Get Hired
Expert tips from the College of Business and Economics’ Career Development Center
Robert Summers (B.S. ’16, Business), a former high school dropout and construction worker, says that after applying to more than 30 jobs and going on countless interviews, it was Travis Nelson’s mentoring that made the difference. “I was just telling interviewers what I thought they wanted to hear,” the accounting and finance major says. “And Travis told me, ‘What are you doing to stand out? Go in there and tell your story.’”
Nelson, the manager of the new Career Development Center within Cal State East Bay’s College of Business and Economics, spearheads the effort to offer employment resources to students and alumni, free of charge. “You’d think that any firm would be happy to have this guy working for them,” he says of Summers. “He had experience [as an intern] working with a billion-dollar budget for the Veteran’s Administration, a high GPA — but he wasn’t getting past that first interview. For most college graduates, the how and what are the same. It’s the why that’s different, and that’s what they need to focus on.”