Student and Alumni Help

College Central is the primary site where students and alumni register with their school to post their résumé, search jobs, and receive career development and employment related announcements.

All College Central services for students are accessible from the Student Central link on your school's Student page or by going directly to www.StudentCentral.com.

All College Central services for alumni are accessible from the Alumni Central link on your school's Alumni page or by going directly to www.AlumniCentral.com.

Whether you are an entering freshman, rising student or have already graduated, you are encouraged to take advantage of the available services. Your view in Student Central or Alumni Central is dependent on the services you have been approved to use through your school.

Here are some instructions to help you best use College Central's services.

Please click on the appropriate link for more information:

REGISTERING WITH YOUR SCHOOL AND BEGINNING YOUR JOB SEARCH
UPLOADING YOUR RÉSUMÉ
UPDATING YOUR RÉSUMÉ
SEARCHING FOR JOBS
MONITORING YOUR JOB SEARCH
FORWARDING YOUR RÉSUMÉ AND/OR ART & DESIGN PORTFOLIO
REPORT OFFERS/HIRES
MENTORING NETWORK
ART & DESIGN PORTFOLIO

REGISTERING WITH YOUR CAREER CENTER AND BEGINNING YOUR JOB SEARCH

1. Click the Register Now link on your school's Student or Alumni page. This will take you directly to the registration page.
2. Your School Name will be pre-filled for you. Enter an Access ID that you will remember.
3. Enter a Password that you will remember.
4. Confirm your Password.
5. Click Continue Registration.
6. Enter all demographic information. Fields with an asterisk (*) are required (Name, Current Address, Phone, Email Address).
7. Answer questions about where you want to work and the kinds of jobs that interest you.
8. You can receive emails directly from College Central Network regarding job postings that match your interests. If you prefer not to receive these emails, please indicate this in the E-Mail Authorization area.
9. Click Submit Information. You will then see a confirmation that your information has been accepted.
10. Click the Go to My Home Page link. You will then be taken to your home page. All services that are available to you can be accessed from this page.
11. To return to your home page on subsequent visits, go to your school's Student or Alumni page and click the Log in at Student (Alumni) Central link. Your School Name will be pre-filled for you. Enter your Access ID and Password and click Go.

UPLOADING YOUR RÉSUMÉ

You may upload a résumé at any time after you are registered in Student Central or Alumni Central using one of three formats: Microsoft Word (.doc), Adobe Acrobat (.pdf) or Rich Text Format (.rtf). Please note that in consideration of users with slow internet connections, we allow a maximum résumé file size of 100 KB.

To upload your résumé:

1. Log in to your home page from Student Central or Alumni Central using your School Name, Access ID and Password.
2. From your home page, click the Upload a Résumé link.
3. Follow the instructions on the page.
4. You may view the résumé you have uploaded by clicking the icon next to its name. We strongly recommend that you view your résumé after you have uploaded it to make sure that it is the correct file and that it appears as you intended.
5. Select the Résumé Authorization that you prefer and click the Save Authorizations button. You may change this Authorization at any time.

Please Note: Some of the schools using our services reserve the right to approve your résumé before it may be submitted to job postings or searched by approved employers. If you are registered with one of these schools, you will receive an email when your résumé has been reviewed which either states that your résumé has been approved, or that asks you to make changes.

UPDATING YOUR RÉSUMÉ

You may upload an updated résumé at any time. From your home page, click the Manage My Résumé link and follow the instructions on the page.

SEARCHING FOR JOBS

Users from schools who have contracted for our services will see two job search links: Search for Jobs/Opportunities Posted to My School, and Search for Jobs in CCN's Jobs Central. Other users will see one link: Search for Jobs in CCN's Jobs Central. The first search displays jobs posted by employers through your career center, while the second shows jobs that have been posted to all job seekers through College Central's Employer Central national job board. You are encouraged to use both searches (if available).

At some CCN client schools, it is possible to search for internships, co-ops, or job postings which involve an on-campus interview. Depending on your school, access to these positions may be subject to approval by your career center or internship/co-op office.

