Your Career Strategy: The 4-month mark

Dear MSF Students, 

Greetings from Gies Career Services! It’s been around 4 months since the MSF orientation/Career Boot Camp so we hope you are settled in and enjoying your time here at Illinois! Now that Spring semester is over and summer is approaching, this is a great time to pause and reflect on all that you have learned and experienced during your first semester. It is also a good time to plan and write down what you hope to achieve for the rest of the year.

With this in mind, we created the below documents to help students stay on track and plan for Summer and Fall. For students seeking industry opportunities, please check out the following:

BUILDING A STRONG CAREER FOUNDATION: CAREER ACTIVITIES LIST


Preparing and planning ahead is important because you're only here for a short period so it is to your advantage to invest the effort and time towards your career (regardless if you’re targeting the U.S., or other countries). Set aside a block of time every week to focus on career-related activities since opportunities can come knocking at any time!

To help you stay on track, please see Career Activities List (see attached). This list is not meant to create more stress or overwhelm you. It merely serves as a general road map to help you plan for Fall recruiting and your final semester since many students are not sure where to start. Hope this helps!

Before you start submitting hundreds of applications, it is a good idea to review this list so that you are aware of your ‘career-readiness level’.
 

MSF RECRUITING TIMELINE
We distributed this timeline to all students who attended the MSF Career Boot Camp during orientation. Here it is again for your reference: 

FAQs
How do I find opportunities?

• Utilize various job search channels such as the on-campus recruiting channel targeting university students (e.g., career fairs, employer information sessions, Handshake job board, practicums, case competitions, educational workshops, etc.) and off-campus recruiting channel (company website, external job boards such as LinkedIn, Careernomics, Indeed.com, other social media platforms, your personal and professional connections/network, 3rd party search firms, etc.).
• Be resourceful in how you are finding your opportunities. Don't forget that most opportunities exist in the 'hidden job market' so expanding your network and building connections is important to discovering opportunities that are not advertised! 
• If you would like to learn more about all the various ‘job search channels’ and how to discover opportunities through the hidden job market, feel free to schedule an appointment on Handshake and we can chat!

When is the best time to apply for internships and full-time roles?
There is no ‘perfect time’ to apply due to a couple of factors:

1) The employer’s recruiting timeline and plans

• Each employer has a different recruiting timeline and strategy so it’s difficult to generalize when is the best time.
• There are external factors that influence an employer's recruiting timeline (e.g. the pandemic has impacted the timing for many employers)
• But if you want a general timeframe, for on-campus recruiting, high season is usually between September-October and February-March. For off-campus recruiting, opportunities are posted all throughout the year. 

2) When you will graduate

• For example, most of you will graduate in May 2022 so if you apply for a full-time role now, some employers might be asking the question “Can I wait until next year until this student graduates?”
• Having said this, some employers start recruiting for full-time roles as early as July so you can start monitoring opportunities during the summer depending on your target employers' recruiting timeline. 

If you have any questions regarding the above, we encourage you to schedule an appointment on Handshake with a Gies career advisor. 
 

MSF JOB RESOURCE GUIDE

If you’ve been reading the “Job Corner” emails this semester, you already know that we have a Job Resource Guide with suggested job sites (U.S. and global) and career tools to help with your search. I'm sending this to students again for reference (see attached).

We created this guide to provide a “one-stop shop” for all resources we think you would find beneficial. We organized the sites by the following categories:

• US. Job Boards
• International Job Boards
• Finance-related sites
• Consulting-related sites
• Company Research sites
• Illinois Student/Campus Organizations
• Off-Campus Conferences and Fairs
• English-language resources
• Networking and Professional Associations
• Financial and Business News

Note: The guide has also been saved on Gies Groups > MS Finance page > Files tab > Click “The Essential Career Documents” (you will need to log onto Gies Groups first).

SUMMER PLANS

Gies Career Services will be open this summer for one-on-one virtual career advising. Feel free to log onto Handshake to view available timeslots. We will be sending another announcement next month titled “What You Need to Know for Summer” which will provide an overview of all the career-related services, upcoming training events, and resources available to students so check your inbox!
 

If you have any questions regarding the above and would like to discuss how to create your own career plan and organize your job search, please schedule a career advising session on Handshake. 

Thanks and wishing you a relaxing summer!
 

Regards,

Deb

Deborah Hom
Associate Director, Career Services
1033 Business Instructional Facility, 515 E. Gregory Drive, Champaign
217.300.3274 | dhm@illinois.edu
Have a career-related question? Want to practice interviewing? Schedule an appointment here.