Dilley. “From the time they first walk through our front doors, all the way through their program and externship—if their program has an externship—to graduation, their stories do not end, because we will continue working with them after they graduate.”
Resume Building with SJVC
Having a good resume to present to potential employers is an important element of the job search process today. If done well, a resume can be a strong tool to get the attention of a potential employer and ultimately get hired.
Building a well-worded, resume that accurately sets out your education and sells your job skills on paper can take some know-how and practice. A good resume can be adjusted and targeted to several kinds of specific roles to which you may be qualified to apply.
It can be just as important to know what to exclude from your resume as it is knowing which information to include.
Your Career Services Advisor will work with you to help you identify the components of a good resume. Your training will include tips and help with creating a resume that accurately sets out your training, education, experience, and skills.
Your advisor will provide tips on building a good resume, including:
- Specific contact information to include or exclude
- What personal details to include in your resume or avoid
- Which experience and accomplishments to include
- Organizing and formatting your resume
- Presenting your resume online in acceptable digital formats
- Tailoring your resume to fit a specific job role
- Proofreading your resume
- Writing an accompanying cover letter
- Updating your resume
The Career Services Seminar CSS 100 course, detailed below, is a requirement of graduation from SJVC. By the completion of taking this course, you’ll have a resume you created under the guidance of your advisor that you can present to potential employers.
Career Services Seminar
All SJVC students are required to attend and successfully complete the CSS 100 Career Services Seminar or its equivalent as a graduation requirement. This course helps prepare you for the job search process by engaging you in a variety of professional development activities.
You’ll partner with Career Services Advisors to learn job search techniques, such as how to create a professional, quality resume that reflects the skills you gained throughout your program of study. You’ll also participate in mock interview sessions that can help you develop and practice your interviewing skills.
The CSS 100 Career Services Seminar program will conclude with an Exit Interview that capstones your readiness for interviewing with prospective employers.
Each student will have an employer-ready resume by the end of the seminar—though they can work with Career Services Advisors to create one before the course. Your advisor will:
- Guide you through the steps of creating a resume
- Detail the assignments needed to complete CSS100
- Conduct mock employment interviews to ensure you’re interview ready
This course is completed independently, with Career Services Advisors available to assist you.
Interview Prep
Employment interviews give job candidates and employers the opportunity to learn firsthand whether they might be a mutually good employment fit. Along with knowing how to write an accurate and persuasive resume, interview practice is a great way to make a good first impression on potential employers. The more practice you have at preparing for each interview, the better you will perform.
Career Services Advisors help prepare SJVC students for employer interviews by providing them with interviewing techniques. These can include how to research a company with whom you’ll be interviewing, knowing what questions to ask, which to avoid, and techniques for answering questions that can help you to get hired.
Working with your advisor, you’ll practice by conducting mock interviews in a question-and-answer format. You’ll receive constructive feedback on the answers you provide in various mock interview scenarios.
Your Career Services Advisor may also coordinate interviews with employers that have relationships with SJVC. Career Services Advisors follow up with employers after the interview to get constructive feedback on your interviewing skills. This information will then be shared with you along with helpful tips for improvement.
When you arrange for an interview yourself, you are also encouraged to speak with your assigned Career Services Advisor before conducting the actual interview with the employer. Career Services may have contacts at the prospective employer and may be able to pass along tips to you for interviewing with that organization. Your advisor can also help you practice your interviewing skills.
Creating a Job Search Plan
Staying proactive, being productive, and maintaining a positive attitude is vital to any job search, Dilley says. Searching for a job can be an overwhelming process when you don’t have a plan that helps you stay on track, even if you have previous experience. Your Career Services Advisor will help you establish a strategic plan of action. They will help you determine your long-term career goal and help you set measurable short-term goals that can help you support it.
An important part of a job search plan is listing your skills, education, and strengths to help you pursue positions that may be a good fit for you. Your advisor can help monitor your job search progress, clarify, and hone your goals along the way.
