Horizon Point Consulting

Category: College Students

Beyond Ready is resources for students preparing for college and/or career. This category archive specifically features blogs about College Students.

  • Goal Setting for Students

    Goal Setting for Students

    I’ve always been a list maker. I love to make a list at the end of each work day, so I can draw a red line through item after time the following work day. And, by the way, I don’t just do this for work. I do it for everything: grocery list, kid’s activities for the week, Christmas shopping list, cleaning for the week and the list goes on and on. I’m the queen of lists.

    That being said, even though I’m a list maker, I’m still not as organized as I would like to be. But, when I began the process of quarterly goal setting and implemented a weekly tracking process, organization and my life ran much smoother.

    I believe this process can not only be valuable in a person’s career, but is a great tool to help students become more organized and, long term, be ready for college or career. What a great habit to begin as a high school student?

    First things first words written on the chalkboard
    First things first words written on the chalkboard

    To quote Stephen Covey, first things first, developing a mission statement is a great way to get on the right track. Check out Developing a Personal Mission Statement to prevent stress and burnout  and Power of 3 – Mission and Purpose to help you develop a mission statement. Then, you are in a great position to begin your quarterly goal setting. You can begin this most any time of year, but I suggest beginning on January 1 or in the summer before the upcoming school year. Develop 3 or 4 goals for the quarter. Then, document how you will achieve those goals. This will help you as you begin entering action items into you weekly tracking spreadsheet.

    Even if you are very disciplined, it is great to have an accountability partner. So, grab a friend and begin the process together. How great will it be to be entering your senior year of high school and already be on the right track for college or career? You could have your portfolio complete, applications completed to your top college choice, job shadowing experience and even taken the ACT for the fourth time. You will be leaps and bounds ahead of some of your classmates.

    Check out our Goal Setting Worksheet to help you get started.

  • Best Advice for College Freshman: Go to Class!

    Best Advice for College Freshman: Go to Class!

    I remember my first two weeks of college.  As a freshman at The University of Alabama, known when I was there as the number two party school in the nation (unlike the rank in college football which has risen significantly since I’ve been there, I think the rank in partying has gone down), I went out every night for the first two weeks. There was always a party going on.

    I realized rather quickly after classes started that there was no way I was going to be able to maintain the party schedule and make it.    I’m glad I came to this realization sooner rather than later, but I wish someone had given me some tips on how to survive college before I left.

    Here are some tips I wish I had been given:

    1. GO TO CLASS.  This is really the only tried and true tip I have.  If you are committed to going to class, the other tips will be easy because you will need to do them to make sure you go to class.   Going to class will make college a lot easier.   You are there to get an education and the primary way to do this is through attending your classes.   You’ll find that if you go to class and listen, you won’t need to study near as much, your grades will be much better than those of your peers who skip, and you’ll be able to keep your priorities in line.
    2. Get enough sleep.   If you are committed to going to class, then you’ll have to get enough sleep to maintain this commitment.  That means partying till 2 am on a Wednesday night when you have a morning class on Thursday won’t be an option you’ll have to consider if you’re committed to going to class.
    3. Enjoy the extracurricular things that college has to offer.  Yes, that means parties and social activities. It also means getting involved in things you enjoy whether it be sports, student government, on and off campus organizations and even work that can help pay for college and give you practical experience to make you more marketable when you graduate.   And if you go to class, you hopefully won’t have to spend as much time studying to learn the material that you should have learned about in class, giving you time to enjoy the things that make college a learning and enjoyable experience outside of the classroom.

    College should be a practice in balance, just like all periods of life.  Taking an all or nothing approach to studying or partying/social activities isn’t necessary.  You can do both and learn from both.

    What tips do you have for college success?

