FEATURES
THE TIMES-DELPHIC
FEATURES
THURSDAY, MAY 6, 2010
DON’T. MISS. THIS.
PAGE 4
Drake Theatre’s “Working,” 8 p.m.-10 p.m. Thur.-Sat., 2 p.m. Sunday, First Unitarian Church, 1800 Bell Ave.
Taking care of business A look at some of the best and worst summer jobs
>>Get a
step ahead
Stay a step ahead of the competition and make sure to have all the right tools when applying for your summer job
1. Resume Keep your qualifications to one page. Include experience, education, involvement and skills that are applicable to the job. Alter your resume depending on what each company is looking for.
2. Cover letter Keep the introduction to the application concise. Indicate how you heard about the position, why you are interested and what makes you qualified. Don’t repeat what’s already listed in your resume.
3. Reference sheet If your resume sheet is filled, put three to four current people of professional reference on a separate sheet. Keep the header the same between your resume and reference sheet, so they coordinate. Make sure and notify your references that you are using them as potential contacts for recommendation.
4. Business Card Have a clean-looking card that shares your contact information, including phone number, email and Web site (if you have one). If possible, have the colors on the resume and card coordinate.
5. LinkedIn Manage your contacts and network with potential and past employers on LinkedIn.com. Keep your working status updated and ask for recommendations from co-workers and bosses. Make sure the profile picture is a plain headshot, with little background distraction.
The bell rings and school’s out for summer. This means tanning, baseball and no responsibility for Drake University students. But wait—schedules without lectures and finals also means more time to work. It’s the jobs seen posted on online job boards or hanging with pull-off tags that are left for students to grab. The lucky ones get that rare break—the job that fits with their passions, like fashion, sports or journalism—but usually work for students is undesirable. The downright dirty jobs of dishing out fries, washing plates and husking corn are left for young adults strapped for cash. The average cost of undergraduate tuition at a private four-year university is $26,273, according to the College Board. This is up 4.4 percent from 2009 and many students will have to pay that price with a part-time, minimum-wage job. Despite the U.S. unemployment rate at 9.7 percent as of March 2009, according to the U.S. Department of Labor, there are still jobs outside of the college campus bubble. The lowest paying job, according to the CareerBuilder web site, is food preparation, serving workers with an average hourly wage of $8.03. Byron Spears, a junior politics and history double major, said he would rather work in a fast-food kitchen than at his last summer job again. As a night staffer at a juvenile detention center he was required to sit on watch from 10 p.m. to 8 a.m. He had to perform a variety of unwelcome tasks. “If any of the kids peed in bed, guess who got to change the sheet and clean them up?” Spears said. Bad jobs can serve as a great party conversation starter. Lyn Schneider, a senior public relations and politics double major, can casually throw in that she worked in a factory on bombs. “I tied knots on bomb cartridges for eight hours a day,” Schneider said. “But this year, over Christmas break, I got to move up in the world. I got to rub the lids with a toothbrush on returned bomb cartridges from Iraq.” Schneider said she needed money the summer before she studied abroad and after her other lifeguarding job. The job of passing out samples at a grocery store is also often a focus of underpaid students. Norah Carroll, a junior magazine and English double major, got a temporary agency job serving samples at Sam’s Club the summer before college. The agencies will contract employees for a limited time—which was just fine with Carroll. “I wasn’t very good at it, though, because I don’t really eat meat and I was serving meat,” Carroll said. “People kept asking me what it was and I had no idea. So, they moved me up to shampoos and my job was to sit on a stool for six hours and answer questions about Pantene shampoo, if people asked me—which they didn’t.” From a student perspective, the best jobs are usually the highest paid. This year’s highest paid student part-time job, according to the company Studentpayouts.com, is working with technology as a computer lab assistant. It might not be glamorous, but fixing printers and rewriting HTML pays an average of $21.78 per hour.
photo courtesy of DAN BEHRENS
DAN BEHRENS guides groups of high school students along a river near Canada. Clerking as an administrative assistant and instructing aerobics are also well-paid enterprises. Exercise enthusiast Kelly Kretschmer, a sophomore vocal performance major, advises contacting the Bell Center about opportunities to instruct exercise classes. Kretschmer said she gets to work up a sweat teaching step aerobics twice a week while getting paid. Like Kretschmer’s job, employment opportunities that combine salary and enthusiasm are the most sought after. Dan Behrens was lucky enough to find a job through his love of the outdoors. The junior health sciences major guides groups of high school students on five-night trips along different waterways in Minnesota, near the Canadian border.
