Straight answers for your job search
Answers to the questions students ask, from a first resume to a first offer, and guides for career centers, counselors and career fair organizers.
Student questions
How to write a resume with no experience: a guide for students and new grads
How to write a first resume with no work experience: what counts as experience, which sections to use, how to write bullets from classes and projects, and how to check it against a posting.
Can recruiters tell if you used ChatGPT on your resume?
Whether recruiters can detect a ChatGPT resume or cover letter, why AI detectors are unreliable, what actually gives AI writing away, and how to use AI on a resume safely.
What is an ATS resume? How applicant tracking systems really read applications
What an applicant tracking system does with your resume, whether ATS software rejects applications on its own, how to format an ATS-friendly resume, and how to check one against a posting.
Ghost jobs: how to spot a job posting that isn't real, and what to do instead
What ghost jobs are, why companies leave postings up with no plan to hire, the signs that give one away, and how to spend your effort on roles that are open now.
Why do entry-level jobs require experience? What to do when they ask for it
Why entry-level postings ask for years of experience, which requirements are real, what counts as experience for students and new grads, and when to apply anyway.
How to answer “Tell me about yourself” as a student or new grad
A simple formula for answering tell me about yourself in an interview as a student or new grad, with two full examples, a sixty-second structure, and the mistakes that make answers forgettable.
How to message a recruiter as a student, with templates
How to message a recruiter on LinkedIn or by email as a student or new grad: who to contact, what to say in three sentences, templates for each situation, and when to follow up.
Job scams targeting students: how to spot a fake job offer
The job and internship scams aimed at students, from fake checks to reshipping and paid-task schemes, the red flags that give them away, and what to do if you've been targeted.
Can't find a job after graduation? A 30-day plan to get unstuck
What to do when you can't find a job after college: a week-by-week plan to choose targets, fix your resume, search where roles are new, reach real people and widen the search.
Should you negotiate your first job offer? How to do it as a new grad
Whether to negotiate a first job offer as a new grad, how to research the pay for the role, what to say on the call or by email, and what to ask for besides salary.
Career services
How career centers can use an AI job search agent between appointments
Where an AI job search agent fits beside career advising: finding open roles, checking a resume against a posting and tracking applications, with what Carir does and what stays with advisors.
A counselor's checklist for recommending AI job search tools to students
Six questions to ask before recommending an AI job search tool to students, from whether it invents experience to whether it sends without asking, with how Carir answers each one.
Career fair prep: a checklist career services can hand to students
A week-by-week career fair checklist for students: research the employers, check their open roles, tailor a resume to a target role, practice a short introduction and plan the follow-up.
After the career fair: what students should do in the next 48 hours
The career fair follow-up that turns a conversation into an application: a short email template, applying to the role the recruiter named, and tracking every lead in one place.
How universities can help students find internships that are actually open
Why students lose weeks to closed or fake internship postings, the search method career services can teach instead, and how Carir's board keeps an internship search to internships that are open.
Teaching students to read a job posting: a workshop plan for career educators
A ready-to-run workshop for career educators: how to read a posting's level, must-haves and keywords, and how to check a real resume against a real posting live in the room.
AI resume tools and honesty: guidance for career services
Where AI helps a student's resume and where it crosses a line, why AI detectors are no answer, and the honesty test career services can teach: every line must be something you can talk about.
Supporting career changers: a guide for bootcamps, community colleges and workforce programs
How bootcamps, community colleges and workforce programs can help career changers map past experience to new requirements honestly, find bridge roles and apply where they qualify.
Networking for first-generation college students: who to contact, and what to say
A plain guide to networking for first-generation college students: who to contact about a job, how to find them, what to write, and how advisors can make the hidden steps visible.
How to share Carir with your students: a guide for career offices
What students get from Carir for free, what Pro adds, how the 7-day trial works, and a ready-to-send announcement and workshop outline for career offices and counselors.
Job search
Remote, hybrid or on-site: how to read a posting's work mode
What remote, hybrid and on-site mean in a job posting, the phrases that hide a location rule or office days, how to search by work mode, and what to ask before you apply.
Changing careers without inventing experience
How to present a career change truthfully: translate the work you have done into the new field's words, map every requirement to real evidence, and close the gaps with work instead of wording.
Why the newest postings deserve your first hour
Why a posting's first days are the best time to apply, why the dates on job sites mislead, and a one-hour daily routine built around new roles.
Who to contact about a job, and how to find them honestly
Who to write to about a role, in order; where to find them on public pages; why a published address beats a guessed one; and a four-sentence note that gets read.
Early careers
How to find internships that are still open
Search by the title words, narrow by date, and confirm on the employer's own page: a short method for finding internships that are still taking applications, and spotting the ones that aren't real.
Internships by field: the titles to search for each one
The search words that find internships in fourteen fields, from marketing and software engineering to accounting and electrical engineering, and the other titles employers post the same work under.
Entry level, junior, associate, new grad: how to read a posting's level
What the level words in a job title mean, which ones mislead, and what to do when the title says entry level but the requirements ask for years of experience.
Entry-level and new grad roles: where to look, and the titles that hide them
The searches that find early-career roles in nine kinds of work, from sales and engineering to product and project coordination, and the early roles that never say so in the title.
How Carir works
What a job match score tells you, and what it doesn't
What goes into a resume-to-job match score, how to use the evidence behind it, and why it is not a prediction of an interview.
AI in your job search: what to hand off and what to keep
Which parts of a job search AI does well, which ones you should keep, and the questions to ask any tool before it sends anything in your name.