Several search criteria are available to you when conducting your job search in College Central. You may view all available jobs by leaving all of these fields at their default settings. However, it is a good idea to do a more focused search by choosing appropriate criteria. We suggest that you select Job Type and Location Preference as criteria for your initial search. Keep in mind that each criterion that is added will reduce the number of jobs that are displayed.

Some career centers also assign their own codes to job postings (School Job ID) and/or will post bulletins in their offices listing jobs posted to your school in College Central by company name and job title. Visit your career center for more details.

MONITORING YOUR JOB SEARCH

Once you have submitted your résumé to posted jobs, you may track your Résumé Submissions, Résumé Referrals by your career center and Résumé Reviews by employers. To do this, click View My Job Search History from your home page.

From this page you can see:

Résumé Submissions - This is a list of jobs that you have submitted your résumé to online, along with the date the résumé was submitted.

If you have authorized your school to refer your résumé:
Résumé Referrals - These are the names of companies who have received your résumé from your school, and the date that they received it.

If you have authorized employers to search for your résumé:
Résumé Reviews - These are the names of employers who have reviewed your résumé which was received via your submission to a posting, a referral by your school, or by the employer conducting a résumé search in your school's database. It also shows the date that they viewed it.

FORWARDING YOUR RÉSUMÉ AND/OR ART & DESIGN PORTFOLIO

You may also forward your résumé and/or Art & Design portfolio to employers or networking contacts who can assist you in your job search.

From your home page, click the Forward My Résumé or Forward My Portfolio link. Then enter the email address and cover letter for the person who will receive your résumé and/or Portfolio.

Please note that some schools reserve the right to approve résumés before you can forward them.

REPORT OFFERS/HIRES

When an employer makes you an employment offer, and when you accept an employment offer, click the Report Offers/Hires link in the Search for Jobs/Opportunities Posted to My School section on your home page and complete the notification form so that your career center can have accurate information on your success.

MENTORING NETWORK

Students
You may search the Mentoring Network after you have registered in Student Central and contact the school to obtain the school password. Entering the school password allows you to search profiles of Mentors who have agreed to provide career-related information, offered to volunteer time, and allowed themselves to be contacted on line. Mentors may be alumni of your school who are employed in your field(s) of interest.

If a Mentor has allowed himself/herself to be contacted, you will see a [Contact Me] button under their profile. Click the button to send the mentor an email. It is up to the mentor to decide how he/she will respond to your email.

Please note that it is not appropriate to ask Mentors if they or their employers have job openings. Mentors have volunteered to provide information and advice to students, but they will not welcome solicitations for employment.

Alumni
If you are an alumnus/alumna seeking employment and wish to search the Mentoring Network:

You must register in Alumni Central and then contact the school to obtain the school password. Entering the school password allows you to search profiles of Mentors who have agreed to provide career-related information, offered to volunteer time, and allowed themselves to be contacted on line.

If a Mentor has allowed himself/herself to be contacted, you will see a [Contact Me] button under their profile. Click the button to send the mentor an email. It is up to the mentor to decide how he/she will respond to your email.

If you are already registered in Alumni Central and would like to be a mentor:

Contact the school to obtain the school password. You may then complete a Mentoring Profile indicating your online contact preferences, and selecting Mentoring Activities that you would like to participate in with students and other alumni. Once you have completed your profile, you may update it anytime you log in to Alumni Central.

If you would like to be a Mentor, but are not seeking employment:

Contact the school to obtain the school password, then click the Mentoring Network link on your school's College Central Network Alumni Services to log in to post your profile.

The school password will allow you to access and complete a Mentoring Profile form, indicate your online contact preferences, and select Mentoring Activities that you would like to participate in with students and other alumni.

When you complete your profile, you must provide an ID and password that you will easily remember. You may use this ID and password to log on the Mentoring Network page to update your profile at any time.

Please note that you will only have access to your own profile. If you would like to find and contact other Mentors, you must register in Alumni Central.

ART & DESIGN PORTFOLIO

In addition to posting a résumé and searching for jobs, artists and designers may build an Art & Design portfolio to show their best work to potential employers. You may upload graphic images of your work, enter a description of each work sample, add links to Web pages that display each work, list awards that you have received, list exhibits where you have shown your work, add a Personal Statement, and add a link to a personal web site.

