Building Professional Skills
Skills and certifications
During college, you have unique opportunities to build skills and experience in your career field.
- Coursera provides learning opportunities and professional certificates
- Podium offers real-world experience with global companies to build career-ready skills
Forage includes self-paced modules designed to simulate tasks completed during an internship
Professional networking
Connecting with alumni and professionals in your field can open doors to jobs that are not shared publicly.
- Volunteering helps build skills and experience while forging career connections
- Job shadowing can demonstrate interest in the field and can lead to internships
Joining professional organizations connects students with resources along with opportunities to meet professionals
Experiential learning
Competitions, global learning and internships offer a blend of networking and skill-building experiences.
- Competitions can help build problem-solving, teamwork and technical skills
- Studying abroad provides a global career perspective while building skills like adaptability and resilience
Internships provide opportunities to practice real-world career skills while building strong relationships with employers
Researching careers with CareerOneStop
CareerOneStop is a career readiness platform sponsored by the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration. Among many other useful resources, CareerOneStop includes occupational profiles for more than 900 occupations. Each profile includes:
- A written summary, alternative job titles and a video description
- An outlook showing growth in the occupation based on projected employment
- Typical wages at the national and local levels
- Experience and training needed for the role
- Typical educational level of people working in the profession
- Day-to-day activities
- Knowledge, skills and abilities required for the role
Under the “show more” button on the left side of the screen, there is a filter for “interests” that shows the RIASEC code associated with the occupation.