It’s important to make the connection between college and career. However, making that connection can be difficult if you are still exploring the employment landscape and where you fit.

Following are some tips on how to explore careers and gain experience in order to engage in meaningful opportunities.

Tips for Exploring Careers

• Meet with your CSF college coach. Coaches are trained to partner with you and help you explore your options and establish career goals.
• Visit your college career center and meet with a career advisor. Many career centers have career exploration tools that can help you find good-fit careers.
• Attend career fairs. Research what’s available on your campus or in your community.
• Conduct informational interviews with alumni, employers and/or professionals working in fields or roles of interest. This is one of the most powerful yet underused strategies. So many professionals are enthusiastic about helping college students succeed. Read more about informational interviews here.
• Job shadow. This can be a great next step after an informational interview, or you can network to find opportunities to shadow a professional for a day.

Tips for Gaining Career Experience

• Access internships. Internships are a great way to build work experience, and grow your network. Check out your campus website to learn more.
• Volunteer to build your resume while improving your community. This is another great way to grow your network, enhance skills, and learn more about what you are passionate about.
• Work-study is a great way to gain skills and support your college fund.

More Career Success Resources and Tools

Read our blog posts on launching your future and download career success tools and resources .