Parents and Prospective Students

Here are some tips and guidelines for helping your son or daughter prepare for their future over the next four years.

1. Listen to your son/daughter’s career concerns and ideas – By listening to your son/daughter you can provide them with feedback, support, and information regarding new interests and goals.  Talk to them about your own work experiences including your industry type, employer, roles and responsibilities.  You can offer to have your son/daughter job shadow you or a friend for a day to experience different types of workplaces.  While you can share your own values, interests, and goals, be sure to respect your son/daughter’s interests, especially if they differ from your own.

2. Help your son/daughter maintain a strong, positive self-image – It is tough to convince an employer that you are the best person for the job if you don’t believe it yourself.  With this in mind, try to help your son/daughter identify their strengths, values, skills, personality traits, and enduring interests.  Let him/her know that you admire these specific qualities and help them recognize that these qualities will act as great assets to a future career.

3. Provide personal contacts for your son/daughter – Neighbours, friends, and relatives are great resources for informational interviews.  These face-to-face connections with employers can be vital, as up to 90% of jobs are never advertised.  While you may come up with questions and ideas for informational interviews, however, leave the actual interviewing up to your child as it is an important part of his/her career development process. Check out our tip sheet on information interviews.

4. Help out Carleton University students! – If you are an employer, consider contacting Carleton University’s Career Services with job/volunteer opportunities.  Our website CUHire allows you to post job opportunities at any time; amend your job postings, such as the job description or deadline for applications; and post multiple jobs at your convenience — at no charge!

Posting a job on CUHire is easy. Just follow these steps:

- Visit CUHire and complete the registration form. Please allow up to one business day for activation of your account. You will receive an email notice to inform you when your account is active.

- Once your account is activated, you can login and post job opportunities at your convenience. Jobs will be approved and released for student viewing within 48 hours of your submission.

5. Encourage your child to…

Obtain marketable skills – In addition to working on a University degree, challenge your student to work on supplemental marketable skills in at least 2-3 of the following areas:

• Computer skills (programming, word processing, spreadsheets, and internet)
• Quantitative skills (accounting, statistics, and economics)
• Communication skills (written and oral)
• Marketing skills (sales, publicity, and fundraising)
• Scientific skills (lab skills and scientific research)
• Foreign language skills (especially French, Spanish, Chinese, and Russian)
• Leadership skills (supervisory, extracurricular leadership roles, and teamwork)

Take advantage of internships and co-operative education - These programs can give your son/daughter a sense of the real world of work.  Internships can be paid or unpaid and can vary in length (many occur over the summer).  Often these experiences serve as gateways to future jobs or setting up networking contacts.  To learn more about co-op click here.

Make the most of Career Services at Carleton University - As career educators on campus, Career Services has a team of professional career counsellors and support staff ready to assist, guide, encourage, and counsel Carleton University students and alumni.  It is helpful to ensure that your son/daughter is familiar with the wide range of services available through Career Services at Carleton University which include:

• Job postings
• Career workshops
• Career advising appointments regarding: networking information, résumé and cover letter review, mock interviews, interview preparation, and post-graduate education information
• Career Fairs
• Resources

Participate in extracurricular activities - Volunteer work and extracurricular activities are extremely important.  These activities, both on and off campus, can be immensely helpful to your student’s growing awareness of their strengths, weaknesses, likes, and dislikes, all of which are critical to the career decision making process.  These activities are also viewed positively by employers.  Carleton’s co-curricular record (CCR) program allows you to record your extracurricular experiences.  To learn more about the co-curricular record click here.

Try out direct employer contact – Encourage your son/daughter to find 10-15 companies or organizations that fit with his/her interests. They should research them through company websites and then contact them directly about an interest in working for them.  Direct employer contact, or “cold calling”, can feel like a shot in the dark.  However, it is actually one of the most effective job search strategies students can employ.

Find time for career planning/job search activities - With many demands on time, students too often put off their career planning “until tomorrow”.  Encourage your son/daughter to use Carleton University’s Career Services as early as their first year and to visit often.  Do not despair, however, if your son/daughter graduates in May without a job.  All career fields have different search deadlines and it takes time to find the right opportunity.  Being a full-time student and a full-time job seeker is a challenging experience.  But remember, Career Services is still available to help students as members of the alumni.

A note to prospective students…

It is great that you are considering coming to Carleton University.  Once you arrive, be sure to come into Career Services as early as your first or second year to start working on skills and developing your résumé .  *Registered Students* in any year and in all programs will have full access to the wide range of services, listings, workshops, magazines, and resources available at the Career Centre.