Starting this school year, career peer advisors will be around campus helping promote the Smith Career Center by giving presentations, sitting at booths, helping to write resumes, helping students know how to use the career center’s services and a whole lot more.
The Career Peer Advisor Program is new on campus. The employees in the SCC modeled the program after other successful university programs. Some of the universities are Princeton University, Purdue University, University of Nebraska and University of Iowa.
The program has been molded to fit Bradley specifically.
“We have high expectations for our peer advisors,” said Executive Director of the Smith Career Center Jane Linnenburger. “We are very excited.”
Most of the career peer advisors were student employees with the SCC before being given this opportunity. They are the models of what career peer advisors will be like on campus in the future, Linnenburger said.
The students include Jen Palahniuk, Dan Short, Ripki Patel, Ana Trujillo, Hallie Duesenberg and Megan Wendland.
They each work 10 hours per week.
Some of the qualifications they have are their positive attitudes and desires to help others, excellent communication skills, expertise in using eRecruiting and computer systems, motivation, team spirit, leadership skills and creativity.
If a group or club on campus would like a guest speaker to talk to their group about a specific topic, they will be able to contact the SCC. Once the career center is contacted, one of the career peer advisors will arrange a presentation based off the needs of the group.
Sophomore civil engineering major Ben Leege said he liked the idea of the advisors.
“It can sometimes be easier to talk to students who are at your own level, rather than someone who has their name on an office door,” he said.
Although the career peer advisors are trained and can use online resources, each has their own specialty with online resources and special outreach. The online resources include programs such as InterviewStream, OptimalResume, GoinGlobal and social networking sites. The special outreach includes student organizations, eRecruiting first time users, greek organizations, residence halls, multicultural organizations and transfer students.
A peer advisor will be available from 3 to 5 p.m. Mondays through Thursdays and noon to 2 p.m. on Fridays in the SCC, Burgess Hall room 104 for walk-in hours.