  • Mollie’s List of Must Haves For Dorm Living

    Mollie’s List of Must Haves For Dorm Living

    My roommate and I do not live in the same town so we decided to meet up and shop together. As soon as we started in Bed, Bath, and Beyond we became overwhelmed. We finally decided on the colors we both liked and then everything fell into place. I have always been excited about decorating my dorm room! I knew how I wanted to decorate it but I didn’t realize that I had to plan to get everything I would need for the next year! The bedding and decretive things were fun to find, but then I had to start thinking about how many lightbulbs I needed and how big does our trash can need to be. To make this whole process easier, I have come up with a list of must haves for your dorm room.

    Dorm Must Haves: The Basics

    Bedding 

      -Comforter 

      -2 Sets of XL twin sheets

      -Mattress Topper (It is very important to get one that is thick and comfortable, this is what will make your dorm bed comfortable)

      -Pillows

    Bathroom

      -Bathroom rug

      -Trashcan

      -Shower shelf

      -Towels ( if you have not already recieved plenty from graduation gifts)

    Other Dorm Items

      -Area Rug

      -Futon

      -Stool (I plan on raising my bed to have more storage room)

      -Storage Bins ( great for packing everything and storage!)

      -Trashcan

      -Laundry bag

    Cleaning Supplies

      -Detergent

      -Clorox wipes

      -Dryer sheets

      -Hand soap

      -Room spray

    Dorm Must Haves: For Decorating

      -String Lights!!

      -String and paper clips to hang up pictures! 

      -Headboard

         – This is the one my dad made for me!

    131121_0001

    I have less than a week until I leave for school and I almost everything planned out and packed. Earlier this week I even made a life size layout of where I wanted everything to go in the dorm room.

    140724_0006

    For more dorm decorating ideas, check out the Horizon Point Pinterest board!

  • 4 easy steps to know which keywords to include in your resume

    With all kinds of tools out there these days for a computer instead of a person to initially screen a resume, we get lots of questions about keywords.  What keywords am I supposed to include seems to be the critical question.

    What keywords should I include?

    You will know what keywords to include because they are in the job posting.  Tagcrowd.com  is the quickest and coolest way we’ve found to identify keywords by the frequency they appear in the posting.

    What you do:

    1. Find a posting
    2. Copy and paste the posting into Tagcrowd.com
    3. View the word graphic it displays
    4. Make sure the biggest words are incorporated into your resume

    Here’s an example:  On Indeed.com we did a simple search for “IT” positions.

    Picking this one:

    ITJobPosting

    We pasted it into tagcrowd, and this is the result:

    tagcrowd copy

    If you were applying for this position, the key is to make sure you emphasize the marketing experience you have in social and content marketing.  Development software, writing, research, and Mircosoft product experience are going to be needed.  You’ll also need to emphasize ways you’ve collaborated and engaged others.   And see “bachelor” up there in the top right corner? You’re going to need a bachelors degree.

    If you are wanting to develop a resume for a variety of openings, then search for openings in the area in which you are pursuing, copy and paste several of them into tagcrowd and look for consistencies.  The words that come up the biggest and most frequently need to be included in your resume.

  • You Get 6 Seconds: Think Like a Recruiter when drafting your resume.

    You Get 6 Seconds: Think Like a Recruiter when drafting your resume.

    Count to six. What do you think you could get accomplished in this amount of time? Not much, but a recruiter has already reviewed your resume and moved on to the next one by the time you can get to seven.

    The Honest Truth.

    Hiring managers and recruiters, at least when it comes to making decisions based on a resume, don’t care about anything but your experience and your education if it’s required for the job.

    Someone may tell you having phrases like “highly motivated”,   “self-starter”, “strong interpersonal skills”, etc. need to be on your resume, but you can’t prove that you are these things simply by putting them down on paper.

    The cold hard facts that can be put on paper, and therefore, as the video shows, where recruiters focus their time:

    1. Where you’ve worked and for how long
    2. What education you’ve obtained

    And that is what the powers that be look at. You may be able to prove to them in an interview that you are, in fact, a “self-starter”, but stick to the concrete stuff on a resume. Where you’ve worked and for how long matters- whether we like it or not.