Before he became an EMT, Adhitya was applying for a patient care assistant position at IU Health. This role would allow him to gain more experience in patient care before medical school and certainly provide a stepping stone to other healthcare career opportunities. The only problem was getting his application noticed.
Adhitya was part of the Integrated Freshman Learning Experience (IFLE) and Science, Technology, and Research Scholars (STARS) programs when he came to IU as a freshman and often took advantage of the Walter Center and the services it offered. When he was applying for this initial position, he visited a Walter Center career coach to figure out how to get an interview.
“It was the day before a career fair. I asked, ‘What can I do to get them to listen to me, to read my application,’ because I knew if I got the interview I’d do well. It was just getting to that point.”
So his career coach sat down with him and looked at different LinkedIn recruiters, how to leverage his personal story and experience, and what this job would help him accomplish in his career goals. He felt prepared and the next day he went to the career fair to give it another go.
Finding their fair booth and talking to a real person made all the difference for Adhitya. “I told them I’d applied to IU Health multiple times, that I hadn’t had an interview yet but it would just be great if I could get an interview, just like I talked about with the Walter Center coach.”
This worked for Adhitya – the representative from IU Health asked him to send his resume to them personally and, before he knew it, had received a phone call and had an interview.
Relying on a career coach to prepare him, help him do more research, and navigate entry into a competitive career area allowed Adhitya to bring his A game to the career fair, and let him further into the healthcare field.
“Career coaches, to me,” said Adhitya, “feel almost essential to undergrads, especially now. I view my career coach as my academic advisor but for my future. With the way the job market is now, and the new jobs that didn’t exist before, it’s hard to navigate that without having an insider to help you.”