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Volume 38 Issue 6
November 21, 2000

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On-campus resources ease search for career

BY LEANENNA M. EL GHALAYINI
MESA LEGEND
Submitted November 21, 2000

According to career counselors Debby Smith and Suzanne Hipps, now called "program advisers" for the career/re-entry services center at MCC, students are not spending enough time investigating their majors before pursuing them.

Kim Patterson/MESA LEGEND

Career counselor Debby Smith, right, assists MCC student Tracey Bruner with finding the right job on the Internet.

"We say that our office is the best kept secret on campus," said Hipps.

More than 50 percent of college students take longer than four years to graduate, and the cost of tuition per year is about $2,400.

Part of the reason that it takes so long for students to graduate is that many students change their major mid-stream.

It was reported that 70 percent of freshmen change their major at least once before graduating from college with a four-year degree.

In fact, Smith changed her career twice before she decided on a finance degree.

According to Hipps, many students choose their major because they were influenced by their family, friends or social surroundings.

"That’s why it is so important to get to know yourself before you make those choices. Really learn about yourself — what your likes and dislikes are," Hipps said.

Hipps admits that her decision to become a secretary in 1968 wasn’t exactly what she wanted.

"Society hadn’t changed to give us, as women, permission to do anything,"Hipps said. "It was more or less acceptable to stay in that mode of secretaries, teachers or nurses."

However, after raising four children, Hipps, at age 37, returned to school to pursue a business degree.

The center offers several programs and materials to help students investigate a career path before leaping blindly into it.

The Keirsey character sorter and Myers-Briggs type indicator (MBTI), are career-interest surveys used to evaluate students’ personalities in relation to careers and work styles.

Arizona futures is a computerized career planning program obtained from the Arizona Department of Research, which contains information on salaries, future prospects, working conditions and qualifications for civilian as well as military occupations.

Several events are also planned every year, such as the career expos and workshops which are posted on the marquee or can be found on their web site.

Although these programs and workshops are designed to help students decide on a major, the center also helps students obtain work experience and job placement.

Tom Kilian, career services representative and a member of the Metro Human Resource Association, helped design Maricopa Recruiters, an internet job service with 24-hour access.

The system not only gives students a direct line to the job market, but also allows them to submit their resume online.

"Someone just told me at a meeting that a student got on and got registered, and within an hour they had four job offers," Smith said.

Since MCC started using the Maricopa Recruiter, about 8,000 jobs have been posted, and there is an average of 1,000 jobs listed on the site every day.

Maricopa Recruiter is designed to match a student’s skills with perspective jobs.

The system is free for both employers and applicants, and instructions on how to use the system are available on-line at www.maricopa.edu/recruiter.

In addition, Kilian states that several organizations are involved in meeting people who have an interest in a particular field.

Students can go to these networking meetings as a guest or as a member, and "A high percentage of jobs are obtained through networking," Kilian said.

Kilian also refers students to additional sources and programs such as job hotlines, the book of lists and internships.

"Internships have not been quite as popular recently, because the job market is so good that students can find as many jobs as they want for their own work experiences and get paid right now in just abot any field," Kilian said.

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