Career Planning and Preparation

Why Communication is Important  A scholarly article on the centrality of the Communication discipline to education, work and life.  A source of ideas for how to convince employers of your value to them as a communication major.

Some Career Possibilities for Communication and Theatre Arts Majors - developed by your COMM faculty!

Skills and Knowledge Often Developed by COMM Majors that are Valued in the Post-Graduate World

Marketable Skills of Communication Majors - A brief listing of skills, strategies for career preparation and possible jobs from the career center at Southwest Missouri

Evergreen State University Career Development Resource Page  A comprehensive list of good resources for conducting a job search, writing a resume, finding a grad school, writing application letters, and interviewing.  Lots of examples.

Florida State University Career Guides.  A number of focused, highly useful guides to the full range of job search issues including strategies, goals, resumes, interview issues (by job type) and so on.

Interview Etiquette / Answering Tough Questions - a slide show of advice developed by COMM students.

McGaan's List of "Key Elements in the Job Search"

Negotiating Job Offers.  Basic advice from Florida State comprehensive guide to the full range of issues involved with how to negotiate when you receive a job offer.  Also look at the collegegrad.com site on Job Offer Negotiations

Inside Jobs.  We help students discover what careers exist and learn what paths can get them there through our free site.  Our descriptions are fun to read and include salary ranges, cutting edge jobs, and videos as an inside look into different careers. Use the site search to find career information that fits your interests.

Quintessential Careers.  Excellent and comprehensive resources for career planning.  Good advice on resumes and portfolios.

CareerProfiles.  "For years CareerProfiles.info has been assisting career minded professionals, job seekers and students make better, more informed career choices by providing them with highly relevant, reliable and up-to-date career information and job search resources. With many thousands of regular website visitors CareerProfiles.info is now one of the premier career and job search websites on the Internet."

America's Career InfoNet is a comprehensive career website. ACI offers articles and advice on everything career related! Find information on career exploration, local employment services, military transitions and much more!

Careers in Public Relations.  A collegegrad.com site with lots of background information on the field of Public Relations as a potential career.

News Analysts, Reporters, and Correspondents. A collegegrad.com site with lots of background information on a career in news.

Advertising, Marketing, Promotions, Public Relations and Sales Managers.  More career background information from collegegrad.com

Internship and Job Search Sites

Careerrookie.com is Careerbuilder's site specifically created for individuals looking for internships and entry-level jobs in a wider range of fields.  This is a good choice as a starting point in your search.  Also, you can download their print magazine on careers and job hunting at this location!

Visit this America's Career InfoNet webpage to find links to advice on evaluating a job offer, accepting a job offer and even extending a counteroffer. Think it over, before accepting an offer!

Communication, Journalism, Media and Public Relations Career, Internship and Job Webliography.  Benita Dilley's exhaustive list of industry specific job posting sites, media corporation web sites, research locations and more.

Academic Employment Network Search for employment in teaching or other academic-related jobs for colleges, primary, and secondary schools across the nation.

CareerJournal.com, from The Wall Street Journal. The site is free and offers everything you need to find a great job, move up in the one you have, or plan your continuing education.  Search 30,000+  jobs from the nation's top companies, plus opportunities in Europe and Asia. If you're just getting started, internships and entry-level positions for college graduates are available. Sign up for alerts that tell you when new jobs are added that match your personal criteria.

CareerBuilder Post your resume, check out online job fairs, and connect with thousands of employers.  Lots of career search and planning resources.  Sponsored by a number of large newspapers and featured in the Chicago Tribune.

Career Center Large Career and Job search site with excellent company links.

Center for Communication - Career links.  this site has a wealth of interesting links to information on media related and some other communication careers.  Check out their main page for useful information on the media business, internships, etc.

CollegeGrad.com  CollegeGrad.com specializes in entry-level jobs.

Hotjobs.com.  HotJobs.com 's job search engine can find jobs by location, industry, or job title.

HR Careers,   a career-center home for Human Resources / Training & Development / and Multi-media professionals.

iHipo is one of the most popular international career websites for  students and graduates. iHipo’s mission is to help internationally-minded students and graduates find an internship/job and to advance their career. The site is free for students/graduates and offers users a carefully-researched overview of available internship programs worldwide, ranked by category.

Internship Search Site  Rising Star Internships. Good internet site for beginning to look for internship possibilities and how to make the most of them

Internweb.com  Internships Abound at Internweb.com - FREE Internship Searching and Posting

JobBank USA Search one of the Internet's largest jobs database, use resume builder to create and submit resume to resume database.