Deb Wiley, assistant director of Drake human resources, encourages students to equally weigh all employment opportunities, on and off campus. “On-campus jobs are great if a student needs, or wants, to take classes at Drake,” Wiley said. “With the on-campus jobs during the summer a student can work up to 40 hours per week, so it will feel like a regular full-time job.” Eric Gudmundson, a senior public relations major, loved his on-campus job as an orientation leader so much that he attempted to obtain the position, only allowed for current students, again. “Being an orientation leader was super flexible, so you don’t think of it as a paying job,” Gudmundson said. “It’s different than any other type of job, because you get to work with co-workers, administration, parents and students.” Internships are also a beneficial use of time in the summer. With the economy in a standstill and hiring in a lull, many companies are cutting paid interns in exchange for free labor. Outside the door to Car– BYRON SPEARS, lyn Crowe’s office is a list of worked at juvenile detention center opportunities everywhere from Washington D.C. to California. Crowe, internship coordinator and adBehrens said he likes taking a vacation junct journalism professor, will offer advice from the hubbub of college. The break is to all students who contact her. forced as his main campground base is an “The biggest tip I have for looking for hour away from cell phone service. an internship is to start at your network of “I love being in such an isolated place professors, advisors and speak with them because it helps you appreciate the simple what advice they might have,” Crowe said. things in life,” Behrens said. “Everything “Spread the word to get the game goyou do is an adventure and you never know ing.” what will happen on any given trip.” Crowe suggested many resources for He has stories to tell about bears steal- students to figure out that looming issue of ing food, sleeping in severe storms and ca- finding a summer job. noes tipping over in the middles of rushing “LinkedIn is a great resource for netrivers. working,” Crowe recommended. “I defi“It is a rewarding, challenging and nitely advise getting and keeping up a prounique job experience that I will be doing file.” again for the third straight summer,” BehGo to www.drake.edu/hr for a complete rens said. listing of on-campus jobs. Because there Tents, mosquitoes and dirt aren’t for are few students on campus in the summer, everyone and to make bank, students don’t on-campus positions can be limited. Profeseven need to venture off Drake campus. sional and Career Development Services There are many options to pad those pock- have an online database, called Career ets with green at a number of on-campus bluePrint, which employers use to post offjobs. campus jobs and internships. n
“
If any of the kids peed in bed, guess who got to change the sheets and clean them up?
”
Staying in Des Moines this summer?
Music fest hits downtown by NICOLE WILKE
Staff Writer nicole.wilke@drake.edu
Since April 19, more and more bands have been progressively released as acts to perform at this summer’s third annual 80/35 Music Festival in downtown Des Moines. The festival, named after the intersection of interstates 80 and 35, has drawn more than 30,000 attendees over the Fourth of July weekend for two days of live music in Western Gateway Park. The festival is organized by the volunteers of the Greater Des Moines Music Coalition (DMMC), a nonprofit movement committed to building a stronger and more diverse live music economy. The big-name headliners that will play include Spoon and Slightly Stoopid on July 3, and Modest Mouse and Railroad Earth on July 4. Other acts include The Walkmen, Avi Buffalo, Earl Greyhound, Cashes Rivers, The Heavy and Dar Williams. All of the acts
TOP TUNES
1 MODEST MOUSE
Indie rock band, was nominated for a Grammy in 2004. Will perform July 4.
will be announced by 80/35 by mid-May. Tickets are available through midwestix. com and cost $60 for a two-day pass, and $35 for a one-day pass. Tickets are also sold the day of the concerts for $40. VIP tickets are on sale for $175 and include a two-day festival ticket, free and discounted food and beverages, a preferred viewing area near the main stage, access to separate restrooms and select free merchandise. Spoon is an indie-rock band from Austin, Texas, that was formed in 1994. Since then, they’ve had three albums debut in the Billboard 200. In 2009, Metacritic ranked Spoon as the Top Overall Artist of the Decade, based on the band’s success between 2000 and 2009. Slightly Stoopid hails from Ocean Beach, Calif., and boasts music that’s a blend of reggae, punk and ska. The band was discovered by Sublime front man Bradley Nowell in 1995 and has released six studio records, crisscrossing the country on an almost-constant tour schedule. n
You won’t want to mis these bands performing at 80/35 music festival
2 SPOON
From Austin, Texas They have released seven albums and were featured in “500 Days of Summer”
3 THE WALKMEN
Indie rock group, incorporates piano beats and vintage instruments.
photo courtesy of desmoinesmc.com