Job-Seeking Tools

NMC provides a number of services to help you land a job:

• How to Succeed in Your Internship/Job Search – This 25-page PDF provides help with resumes, cover letters and interviews.
• We can critique your resume and cover letter at the NMC Writing & Reading Center.
• These 14 eLearning modules on Lifelong Soft Skills are to provide a universally accessible soft skills training resource for the Michigan workforce for basic and foundational skills for the workplace, to help ensure the workforce is ready to succeed in the 21st century: mitalent.org/elearning-soft-skills-program

Employment Resources

NMC uses Pure Michigan Talent Connect as an official job posting service. Pure Michigan Talent Connect is a collaborative effort of the State of Michigan’s Workforce Development Agency (WDA) with the Talent Investment Agency (TIA) and the Michigan Economic Development Corporation (MEDC) This is your launchpad for new jobs, careers and talent. It is an online marketplace connecting Michigan’s job seekers and employers and serves as a central hub linking all public and private stakeholders who support Michigan’s workforce. Pure Michigan Talent Connect serves as the state’s labor exchange system.

Student Career Explorer

Pure Michigan Talent Connect: a job search portal

• Search for full-time and part-time job opportunities easily and efficiently
• Create and upload resumes and career portfolios to make them available to the employer
• Explore careers, skillsets, and training opportunities 
• Another helpful link for job searching is Indeed.

Helpful links and resources

The links below are to external sites and open in new browser windows.

• O*NET OnLine welcomes you to explore detailed descriptions of career exploration and job analysis. This is an interactive tool for job seekers and students to learn more about their career options. The site has tasks, skills, salary information and more for over 900 different careers.

The LinkedIn account links below are to Northwestern Michigan College class-specific accounts that you can use to search for employment or apprenticeship opportunities:

• Business & Accounting
• Computer Information Technology
• Technical
• Freshwater

LinkedIn Tutorial

• LinkedIn 101: Using LinkedIn to Land Your Dream Job Before You Graduate

  • LinkedIn is helping soon-to-be grads from around the country tap into their professional community – whether they realize they have one already or not.
  • Trying to land your dream career out of the gate is a tall order. But here’s the good news: There are roughly 11 million job openings per month in America at any given time. Sure, you don’t want all those jobs, but you want some of them – and some of them want you!
  • LinkedIn connects qualified candidates with companies and organizations that crave top talent. With these tips, you’ll be well on your way to snagging a seat at the professional table before graduation.

• Why LinkedIn?

  • 80% of LinkedIn members consider professional networking to be important to new job opportunities and career success, according to LinkedIn research.
  • 70% of people were hired at a company where they had a connection.
  • More than 20 million professionals including recruiters, hiring managers and decision-makers use LinkedIn every week.
  • With 530+ million professionals in the LinkedIn community, there is no other place where you can access such a wide range of knowledge, skills and resources to help you reach your goals.

• Let LinkedIn do the work for you

  • Searching for a career can seem like a daunting task. More than a quarter of professionals say they have no time to search for new opportunities.
  • But worry not, with search alerts you can get notifications and updates to a saved search via email or shared with you on LinkedIn. Use advanced search filters to narrow down opportunities by industry, location, experience level and more. Once your filtered search is set, simply create the alert.
  • Let recruiters know you’re open to new opportunities by simply flipping a switch on your LinkedIn profile. It’s called Open Candidates, and yes, it’s that easy. Open Candidates is accessible from the “Preferences” tab on the LinkedIn Jobs home page.
  • By flipping the switch, you privately signal to recruiters that you’re interested in new opportunities. Don’t forget to update your career interests. This helps you appear in the search results that recruiters are regularly scouring. Additionally, this helps inform the daily job recommendations LinkedIn sends you and surfaces on the jobs homepage.

• Learn the skills needed for your next gig

  • One-third of job seekers have expressed concern that they don’t have the necessary skills to be competitive in the job market.
  • Many people who are looking for work from home jobs use LinkedIn learning to gain the skills needed to be an ideal candidate for remote work
  • With LinkedIn Learning, you can now access a gigantic database of online courses on topics from coding and graphic design to public speaking. And here’s the best part: each course is typically sliced up into very manageable 5-10 minute learning chunks. Learning a new skill over the course of a week quickly becomes very achievable.

• What now? – Get Started

  • Create or update your LinkedIn Profile today. This provides other LinkedIn members with a better understanding of the unique skills, interests, and experiences that make you – you.
  • Make sure you have a profile photo – it will help get you recognized and connect to potential opportunities. Members with a profile photo receive up to 21x more profile views and 9x more connection requests.
  • Members with current positions are discovered up to 16x more in recruiter searches
  • Members with more than 5 skills are 27x more likely to be discovered in searches by recruiters
  • Including the city where you are based makes you stand out up to 23x in searches.

NMC Employment Readiness Specialist Lisa Baldyga
Office hours Monday–Wednesday, 8 a.m.–5 p.m.

• Office O151
• Phone (231) 995-2139
• Schedule an appointment through My Success