For students and new grads – a conversation with Career Education Specialist, Ken Lee

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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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