The Stuckert Career Center, located on Rose Street, offers free resources that enhance professionalism skills as students begin internship processes or job applications after graduation.
Whether students are at the beginning of their college career or the end, these resources help polish students into great employees for the workplace.
Through the career center, students have access to integrated success coaching, free headshots, resume labs and career exploration. Each of these resources have counselors or coaches behind them to help support students at the University of Kentucky.
Divine Frimpong, senior psychology major, is a student employee at the career center who works the front desk.
Frimpong explained that the process of getting free headshots is relatively easy and stress free. Students can make an appointment through the career center website 24 hours in advance to their preferred date.
“It’s a pretty simple process. They get three pictures, two of them they can retake,” Frimpong said. “What’s cool about it is it sends it to your email in two minutes after you’re done so students can look at it to see if they like it or not.”
Headshots are a great accessory to put on LinkedIn profiles and Handshake accounts, a program used by UK to help students apply for internships and jobs, Frimpong said.
The background of the headshot booth is white, so employees recommend that students wear neutral colors or black to get their photos taken.
“You have 30 minutes in this booth so you’re more than welcome to switch outfits,” Frimpong said.
Another resource students have access to is meeting with a career exploration advisor. These advisors assist students in finding different career paths and preparing for interviews. Career exploration advisors are accessible by appointment through the Handshake app, and they are available to help any UK student.
Ray Clere, director of the Stuckert Career Center, meets with students throughout the year and helps them find a path best suitable to their needs.
The career exploration team created a new feature to help students find a career they would enjoy by answering a series of questions. This platform helps students discover jobs that are in alignment with their “personalities, values and skills,” according to Clere.
“Launched this fall, FOCUS 2, is a self-contained platform that students can log into with their link blue credentials, and they can take brief online assessments that start to match them with different careers and academic pathways,” Clere said.
Meeting with an advisor after taking the online assessment is not mandatory, but the advisors are available to review students’ results if needed.
For interview preparations, students can practice mock interviews with advisors. The questions are customized to the students’ needs for the interview process. The advisors will prepare students with general questions, as well as questions that relate specifically to their internship or job of interest.
Another interview resource provided by the career center is Big Interview. This is a practice interview that is independently recorded on a student’s device with a webcam. The platform records students answering a variation of interview questions. After the questions, students are able to play it back and evaluate themselves or bring it to be evaluated by an advisor.
“It has artificial intelligence features, so if they are using conversational fillers like ‘um’ it will alert them,” Clere said.
The career exploration team also hosts events throughout the year with employers from different organizations and companies in surrounding areas.
Senior human communication major, Erin McCaffrey, first visited with a career exploration advisor when she was a freshman.
“I had absolutely no idea what I was doing, and I would say that the most valuable thing was having something to think about,” McCaffrey said. “I would leave the room and was like OK I could start somewhere. It was not necessarily that I had found something, but it felt like I was more secure, and I had a place to start.”
Advisors help students, like in McCaffrey’s case, to find a major that is suitable to them and piques their interest. McCaffrey also said that going to a career exploration advisor is a great way to “get your foot in the door” and get a different opinion from someone other than your academic advisor.
The university also offers integrated success coaching. Coaches are knowledgeable in helping students with more problems than just their grades. Their expertise ranges from setting goals to controlling stress.
Julie Bradley, associate director of integrated success coaching in the Department of Transformative Learning, has been working as a coach for seven years at UK.
“Coaching is a very forward-facing process, it’s about ‘here’s where I am and here’s where I want to get,’” Bradley said.
Coaches are professionally trained to the highest level and follow Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) regulations. Meetings are held privately and are confidential.
Students are asked a series of questions in regard to the goal they want to set for themselves. Coaches do not solve problems for the student, instead students leave feeling like they figured out a pathway themselves, according to Bradley.
No matter where students are on their academic journey, they have access to these coaches through MyUK. Student’s do not need a low GPA or a specific goal to see a coach.
“We actually work with a lot of students who want to raise the bar, they want to get better grades. Their grades are OK, but they want to push them up,” Bradley said.
UK students on academic probation are more likely to succeed and get off probation after meeting with a coach, according to Bradley.
If students need a specific resource that coaches cannot provide their expertise in, they will guide students to the right resource and help them coordinate a meeting.
“One really important process when you come meet with a coach is when you decide what your goal is, we’re going to help you figure out what resources you need to achieve that goal,” Bradley said.
Getting started early is recommended, especially by Clere. He compares students starting early and getting involved at the career center to climbing Mount Everest.
“Start early and take it piece by piece,” Clere said. “When you climb Mount Everest you don’t do it in a day. You have basecamp and then camps for several days leading up to the summit. A senior who waits to start the career planning process is almost like skipping basecamps.”
