Strategies and Tips

• Complete your Handshake profile.
• Upload your résumé and make yourself visible to employers.
• Find local, regional, national and international job and internship postings.
• Sign up for on-campus interviews.
• Identify employer contacts based on your major or field of choice.
• View Candid Career videos for employment preparation and researching careers.

• Review top employers who have hired Huskies. Scroll through the dashboards for job titles and
• Find what job or internship titles people with your major have obtained.
• Use the list of employers to give you ideas of what types of employers to look for elsewhere.
• Once you find the list of organizations, use LinkedIn and Handshake to identify contact people.

We are thrilled to connect our students with our Employer Advisory Council. This council serves as a bridge between academia and the professional world, offering invaluable networking and job prospects to students like you. As a key resource, the council provides real-world insights, industry trends, and guidance, ensuring that your academic pursuits align with the demands of the ever-evolving job market. This partnership forges connections that could open doors to internships, cooperative experiences, and even full-time positions.

Log in to Handshake to learn more about each company and see their jobs and internships!

• Aerotek
• Anderson Trucking Service Inc.
• Blattner Energy
• Boys & Girls Club of Central Minnesota
• Capital One
• Career Solutions
• Catholic Charities of the Diocese of St. Cloud
• CentraCare
• DeZURIK, Inc.
• Enterprise Holdings
• GeoComm
• Greater St. Cloud Development Corporation
• Microbiologics
• Newport Healthcare
• Park Nicollet Health Services
• PMA Financial Network, LLC
• Preferred Credit Inc.
• Schlenner Wenner & Co.

Scam "job opportunities" often take the form of "personal or office assistants" and frequently ask an individual to purchase items for their business, deposit checks for the business, or negotiate sales between a vendor and a business. What the scam is attempting to do is get the individual to deposit a fraudulent check (that will bounce in a few days/weeks) and purchase items or send personal checks with their own money. They are also attempting to collect personal information that could be used in future identity theft (address, SS#, bank information, etc.).

If you are a current student and believe you have been contacted by a job scam, please forward all email correspondence to the Career Center at careercenter@stcloudstate.edu or call 320-308-2151 to discuss the situation. The Career Center is available to talk with students about any job posting prior to responding to an inquiry. Please talk with a trusted advisor before responding to any job posting.  Additionally, you can research the company on the Better Business Bureau.

We encourage you to:

1. Never provide any personal information by email to an employer.
2. Use a different strong password for each online account.
3. Change passwords more frequently for accounts with access to confidential data.
4. Never share passwords with others.
5. Whenever suspicious or just plain curious, Google everything, website addresses, names used, companies mentioned, phone numbers given, all email addresses, even sentences from the emails as you might be unpleasantly surprised at what you find already posted online.
6. Consult the Career Center or a trusted advisor if you have questions about any job posting that seems “fishy” or too good to be true.

Job Posting Guidelines and Common Job Scams to Avoid:

Email Phishing Scams

Online scammers are becoming much more sophisticated in their attempts to lure victims, especially using email links to false websites. It is increasingly difficult to tell the difference between legitimate and counterfeit online sites. There has been a recent uptick in phishing attacks at institutions across the country.

Over Payment Scams

Over payment scams are designed to entice you with quick money in advance of doing any work. They are typically advertised as personal assistant, administrative assistant, or book-keeping positions needed to assist with processing checks and orders for supplies, or mystery/secret shopping. The new employee is instructed to deposit the check into the bank, take out their salary and wire the remaining money to their agents. These fraudulent checks will quickly bounce and leave the new employee out thousands of dollars and facing criminal charges.

