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Undergraduate > Professional Associations Undergraduates PROFESSIONAL ASSOCIATIONS What is a professional association? Professional associations are essentially organizations whose members share a common connection to a career field. Individual members, whether students or established professionals, benefit from the networking, professional development activities, research and publications that frequently occur in such associations. How are they organized? While frequently national or international in membership, most associations have geographically-based chapters that can be easily found. Many also have sub-groups, frequently called special interest groups or SIG's, that can include members with much more specific interests in common. Some have student chapters that can be very helpful in making contacts with other chapters. Some professional associations have been formed that incorporate both membership in a specific career field with members' genders and/or ethnic backgrounds. Exploring these organizations can be particularly helpful for students who may have been historically underrepresented in these fields. How can associations help students looking for internships, permanent positions or just more information on a career field? First, associations have become a force in bringing employers and position seekers together by implementing job boards and other position advertising mechanisms (see link below). Such services are attractive to employers because of the potential for reaching people with specific career backgrounds in a manner that is efficient and frequently less costly than other job boards and services. Many such sites allow employers to seek interns as well as permanent hires. Second, through meetings, online forums and newsletters, association members can build new personal networks and become more widely known to fellow members at varying levels of a career, an activity that can yield access to positions before they become widely advertised. Since employers frequently reward their own employees for bringing good people into a workplace, meeting association members can be one of the best ways a position seeker can penetrate a targeted employer and bypass the frequently impersonal, unresponsive systems found on employers' web sites. Thirdly, professional associations are frequently the publishers of high quality, up to date information on a career, something any career-minded student should be continually seeking. Learning about employment trends, emerging and changing positions, salaries, preferred skills and work styles can help students build toward competitiveness in the job market. What resources can help students to identify appropriate professional associations? Through networking, internships and employment, students may already know, or come to know, fellow students, faculty members, alumni, and established professionals who may suggest certain valuable associations to explore. DISCLAIMER: Providing links to these resources in no way constitutes an endorsement by the Center for Career Services of the accuracy, currency or reliability of these resources or those to which links may be made. Please report broken links. The Occupational Outlook Handbook - http://www.bls.gov/oco/ Online directories of associations can be of great value. Examples are: Weddle's Association Directory - http://www.weddles.com/associations/index.htm Scholarly Societies Project - http://www.lib.uwaterloo.ca/society/overview.html Association Job Boards - http://www.associationjobboards.com/find.cfm Yahoo Directory to Professional Associations - http://dir.yahoo.com/Business_and_Economy/Organizations/Professional/ What additional assistance is available for students who want to capitalize on these organizations? Networking can be scary if it is a completely new experience. Students should consider meeting with a career advisor in the Center for Career Services to discuss how they will use associations, who to contact and how to do so. Appointments can be made by calling 443-3616.
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