For students and new grads – a conversation with Career Education Specialist, Ken Lee
Public Health SPOTlight Podcast · PH SPOT
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Show Notes
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Show Notes
In this first episode of 2021, Sujani sits down with Ken Lee who is a Career Education Specialist at Ryerson University. His role is to specifically support students in the area of health. I love this conversation because the episode offers practical tips for students and new graduates. We really wanted to provide guidance to help navigate their careers.
You’ll Learn
- What a Career Education Specialist’s role (also known as a Career Centre or Coop Centre) within a university is, and its value.
- What students can expect from these services career centre (i.e. resume writing, networking).
- How Career Centre services have changed in the face of a pandemic.
- Why students should reach out as early as possible (i.e. first year) to these Career Centres/services, even if they don’t need any help or guidance just yet.
- Whether students’ questions and concerns for their public health careers have changed since the pandemic.
- How Career Centres help students achieve their goals: we take a common goal that students come to Ken about and talk through the type of advice we’d offer them.
- A specific question we tackle and discuss strategies for is: “how do I get policy/research type roles and/or experiences?”
- Strategies related to the following top questions received by PH SPOT from public health students and new graduates:
- How do I get public health experience – specifically, if I am about to graduate soon and need to quickly build experience?
- What cover letter tips should I keep in mind? (Hint: Regurgitating what the organization knows about themselves is not enough anymore. It’s no longer about “what” you said, but how you say it.)
- How do I get a mentor? Do I need a mentor? What’s the difference between a sponsor and a mentor? How to build strong relationships and give back to your mentors.
- Skill building: How to build skills outside of your academic courses?
Resources
- Articles related to Sponsorship versus Mentorship
- The Relationship You Need to Get Right, Harvard Business Review
- A Lack of Sponsorship Is Keeping Women from Advancing into Leadership, Harvard Business Review
- Sponsors Need to Stop Acting Like Mentors, Harvard Business Review
- Building public health experience: Example – UN Volunteer
- Discovering public health experience: PH SPOT’s Public Health Newsletter
- Skill Building – Infographics 101: How to design public health infographics with software you know and use.
Other PH SPOT resources:
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