Be cautious if the email or job posting

• Does not list a company name or the job advertisement is vague about the position and requirements.
• Comes from an email address that doesn’t match the company name (most legitimate companies will use the company domain instead of a Gmail, Yahoo or Hotmail account).
• The job posting says “no experience required”, or the employer is not interested in your work history or skills.
• Information about a job is not on company letterhead or uses bad grammar or punctuation in communications. The company sends multiple recruitment letters and are sometimes identical letters from people with different names but the same job title.
• Offers to pay a large amount of money for almost no work.
• A job is offered without the submission of a resume, or after a brief or no interview.
• Asks you to pay an application fee.
• Up-front payment is requested to get the job. For example: a software program needed to work from home, or training materials, credit or background check fees, a work visa, or travel expenses.
• Wants you to transfer money from one account to another.
• Offers to send you a check before you do any work.
• Asks you to give your credit card or bank account numbers.
• A request is made by phone, text, or e-mail for personal information (social security number, date of birth, driver’s license number, credit card information, or bank account information) so that paychecks can be directly deposited.
• Says you must send payment by wire service or courier.
• Offers you a large payment for allowing the use of your bank account – often for depositing checks or transferring money.
• Sends you an unexpectedly large check.
• The recruiter requests you to recruit others for the same position.
• The recruiter pressures you to accept the job.
• A person high up the corporate ladder (CEO, company owner, or HR Director) is recruiting you.
• A company approaches you about a job for which you didn’t apply.
• The job opportunity looks too good to be true. Examples of this are easy work with high pay, high starting salary for an entry-level job, or wages way above the typical pay for a similar job.

No legitimate employer will send payment in advance and ask the employee to send a portion of it back. DO NOT provide any personal information especially social security numbers or financial information.

Direct contact is the key to getting noticed by an employer. Most resumes posted online with companies are never seen. Get the advantage by connecting with employers who attend job or career fairs.

• Private College Job Fair — Use the site to identify job and internship postings and employer contacts.
• Most Job and Internship Fairs hosted on St. Cloud State University's campus will have the employer lists available in Handshake a month before the event.
• Career Center also lists and links to job and internship fairs.

• Try different job titles and locations. Example: Nursing jobs in Minneapolis; Nursing jobs in Twin Cities.
• If you need some ideas for job titles, remember to view the Post Graduation Outcomes.

• Key sites to consider are:
  • EdPost for PreK-12 employment.
  • MinnesotaWorks.net – one of largest sites for jobs in MN.
  • The “big” job boards, Monster, CareerBuilder, Craigslist, etc.
  • Indeed, LinkedIn, or Simply Hired.
  • Check out classifieds online with newspapers in the geographical areas of your interest.
  • Visit our Jobs page for additional links.

• Job search sites for international students and job searching internationally.
  • Using the H1B data, you can also identify employers, by state or industry, who hired international students on H1B visas.
  • Find out who has hired St. Cloud State University's international students
• Diversity Sites and Differently Abled Sites

Job and internship-specific sites

• On each of the Program Career pages, find links for career specific job or internship posting and career information sites.

Other “niche” posting sites for a specific career area

• Research shows a high rate of success through "niche" sites such as MN Council of Nonprofits and TV Jobs.
• Professional Associations sites (for example Public Relations Society of America for public relations majors or IEEE for engineers) and other career specific sites. Find these by:
  • Asking professors
  • Networking with people who work in your areas of interest
  • Google (for example “marketing professional associations” OR “communications professional organizations”)
  • Use “Directory of Associations” or “National Trade and Professional Associations” in the Miller Center.
  • LinkedIn

• Employment agencies most active in recruiting new college grads include:
  • Pro Staff, Aerotek, GradStaff, Robert Half/Accountemps, and Career Professionals.
• To find the agencies with specialties that fit your interests, research Employment Agencies online.

• Networking is the number one way most people find their jobs and internships.
• LinkedIn is a great networking tool. Learn how to add a million people to your network.
• Make inquiries by phone. Although your first contact with an employer may be through email or LinkedIn, a phone conversation is a good follow-up.
• Face to face contact is ideal. Remember to take advantage of our Career Events.

• 14 Companies That Let You Work Remotely - An article by Glassdoor.
• Learn to Work Remotely - How to find a job and be successful working from home.
• Remote Medical Careers
• Work-From-Home Scams - Identify various red flags to look out for, common scams and resources for victims to turn to.
• Zippia - A listing service for job seekers interested in working remotely.