Interview with chinese associate director in NYIT alumni office

interview with Tonglei/Tony Tong (chinese associate director in NYIT alumni office)

1 Will NYIT Career Service offer any opportunity and resource to students who want to find jobs or internships?

NYIT’s Office of Career Services offers various tools for the students to find jobs or internships. John Hyde, dean of NYIT Careers Services and his team have done a great job assisting NYIT students get in touch with potential employers by incorporating different resources within and outside of NYIT. If you go to the career services’ website, you will find tons of information there. For instance, if you log on to NYIT’s CareerNet (a name of a popular database for job searching) web portal, you can find tons of job/internship opportunities there. Many of them are exclusively for our NYIT students thanks to NYIT’s Alumni connections and business partnerships.

2 will our university give us chances to work in other countries?

Yes. We encourage our students to work, get as many internship opportunities as they can before they graduate. We have campuses all over the world and it is a great advantage for our students as well. Our students can use these resources and connections worldwide. As the newly appointed associate director of Alumni and Employer Relations in China, I can closely reach out to our alumni networks in China and bring job information to our students directly from China.  Same with the other Associated Directors in Amman-Jordan and Bahrain – Our goal is to help students find global opportunities on the same NYIT platform.

3 How can we take full advantage of resources in NYIT, especially for international students?

I believe the most effective way would be accessing the NYIT website regularly. On Career Services’ Website from NYIT, you can find tons of information regarding job hunting, resume writing, career fairs as well as the information for events/activities held by NYIT. I attended this kind of events frequently when I was the NYIT student and they are all very informative for fresh graduates in my opinion. Also on the website, you are not only searching for job opportunities in the US – the database is global – which is helpful for international students searching global job opportunities. International students have certain visa restrictions so you also need to keep communication with the International Students’ office for application procedures of the US working visa.  

4 How to position us the best when we look for jobs or internships?

It is a tough question to answer. I will not go with details but here are some tips from my experience:

First, do a S.W.O.T (Strength, Weakness, Opportunities and Threats) Analysis about yourself.

Second, a good job needs the Person/Job Fit (your skill sets fit your job well) and Person/Organization Fit (you fit into the organization structure well). Think more about Person/Job fit during your internship; Stick to Person/Organization fit when applying for real jobs.

Third, the best job you can find will always be the one where your passion belongs to.

5 why employers want to hire us, are there special policies for international students?

Employers want to hire an employee who can bring values to the company. Before we apply for any job, we need to think ahead – what is the company’s core value and can I bring values to them. Can I bring more values than other candidates also?  It makes no difference whether you are an international student or not. As an international student holding F-1 student visa – your valid status is a full time student. The purpose of CPT/OPT (Curriculum Practical Training/Occupational Practical Training) is to help you apply the knowledge you learned in school into practice. During your CPT/OPT period,  if you can prove yourself that you can bring more values to the US company (For instance your bilingual ability) than any other candidate, then you have the reason to stay and work for this company since the company needs your specialty/knowledge. And your status will be switched from F-1 Student Visa to H-1B Visa (or other type of working visa).

6 Are there policies which international student should concern?

The major concern would be the changes of the Immigration Policies in the US each year. Make sure your student status is valid all the time during your study, leave the US before the grace period expires (usually it is 2 months after graduation) and if you do find a company that can sponsor the working visa for you, then you should file your application (with the lawyer from your company’s HR department or a lawyer outside and paid by the company) as soon as possible.

The other thing I would recommend is to keep in touch with the international student’s office. They are representatives for us and have direct communication channels to the Bureau of Immigration. We can always get information and advice from them regarding issues and policies related to international students.