In this episode of Roompact’s RA*Chat, join us for an insightful conversation with Dwayne Peterson as we delve beyond traditional resume tips to explore the full spectrum of career preparation, from strategic networking to intentional job applications. Learn how your RA experience translates into valuable, transferable skills that employers seek. This deep dive session will transform your perspective on your RA role and equip you with the tools to confidently pursue your next professional opportunity, preparing you for the New Year.
Guest: Dwayne Peterson (he/him), Director, Industry Connections, University of South Florida
Host: Anthony Martinez
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Roompact’s ResEdChat podcast is a platform to showcase people doing great work and talk about hot topics in residence life and college student housing. If you have a topic idea for an episode, let us know!
Transcript:
Anthony Martinez:
Welcome back to Roompact’s Res Ed podcast. Today is a special RA chat edition, where we talk about issues of importance to RAs and student members in Residence Life and housing. Today’s episode is From Res Life to Real Life: Career Prep Before the Ball Drops. As the year winds down, many RAs are thinking about what’s next, internships, jobs, and how to translate their role into career-ready tools. And joining me today is a very special guest, Dwayne Peterson, director of industry to campus connections at the University of South Florida, Center for Career and Professional Development. So Dwayne, if you would like to introduce yourself.
Dwayne Peterson:
Yeah, Anthony, thanks so much. I’m so excited to be here, so stoked. So I work at the University of South Florida. I’m the director of industry to campus connections. It’s a long title that basically means that I’m the person who’s out there selling our school, bringing opportunities to our student body. That’s all kinds of opportunities, from jobs to internships, co-ops, graduate school, volunteer opportunities, you name it, we’re bringing those opportunities to our students.
Why I’m really, really excited to be here is because my background before I came into career development work was in housing. I spent eight years in housing. I served two years in hall government, I was an RA for two years, I was a graduate hall director for two years, I worked professionally for a year, and then I was an area coordinator for two years. So Res Life is my first love. I always thought I would be Res Life for life, to be honest with you. It’s so ironic that I ended up in a career center, but life brings you all kinds of opportunities, and sometimes you just never know where it’s going to take you, which I’m sure we’re going to talk about in the podcast today. So thrilled, thrilled to be here.
Anthony Martinez:
Yes, I’m so excited to have you. I know I was looking through your background, which is really important too, I know you have an MBA, experiences in higher education itself. And so, with that, we’re going to go ahead and get started right off the bat. And so, my question for you is, if an RA wanted to set one achievable career goal over winter break, what is a good starting point? And something outside of a resume is what I’m hoping to also talk about today, because I know you’ve mentioned previously RAs can focus on that, students can focus on that a lot. So what’s something outside of the resume that you would suggest?
Dwayne Peterson:
Yes. Oh, this is a great place to start. So one of the things about students, and I remember this when I was an RA, I’m just focusing on my day-to-day, things I’ve got in front of me every day, and so it’s hard to give time to think about my future. One of the things that I think students may not realize though is that the world of work doesn’t work like that, that actually, a lot of jobs and opportunities are becoming available sometimes up to a year before the actual job would start, and so it’s really, really important that students understand that they might be applying for things now, let’s say, in December, January, that won’t start until May, June or July.
So I think one thing an RA can do over winter break is start looking for opportunity, whether you’re thinking about graduate school, start researching what those graduate schools require. If you’re looking for an internship, you want to get some experience, start looking, you have opportunities at your school through your career center. Every career center in the country has somebody like me whose whole job is to bring opportunities to the students, and so make sure you’re plugged into those opportunities that are already being curated for you, because those are easy, easy places to start. If you’re about to graduate and you haven’t started thinking about your full-time job search, start that process in December over winter break, it’s a perfect time to set a few goals. Maybe you just apply for two or three, four applications over winter break, that’s a great place to start.
I think, Anthony, we want students to remember that this builds over time. So if I apply for a couple of jobs this week and a couple of jobs next week and a couple of jobs next week, before too long, I’ve applied to lots and lots of jobs. So I think over winter break, students, do one thing for yourself, find an opportunity and start getting yourself ready to apply.
Anthony Martinez:
Yes. I’m just so glad that you talked about this. Even beforehand talking with you, I’ve already learned so much. And I know you talked about the RA resume fatigue almost, everyone’s so focused on the resume, and so I just think that’s great. I think this advice is just exactly what RAs need to hear.
Dwayne Peterson:
Awesome.
Anthony Martinez:
And with that, I’m going to move on to our second question, which is getting into the resume, which is what are the most common resume mistakes you see students make, and how can RAs avoid those?
Dwayne Peterson:
Yeah, thank you for this. Well, as I mentioned, finding the opportunity first is arguably one of the first resume mistakes that I see students make. I think sometimes, students focus a lot on resume writing and think if it’s really… It can be a personal exercise because it feels like it’s capturing who you are as a person, it’s capturing your professional experiences, you’re trying to tell a story through it, so it can be this thing that students really cling to. And so, what I would say is one of the biggest mistakes I see is that we’re working on the resume first before we find the opportunity. And so, I really hope RAs will hear my message that we find the opportunity first, then we start working on the resume.
