Chanel Baxter, Career Center secretary clerk, sits behind the front desk welcoming students as they come through the front door, but what she might not realize is that she might be one of the first people to see students make a life changing decision.
The Career Center is located on the second floor of the Multi-Purpose Building.
Students can come to the center and find resources to help them perform better during interviews, beef up resumes and where to look in the first place for not just any job position, but careers they have been studying for.
Baxter said, “We have job binders where [students] can actually find positions from different companies off campus and sometimes we have positions on campus.”
Aside from pin-pointed job positions, the Career Center also has workshops where students come and experts can oversee resumes and correct them or create resumes with the students from scratch.
Baxter believes that last semester people were not so interested in the workshops, but that this semester there has been an increase in people attending the workshops.
“We have a lot of teaching jobs for people that want to be teachers, marketing jobs because we help our students even after they graduate,” she said.
The Career Center can also help students find internships, both paid or unpaid, specified to their majors.
Baxter said, “[Employers] need people, [employers] need to hire people.”
Counselors are stationed in the Career Center to help students with questions concerning careers.
There are also counselors in the counseling department next to the Financial Aid Office.
However, Shannon Estrada, re-entry resource specialist, said, “Our counselors can also do the academic part so they can do what the other counselors do. It’s just that each counselor has a specialty and ours specialize in career counseling.”
The career counselors work on resumes and interviewing skills.
For those that have been long gone from the familiar grounds of Cerritos College, they can still use the Career Center for help.
Rose Vasquez, administrative secretary for career services, said “As long as [alum] graduated from here or got a certificate, [alum] can come back and use our career services.”
If the career a student once chose as a path doesn’t grow or is difficult to find a job, alum can find help in the Career Center to choose a different career.
Estrada mentioned a new program the Career Center has implemented on every last Monday of every month called Career Cafe.
Estrada said, “We kind of set up [the Career Center] like a little cafe and serve coffee and cookies, but the point is [students] actually get to sit down with the career counselors and have a conversation and just ask questions.”
A program the Career Center often holds is the Job Fair where employers come onto the campus and talk with students in Falcon Square or the surrounding area and according to Estrada, can actually hire students on the spot.
The Job Fair will be in effect Wednesday, Oct. 24 from 9:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. out on the library sidewalk.
