With COVID-19 closures causing a less than ideal end to the academic year, the Marywood Career Development Center is continuing to assist graduating students in the search for jobs and internships.

Dr. Christina Brundage, career engagement specialist at the center, said the pandemic is putting a damper on the job search for graduates.

“Unemployment rates are very high at the moment because of COVID-19, but there are things that students that are graduating and looking for jobs or internships can do to try to beat the Coronavirus’ damage to the job search and the employment out there,” said Brundage.

Brundage said she is working on sending resources out to students from the Career Development Center to help them stay diligent and flexible while looking for job opportunities. She said she wants students to gain experience so when the job market reopens, they will be ready for any job.

To aid students with this, Marywood’s Career Development Center is hosting a virtual career fair in place of the original on-campus event that had to be cancelled, and virtual recruitment sessions.

Brundage also said that students have access to the Handshake virtual platform where she has posted upcoming events, job opportunities and any other information that would help them with the job search. Brundage also said that students can use Handshake to communicate with professionals in the field they are going into to get advice or apply for a job.

According to Brundage, one of the most helpful ways for a student to find potential employment is by alumni networking.

“Our alumni have great interest in helping our students out, through just the general population including our own networks,” said Brundage. “I am going to be posting out to our social media sites to recruit as many employers who may want to either do virtual things for our students. Even if it is a virtual internship, it is still an experience.”

During this time, Brundage said the Career Development Center will still be offering resume review sessions, cover letter developments and mock interviews in a virtual format.

Brundage also recommended that students apply for more jobs than they usually would, “cold call” companies to see if they have any open positions and use networking websites like LinkedIn and Handshake.

To help connect students with virtual internships, Marywood has teamed up with Parker Dewey, is a company that helps students discover micro-internships that can be done remotely.

Parker Dewey was founded in 2015 to give students extra experience doing paid micro-internships during the school year. Founder and CEO Jeffrey Moss said that because of this format, students can participate in regular classes and experiment while leaving the summer open for a large 10-week-long internship.

“It was never designed to be a replacement for the 10-week on-site summer experience,” said Parker Dewey founder and CEO Jeffrey Moss.

Due to the current pandemic closures, Parker Dewey is working with a multitude of companies and over 300 universities to give students a hands-on, paid learning opportunity.

“We’re busier than we’ve ever been,” said Moss. “We don’t do any outreach to the colleges. We’re not a vender. We’re not selling anything. The schools proactively reach out to us.”

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Twitter: @EllenFrantzTWW