Your portfolio is a Web page that will be seen in its entirety by employers once you have activated it. You may wish to hide your portfolio from employers until you have a complete set of work samples to display. You may update your portfolio at any time.

Supported Browsers for Building Your Art & Design Portfolio

For PC Users:
Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0 or later; Firefox 2.0 or later

For Macintosh Users
Safari 2.0 or later; Firefox 2.0 or later

Please Note: Earlier versions of these browsers have serious flaws which cause problems with uploading graphic files and are not supported.

How to Create your Art & Design Portfolio

1. Choice of Files
You may upload up to fifteen work samples to your Portfolio, including two animation clips and one PDF file. Remember that care in presentation is just as important with your virtual portfolio as it is with an actual book of your work. You should select only your very best work relevent to the type of employment you are seeking. It is better to show fewer samples -- if all are top quality -- than fifteen samples of varying quality. The care that you use to present your work will be seen as a reflection of your ability to perform in the workplace.

a) Static Graphic Images
You can start with electronic files, scanned printed pieces, or sharp, clear photos (useful for three-dimensional pieces or models) taken against a plain, preferably white, light gray or black background. You should carefully silhouette your photos if background clutter is unavoidable. When photographing rectangular objects, such as paintings, shoot them straight on -- not at an angle -- with a short telephoto lens to avoid distortion. Be sure to avoid glare or reflections. A polarizer may help. Try bounce or diffused flash, or natural lighting, not direct, on-camera flash. Soft, shadow-free illumination is often best. Check that there are no odd color casts from walls, sky, or nearby surfaces, and that your images are tack sharp. Use a sturdy tripod.

Image Specifications

Before you upload your portfolio, be sure your image files meet these specifications, or they cannot be uploaded.

Mode: RGB or Index
Resolution: 72 pixels/inch (ppi)
Maximum file dimensions: 500 x 500 pixels
Maximum file size: 120 KB
Acceptable file formats: .gif or .jpg

Optimizing .gif and .jpg Images

You can easily meet these specifications with image editing software, such as recent versions of Adobe^® Photoshop^®. Start with your images in RGB mode (select "8-bits/channel" if that is a selectable option). Crop your images tightly and resize ("Resample Image/Bicubic" or "Resample Image/Bicubic Smoother") if necessary to fit a 500 x 500 pixel image size or smaller, and 72 pixels/inch resolution. Do not enlarge an image that you think is too small. Instead, recreate it at the correct size and resolution from a larger original or substitute another piece.

You may then use a small amount of "unsharp masking" if you need to make your images a bit crisper. However, this will not sharpen blurry pictures.

To keep your file size down to 120 KB or less, don't save with any image previews, thumbnails, or comments by choosing "Save for Web..." or "Save for Web & Devices...". You can then experiment with settings, preview the results, view the file size, and compare the optimized images with your originals.

At this point you will want to optimize the file for the best balance of appearance and file size. As a general rule, if your image is photographic in appearance or has a lot of graduated tones and shadows, follow the instructions below for .jpg (JPEG) files. If your image is primarily solid colors and even tones or type, such as logos, posterized graphics or letterheads, follow the instructions below for .gif files. This will give you the highest quality images for your portfolio. If an image has an equal amount of photographic and typographic content, try saving the original image both ways and choose the format which looks best.

With .jpg images, try 40-to-60 image quality. With .gif, try 16-to-32 colors as a starting point. 4-to-8 colors should be good for monochromatic images. Adjust these settings if necessary. If you reduce the quality of a .jpg image too much or run a .jpg image through multiple "Save/Close/Open/Save/etc." cycles, you will see blotchy artifacts that permanently degrade your image. If you reduce the number of colors in a .gif file too much, you will see color banding (posterization) or ragged edges. Essentially, you want to end up with the smallest file size that does not noticeably degrade your image.

Remember, each file must follow the above specs or you will not be able to upload it. Mac users: be sure to save your images with the appropriate three-letter extension (.gif or .jpg).

b) PDF files

You may now also upload one file in standard Adobe Portable Document Format (.pdf). If you have samples that are a mix of photos, illustrations, and type, such as ads, brochures, or posters, or if you want small type to be readable, or you prefer to provide your résumé in something other than a Microsoft^® Word^® document, PDFs are ideal.

