How we would help Conan O’Brien

Hello again business Salukis!

By now we hope you are settled into the new semester and everything is running smoothly with all of your classes, and of course as well as your career planning. As you may have noticed we have gotten off to somewhat of a late start ourselves with this being the first blog of the semester, but let’s be honest, you had to know we wouldn’t go too long without offering our friendly reminders didn’t you? We just wouldn’t be doing our job as the “Business Placement Center” if we didn’t offer you some words of encouragement to help get that proverbial ball rolling. But we digress, with this being the first blog of the semester we wanted to take this opportunity to once again remind you that we are still here to help you with your career planning needs. Nearly every semester we get a handful of students who come into our offices and make the comment (word for word), “Golly, I sure do wish I would have taken advantage of these services earlier in my college career”, and we completely agree, which is precisely why we do what we do.

Let’s take Conan O’Brien for example, if you have followed any of the NBC political happenings over the past couple months you should know that poor “Coco” is out of a job, and if you know even a little bit about what we do here at the BPC then you should know that if Conan was one of our students here he wouldn’t have too much to worry about. So ignoring the fact that Conan is actually not one of our students, he is the perfect case to help us demonstrate how to utilize our services, given that he has found himself unemployed for the first time in nearly two decades.

Now that he has had some time off to think a little bit, perhaps Conan is starting to question what it is that he wants to do with his life; maybe he doesn’t want to be TV show host anymore and is considering following a new passion. Either way, if Conan was one of our students then he would know that he could contact us here at the BPC to make an appointment with our career consultant, Christian Bryant, who helps our students with their career decisions.

We’re also assuming that Conan hasn’t updated his résumé for a while since he had such a “sure thing” going with NBC, nevertheless if he is looking for a new job this is something he probably needs to work on. Granted, being a TV personality for as long as Conan has been is something that might speak for itself, however if he is looking to get a job as say, a screenwriter, we would work with him to adjust his résumé so that his relevant experiences with Saturday Night Live and The Simpsons would showcase his writing skills.

We would do everything we could to help Conan get opportunities with his desired career path, which in most cases would lead to an interview; an area where Conan may need more work than he could imagine. After 17+ years of being the interviewer, it is likely that Conan may have forgotten what it’s like to be on the other side of the desk; therefore we would work with him to get comfortable with the whole process again through our mock interviews.

No matter what the need is, we just want our students to feel comfortable coming to us with their concerns, knowing that we will do everything that we can to help them out. So get your career planning in motion this semester and plan on utilizing our services to the fullest, because in the end it’s all up to you and how much you’re willing to put into it.

Written by: Jon Robben, Business Placement Center

A Little Help from Your Friendly Neighborhood Career Consultant

In case you haven’t been told of the career consultation services we offer here at the BPC from any of your professors or friends, and even if you have and wanted to learn more, let us fill in you in on what could be the greatest news you’ve heard since getting that last snow day. As a business student you can receive free sessions with our career specialist, Christian Bryant, whom if you haven’t met is as bright as the California state she comes from. While working on completing her joint MA/PhD in Counseling Psychology, Christian brings her years of counseling and academic advising experience to our offices here to specifically help students in the College of Business.

Now before you get discomforted by the idea of receiving “counseling”, you should know that this will be able to help you with virtually any school related problems you may be having. Christian believes that “Everyone can benefit from career consultation; from CEO’s to young students, everyone can be helped with identifying their direction”. College students especially are at a time in their lives when big decisions are upon them, whether they are dealing with choosing a major, planning a career, finding work, or the stress that comes from this and our consulting services will be able to help you through it.

If you are interested in making an appointment, you simply can give us a call (618-453-2604), email (bryantc@cba.siu.edu), or stop in our offices (Rehn Hall, Room 113) to schedule a time. And if you do make an appointment all you need to bring is yourself and an idea of what you want to get out of it; Christian will work with you to figure out your goals and direction towards finding a solution.

Written by: Jon Robben, Business Placement Center