Communicating and providing frequent updates to your advisor during your job search and staying open-minded to new suggestions are key to helping you stay on track in meeting your goals. Your advisor can help you customize your job search along the way to help align your efforts with current employment opportunities. Dilley says that it is also important to be open to employment opportunities as they arise.
Finding Externships and Extern-to-Hire Programs
SJVC strongly emphasizes education that helps students realize career development and advancement all along their educational journey, including real world instruction in your field of study. Externships and clinical training can provide real-world training and an introduction to workplace norms for students in their field of study.
An externship is a great way for you to apply newly acquired knowledge and skills in a real-world working setting. An externship may also lead to a future employment opportunity with the employer after your externship has been completed.
SJVC programs prepare students for future careers in their field of study by providing up-to-date program curricula that is relative to today’s workplaces.
Many SJVC programs require students to participate in off-campus externships or clinical experiences at teaching and learning facilities.
Externship opportunities are available for students in programs such as:
- Clinical Medical Assisting
- Medical Office Administration
- Medical Billing and Coding
- Dental Assisting
- Business Office Administration
- Pharmacy Technology
- Veterinary Assistant
Externship length and hourly requirements can vary by program. The required number of hours to successfully complete the externship competent of your program, if applicable, can be found in the SJVC College Catalog listing for your program.
SJVC student externships represent the final phase of student preparation for entry into your chosen profession in your field of study. SJVC works with employers in the communities at each of its campuses to meet the needs of employers and SJVC students and graduates. Employers find SJVC students well-prepared to fill various roles within their organizations.
Namita Mohideen is a board-certified pediatrician with Golden State Pediatrics who has experience working with SJVC externship students. She says she finds SJVC externship students prepared for real world jobs.
“Working as externs in different offices really gives them that solid background that allows the medical assistant to come out and be more independent, more confident in their abilities. They fit in the office much better because of it,” Mohideen says.
The externship serves as the final phase of student preparation for entry into their chosen profession. In order to optimize this learning experience, students must successfully complete all program courses and all other graduation requirements prior to entry into their externship.
Securing an Externship
You’ll partner with your assigned Career Services Advisor to discuss possible externship opportunities. The goal is for you to undertake externship opportunities that will potentially offer you employment opportunities when the externship period is finished.
Networking
“Networking is extremely important in developing your career,” says Dilley. “It’s something that we talk to our students and our graduates about quite a bit.” This can include keeping in contact with class instructors and classmates and maintaining a LinkedIn profile.
Networking involves forming connections with others who are working or who have worked in your intended field of employment. It can be an effective way to learn about employment opportunities and more about your chosen field. LinkedIn is one way to accomplish this. Directly reaching out to contacts in your field can also help you establish a network.
SJVC is a widely respected institution with 17 locations across California. Many graduates have gone on to work in medical, dental, trades, and other fields.
Career Services Advisors attend several networking events annually to encourage employers to participate in mock interview panels for students, career fairs, and advisory boards that benefit SJVC students and alumni. Career Services event schedules are specific to each campus.
Career Assistance
Career Services Advisors assist SJVC graduates with their job search by working to match employer needs with graduates’ career goals. The College works with employers in communities neighboring its 17 campuses. SJVC is a trusted member in each of these communities, helping employers to fill open positions with SJVC graduates and alumni as needed.
Automated Gate Services in Corona, California, has hired more than a dozen SJVC graduates. “What we’ve found is they are all very professional,” says Sandra Bonaparte, the organization’s human resources director. “All of them have shown up to work on time. They get paperwork back when we need it.”
Bonaparte noted that SJVC program graduates they hire are well-prepared for their roles. SJVC has provided them with the necessary terminology and certifications that gives employees a headstart in their new roles. “They were really prepared to be really great employees and citizens overall,” she says.
Employers reach out to Career Services teams with available positions and skills that are needed by candidates for specific roles. Advisors introduce SJVC graduates and students to the employer, supply resumes of candidates who have the required skills, and coordinate job interviews.
