Career Services is hosting a series of workshops to help students with writing resumes and cover letters and teach students how to use LinkedIn and PANTHER TraCS starting at 4 p.m. Wednesday.

Career Services is available to help students with with resumes, job and internship applications and interview coaching.

Bobbi Kingery, director of Career Services, and John Marr, the employer relations specialist in Career Services, both encouraged students to visit the department located in the Human Services building.

Marr, who came up with the idea for these workshops, said the goal of the series is that at the end of it, students will be ready to apply for jobs or internships.

“They’ll have learned everything in this series to prepare them to do that effectively,” Marr said.

The first workshop is focused on how to write resumes, and Marr said resumes are the first step in applying for internships and are important because they are the first introduction to employers.

“You know your first impressions are important,” he said. “If your first impression isn’t good, (employers) are not going to give you a second look. So, you want your resume to look right.”

Kingery said the trick to make resume writing less stressful is to create a “master resume.”

She said the master resume is helpful because students can choose qualities from their master resumes that best represent how they will perform at a certain job.

“This is a resume that is going to have everything on it,” she said. “If you have the master resume, you don’t forget anything.”

However, she said the problem she encounters often is that students will create resumes their first year of college and not update it until their senior year, so she encouraged students to keep them updated throughout their college careers.

She advised students who think of resume writing as stressful to attend the workshops.

Once students have mastered writing resumes and cover letters, Marr said they are ready to apply for internships, which could lead to full-time employment after.

“If you like the company and the company likes you,” he said, “it’s really possible that you’ll get a full-time offer after that.”

He also said internships are beneficial to students because they are provided with real-world experience and are more prepared for life after college.

Kingery said in addition to the real-world experience gained from an internship, students are able to explore their chosen career field without making the full commitments.

“You have Career Services as a resource,” Kingery said. “There is a method to our madness, and the more students take advantage of it, the better prepared they feel.”

Hannah Shillo can be reached at 581-2812 or hlshillo@eiu.edu.