JobDirect Connects students with companies seeking entry-level employment and assists job seekers in creating a thorough resume with Resume Workshop.

Jobsinthemoney.com is the leading job site dedicated to finance and accounting professionals. Job seekers can freely apply to thousands of financial jobs and post their resume. Free 2001 Financial Salary Survey and financial career resources.

Jobs.Net  A nice interface and easy access to international job listings.  Also provides an email notification system.

JobWeb Search a database of current job openings and read profiles of companies. Includes Job Seeker Discussion Groups and Career Planning Resources.

Juju Job Search Engine  A relatively new search site.  Juju is a “job search engine” rather than a “job board”, which means that it indexes jobs listed on thousands of sites around the web to provide job seekers a single point of access to as many job listings as possible, instead of only showing them a limited set of jobs that they have been paid to promote like traditional job boards do.  The search engine is fast and easy to use.

Media Careers Page at "VAULT"  Articles and advice along with media, entertainment, Public Relations and marketing job ads.

Media_Entertainment_Jobs.com.  Browse for jobs in a range of fields including:  Advertising - Account Management, Advertising - Creative Services, Design / Graphics Jobs, Event Management, Journalism and Copywriting, Media Booking and Traffic, Museum and Arts, Performance, Photography, Promotions, Public Relations, Publishing, Tv, Film and Radio

Net-temps.com   "Net-Temps, A World of Jobs Neatly Packaged"  Net-Temps, the number one Internet recruiting center for the Staffing industry. Net-Temps brings together the world's leading staffing firms with the best candidates for contract assignments and direct placement. Net-Temps boasts a cross posting distribution of over 500 Internet search engines, portals, directories, on-line services and newsgroups as classified employment ads. These include Excite, Yahoo, Alta Vista, and Lycos.

PR, Communication Employment Directory  by O'Dwyer's PR News is a special website for undergrads and recent grads pursuing careers in public relations, public affairs, communication, media, and related fields.

Riley Guide Considered to be one of the best career and job information sites on the Internet, this site breaks down job resources into categories such as arts and humanities, computers and technology, business, health, education, and government jobs, to name a few.

Urban Interns  Internship listings for positions in major cities like Chicago.  Also lists lots of "virtual" internships that can be done from distant locations (like your home).

Monster.com Everyone knows it and it's worth a look.

Websites For Government Job Seekers

USAJOBS.gov:    This is the federal government’s official job seeker website, which was completely redesigned in 2010.  Individual agency websites: Agencies are not required to post internship positions on USAJOBS.gov, so internship seekers should visit individual employment pages to find these announcements.

Wherethejobsare.org   This website outlines federal hiring projections for mission-critical positions in government through 2012.

Makingthedifference.org   Job seekers will find a number of resources for finding and applying for federal opportunities, including tips for building a federal resume and navigating the security clearance process.

Work4Illinois  The State provides job opportunities in a wide range of occupations and titles. This website will guide you through the state employment process for the departments under the jurisdiction of the Governor.

Job Hunt Illinois   A wide range of links to employment web sites including many agency and local government sites and specialized private section job search sites.

GradSchools.com  Advertises itself as the "leading resource for information on graduate school information."  Not specific to Communication or Theatre but easy to use.

Graduate Schools USA.  An easy to use search site for graduate school programs of all types in the United States.  Check out the pages for Communication and Journalism.

The Graduate Record Exam is required by many graduate programs.  For those schools your scores must be received before you will be considered for admission and (most importantly) financial support (tuition waivers, assistantships, etc.).  Scores take a number of weeks after you take the test to arrive at the grad school so you will need to take the test during the Fall to insure your scores arrive in time.  The link here will take you to the GRE site where most all the information you need to take the exam can be found.

The National Communication Association This link takes you to our national association home page. CLICK HERE to go directly to the page listing links to communication graduate programs. Find links to all graduate programs in communication in the U.S.A. and some overseas.

Accredited Programs in Mass Communication and Journalism  A listing of professional (and technical) programs in mass communication.  Does not include liberal arts, research or PhD. programs (for research/PH.D. programs see the NCA listings above). Includes undergraduate as well as graduate programs.  Provided by the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication.

Where Shall I Go to Study Advertising and Public Relations  A publication of Advertising Education publications.  Loaded with stats and links to programs by state.