Employers are also encouraged to visit campuses and share information about hiring processes at their respective organizations, conduct on-campus interviews, and offer constructive feedback.
Employer Relationships
The College works with and responds to the specific needs of communities neighboring each of the 17 SJVC campuses. These communities perfectly complement the medical, business, and technical programs SJVC offers. SJVC has many major long-term employer relationships and other employers who may provide externship or employment opportunities to SJVC students and graduates. Employers include:
- IAP
- Fresh Produce Services
- Golden Living
- SkyWest Airlines
- Witron
- United Health Centers
- Kaweah Delta Health Care District
- Tyonek Services Group, Inc.
- Dignity Health, Mercy & Memorial Hospitals
- Community Regional Medical Center
- Children’s Hospital, Central California
- Lowe’s
- Delano Regional Medical Center
- Bakersfield Heart Hospital
- United States Cold Storage
- Peri & Sons Farms
- Madera Community Hospital
- Adventist Health
- Tasteful Selections
- HireUp
- Tulare Regional Medical Center
Working With SJVC Career Services After Graduation
SJVC’s mission strongly emphasizes education that is targeted toward your focused higher-education and professional development. The College works to promote your future career throughout your education at SJVC and beyond, including after you graduate. Promoting lifelong learning, including that which can enhance your career throughout your work life is an SJVC initiative.
These initiatives, mission, and values are extended to SJVC alumni throughout their lifetime. As an SJVC alumni, you can reach out for help from SJVC Career Services for career-related guidance any time after graduation.
Assistance you can request includes resume building, interviewing tips, conducting mock interviews, or furthering your education to get ahead in your career.
Alumni are also encouraged to attend campus special events and workshops Career Services offers at its campuses. You can contact the campus for assistance with employment, mock interviews, and resume building support.
College alumni are also welcome to support current SJVC students and fellow alums by participating in Career Services activities that can help prepare others for a successful career. Reach out to Career Services to learn ways you or the organization you work for could help others achieve career success.
Take The First Step
On-campus and online programs are waiting. Take the first step toward your future and speak to an enrollment services representative.
Career Fairs and Special Events Hosted at SJVC Campuses
Careers Services hosts career fairs and special events for prospective and current students to learn about SJVC programs and the College’s employer relationships. It’s another way SJVC works to help students and alumni be successful in their chosen career. Campus events are also a great way to form connections with other students and sometimes employers. Depending on the campus and the event theme, employers representing a variety of SJVC programs sometimes hold campus career fairs. Career fairs may also be hosted that address a specific program.
Events that are offered may vary by campus. Students and SJVC graduates will be notified about scheduled upcoming events. Examples of special events may include workshops on:
- Career professionalism
- Tips for completing job candidate applications
- Onsite employer interviews
- Employer Presentations
- Career Fairs
SJVC Advisory Board Panels
SJVC Advisory Boards serve as a direct link between the business community and the College. The Boards provide a means of communication with business organizations that are in communities the College serves.
Members offer varied perspectives and valuable input on the College’s programs to keep SJVC students and graduates ahead in today’s competitive marketplace. This may include course and program learning outcomes, suggestions for curriculum changes, and changes in hiring practices, industry standards or licensures.
The Advisory Board members comprise supervisors, managers, employers, employees, and business owners from business, technical, and medical industries. Advisory Board membership may also typically include College representatives such as faculty, staff, students, and alumni.
The boards meet annually and assist SJVC in providing relevant, quality programs that meet community employers’ evolving employment needs.
Train for Your New Career With SJVC
Working with a mentor throughout your education and career journey is important for career development and success. SJVC provides high-quality education programs, instruction, professional development opportunities, guidance and support services. Preparing you for career success is what an SJVC education is all about.
Whether you’re an SJVC student or SJVC alum, the College’s Career Services team can provide you with vital skills that solidly prepare you for the job search process in today’s workplace and beyond.
Learn more about how you can hit the ground running career ready at SJVC.
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