Student Career Action:
Take Action
Now that you have determined your goal, created an action plan, finalized your resumé and cover letter approach, and created your professional online brand, it’s time to implement your plan. If you are applying to internships and jobs, now is the time to learn how to find opportunities that will help you achieve your goal, start networking strategically, practice your interviewing skills, and get ready to negotiate.
Internship & Job Search
There are many ways to find internship and job opportunities. Below are a few of the main ways we recommend at the Soll Center for Student Opportunity. Remember to always use filters to narrow your search results. In many instances, you can save your search parameters and then set up automated job alerts to make your recruitment more time efficient.
Handshake
Over 35,000 organizations are hiring on Handshake – the Claremont Consortium’s primary resource for connecting students with professional opportunities including jobs, internships, fellowships, and career-related programming. Please refer to the guide for how to optimize your Handshake job & internship search.
Sponsored Internships & Experiences Unique Opportunities
CMC provides many summer experiences to which students can apply, including academic and research opportunities, experiences such as the Appel Fellowship, and partnered internships offered by CMC institutes and centers. These can be found at the SIE Unique Opportunities site.
CMC Internship Database
The Internship Database is a searchable database of every internship conducted by a CMC student since 2013. You can filter through various internship positions that SIE students have held in the past and reach out direct to current students or recent alumni to learn more about their experience. Access the internship database.
You can also find opportunities on LinkedIn. Internships and jobs on public job boards such as LinkedIn are not specifically targeted at CMC students, so are often more competitive. For more information about how to find and apply to jobs on LinkedIn, refer to our LinkedIn guide.
Government & International Relations
For students interested in opportunities related to government and international relations, Professor Pitney (the Roy P. Crocker Professor of Politics in the CMC Government Department) maintains a website of government-related employers in DC and California that link directly to each organization’s hiring page. You can also email Professor Pitney to be added to his recruitment emails, that are filled with alumni-sourced opportunities for internships and jobs.
Recruitment Events
Many employers offer in-person and virtual recruitment events. These include info sessions, networking events, coffee chats, career fairs, and industry meet-ups. You can register for these events on Handshake and use this guide for tips on how to make the most of employer events.
Job Search through the Lens of D&I
At the Soll Center for Student Opportunity, we are committed to connecting students of diverse backgrounds and identities to professional opportunities and resources. We've identified some key programs and resources that are dedicated to diversity, equity, inclusion, access and belonging. We hope that, with support from our office and these resources, students will accomplish their career goals and feel prepared to navigate the professional world.
Professional Networking
One of the ways in which CMC is so special is our highly responsive community of alumni, parents, students, faculty, and staff. We have alumni in every country and working across every industry and profession. CMC alumni are often willing to help current students explore their career options and provide advice based on their own experiences.
Networking can feel a little intimidating at first. Informational interviews are conversations that you schedule with someone to learn about an industry, organization or role. Informational interviews are the best way to build professional relationships and gain advice and information. They enable you to get insider information, learn about career paths and company culture, discover opportunities that may not be posted online, and are an important first step in helping you build your professional network of contacts. The Soll Center for Student Opportunity has created a CMC Informational Interviewing Guide to help you reach out with confidence. Once you have read the guide, we encourage you to create an Engage.CMC account to find the preferred contact details for each CMC alum.
Download CMC Informational Interviewing Guide PDF
Interviewing
There are many different types of interviews, all of which have a different purpose. Learn more about the different types of interview format you may encounter, including screening interviews, behavioral interviews, case interviews, technical interviews such as coding, and one-way recorded interviews. The Soll Center for Student Opportunity offers a number of resources to help you prepare for your upcoming interview including Vault Advice Guides (with in-depth guides to behavioral interviews, case interviews, and finance interviews). Career Services also offers mock interviews conducted by staff and experienced students who can walk you through typical questions and give you immediate and personalized feedback. Finally, consider practicing these typical behavioral questions and utilizing the suggested questions for you to ask at the end of an interview.
Offer Negotiation
Congratulations on receiving an offer! The Soll Center for Student Opportunity has developed a Negotiation Guide to walk you through every aspect of your offer and provide advice for negotiation tactics, including what you can negotiate, how to negotiate, sample emails, and useful links. The Claremont Consortium follows recruiting policies which are sanctioned by the National Association of Colleges and Employers. These policies request that employers give candidates at least two weeks to make an informed and responsible decision, however it is ultimately up to the employer as to how much time they are willing to provide. Career Coaches at the Soll Center can help you figure out the best way to proceed. We can also help you negotiate your offer and reject an offer without damaging your professional relationships at the organization.