They can be created from virtually any application and are universally readable. PDFs can easily be created directly from within the applications you typically use, including recent versions of QuarkXPress^®, Adobe^® InDesign^®, Photoshop^®, Illustrator^®, and Microsoft^® Word^®.

With recent versions of Mac OS X, PDFs can be saved within the "Print..." dialog box by clicking on the "PDF" button.

PDFs can be created directly with some scanners while scanning your samples. Adjust the image size and quality to keep the .pdf file small enough to upload as part of your portfolio.

PDFs can also be created from some file types, such as .eps, using recent versions of Adobe Acrobat^® Distiller^®. This option generally gives you the greatest flexibility in .pdf file creation. And you have the ability to do some touch up and editing on a finished PDF in Acrobat.

Use care when saving a file as a .pdf. The very smallest resulting file sizes may not embed your fonts, meaning that your PDF may not display properly on other computers. Depending upon which version of PDF creation you're using, if there is a selection to embed fonts, click "Yes", and select the smallest file size that shows your work clearly.

If there is an option to save as PDF/X or PDF/X-1a, you are likely to wind up with the best compromise of file quality and file size. The latter is a standard format for a standard type of PDF used by many publishers and printers. However, it may still exceed the 120 KB file size limit, and not be uploadable to your portfolio.

Be aware that some free or inexpensive .pdf file creation software may not produce reliable files or files of very good quality.

c) Animation Clips
If you choose to include an animation clip, save it in either Apple QuickTime (.mov), MPEG - Motion Picture Experts Group (.mpg) or Macromedia Flash (.swf) format. Each file may be up to 15 MBytes in size.

Repeat the appropriate preparation steps for each of your portfolio files. You are now ready to upload your portfolio. You may select the order (from top to bottom) in which they appear to viewers.

2. Your Personal Statement

Your Personal Statement is the "other" part of your portfolio presentation. It is an opportunity to express something about yourself and your work -- where you are today, and the direction you'd like to pursue as an artist.

Before writing, think about what points you'd like to cover: your ideas about art or creativity, and how they are reflected in the pieces you are presenting in your portfolio.

A less formal writing style can be effective in a personal statement, but don't use slang or poor grammar. Use a spell-checker or dictionary. Consider that your personal statement may not only be part of your portfolio, but it may also appear on a gallery wall or sent to publications as a press release.

Once you have worked on subject matter and concepts, think about who is going to read your statement, and tailor it to that audience. Keep in mind that you can edit or update your statement at any time. Just as your work is continually evolving, so should your statement.

Be honest. Don't mislead your reader -- a potential employer -- into thinking that you or your artwork is something other than what it is.

The reality is that potential employers may have many statements, résumés and portfolios to review and not much time to do so. To keep their interest, be brief and get to the point. Don't ramble. We recommend that you condense your statement to about 250 words or less. (That is about the length of this section of "Help".)

3. Describing Your Work

The Portfolio Editor not only provides you with the tools to present your creative work, it also allows you to describe each sample to your audience, whether it be a potential employer, an exhibitor, or someone who may help you find a position or project you want.

As may be appropriate, include the following information as a caption for each piece in your portfolio:

• the medium and technique used
• the subject and why you chose it
• why you created this piece
• where your inspiration came from
• what message you are trying to convey to the viewer
• why you enjoyed working on the piece
• how this work represents you

Be sure to use appropriate and correct terminology pertaining to aspects of the work chosen -- the reader will expect it.

Once more, try to keep your descriptions short. About 100 words or so for each would be ideal.

4. Ordering Your Work

You may control the order in which your work samples are displayed in your Portfolio by adjusting the Display Order. Enter a number from 1 to 15 for each work sample. The lower the number, the higher the sample appears on your Portfolio page.

5. Your Personal Web Site

If you have a personal web site that you use to display your work, you may enter the web address in your portfolio so that prospective employers can access it once they have viewed your portfolio.

We strongly recommend that you preview your portfolio after you have created or updated it.