So in thinking about the resume itself, some of the mistakes I see are overuse of templates is the big one. And students really don’t like when I say this, but I promise you, your resume will be more successful if you write the resume from top to bottom in a Word document that is not a template. Do not use a Canva template, do not use a Word template. Those things go through the internet all the time and people see them and they know them, it does not help you stand out. So sometimes, students will go, “Oh, that’s such a bummer, I really like this template that has my face on it.” And I’m like, “Yeah, that looks really cool, but it’s not effective, it’s not going to help you be a competitive applicant.”
So believe it or not, in most industries, resumes are really boring documents, they’re not meant to be creative exercises. And students should know that their career centers, again, every career center in the country has probably some kind of resume template or examples that students can start with to make this very easy so that their resume looks clean and fresh. And that includes using ChatGPT too, because I think, again, sometimes it’s easier just to create a resume through a resume generator, through AI. Trust me, if you found that to be easy, other people found that to be easy, which means your resume’s not going to stand out. So that’s the big resume writing mistake.
And then, if I had to pick a last error with resume writing, I think it’s not being strategic with how you describe your experiences. Listen, I was an RA, it is probably, if not the most, definitely among the most, well-rounded professional training student roles on a college campus, you are learning everything. And I’ve seen this podcast has done some other episodes on transferability of skills and the skills that RAs gain. The thing is that not all those skills matter equally for every application. So this isn’t a matter of just copying the RA job description and putting it at the top of your resume as your experience, it’s being strategic with how you communicate that experience in the context of the thing you’re applying for.
This is why I’m encouraging students to find the opportunity first, because that tells you exactly what kinds of skills the employer want the most, which means you might emphasize different parts of the job in a stronger way than other parts of the job. So for example, if I wanted to be in nonprofit work and let’s say I was trying to find something that’s really going to be community-facing, I might really talk up my community development role that I use as an RA, but maybe talk less about my emergency response. So really being strategic with what parts of the job matter the most, and then really making sure that’s near the top of the resume, as well as the top of the description of those different experiences on your resume as well. So remember, people read top to bottom, so what you write near the top will matter the most.
Anthony Martinez:
Yes, yeah. I can see why you’re the director now at your job, it’s all making sense. Yes, this is great, talking about templates, ChatGPT, being strategic with your resume, so this is great content. To all the RAs listening, I hope you’re taking notes. But with that, translating away from the resume and maybe more into the electronic age of LinkedIn, which has been growing, and so LinkedIn has features like the about section and skill endorsements, which of these do you think matter most for students, and how can RAs make that stand out on their profiles?
Dwayne Peterson:
Thank you so much, this is a great question, and it’s a little more complicated than I think students recognize. So what LinkedIn does is allow you to have a professional presence online. So when you are on Instagram, for example, as a person, there’s a very particular reason you use that tool. Maybe you’re into food, and so you are showcasing all the great food that you eat and the great food that you make. So on LinkedIn, this is really the only channel of social media that you have control of your professional brand, so how you want people to see you in a professional context. And what I see students defaulting to is the only professional identity they feel comfortable with at this point, which is being a student, and that’s great, but it doesn’t sell you as a hireable person in the market if you’re just being seen as, “Well, I’m just a student.” It sends a signal that you have more training to do, you’re very green, you’re not ready for real jobs.
So LinkedIn is a really great place to start thinking about, how do I want people to see me as a professional? And it could be an aspiration, it may be something you’re working towards. There’s a reason why you’re in college, there’s probably a career goal or maybe several career goals that you’re trying to pursue. You can start to put that into a very strategic language around how you want the outside world to see you and you’ll have control over that. It’s important to remember that LinkedIn, depending on what your professional goal is, your profile may look different. So if you’re thinking about something in business, maybe you might have a headshot where you’re wearing a suit and you look like someone who’s going into business. But if you’re a software developer or an entrepreneur or a graphic designer, you’re going to have different expectations in those industries, so you should reflect those industries that you’re trying to pursue in your LinkedIn profile.
The about section, Anthony, I’m so glad you asked about, is an amazing place for students to start thinking about what kinds of things excite them about their future, what kinds of impact do they want to make in their professional career, what kinds of experiences have they had. These are things that they could start to put together into a short narrative in that experience that, again, is being communicated to an external audience. So hopefully, prospective employers or graduate schools are finding that presence, and then they’re able to know, “Hi, this is what you are all about.” And then, you get a chance to also put all of your experiences from your resume on that document, and you don’t have to curate it, you can literally put all of your experiences on there, which is great.
I also want to highlight that LinkedIn is great as a portfolio technique, which means I can pull examples of my work. So RAs do amazing programs and they usually document them through pictures, they usually write program planning sheets. Those are all what I call artifacts, which you can then put as examples of your work on your RA job on your LinkedIn profile. So when you say you have, let’s say, planning skills, show the employer that you have planning skills with an example that would prove you did, so, “This is a program we did for our residence hall, it had 50 people in attendance,” blah, blah, blah. And then, there’s a picture that describes it and see it. “Wow,” an employer’s going to go, “this person definitely has program planning skills.” So you can use those article elements of LinkedIn to build a profile and demonstrate your skills in action.
You mentioned the skills section, I like the skills section, but let me tell you a big mistake I see young people doing. This isn’t a race to get a hundred endorsements for every skill you have, and again, you want strategy here. When you’re starting your career, no one expects you to have a hundred. I don’t have a hundred people endorsing me and I’ve been a career expert for almost two decades. Students should be strategic about what are the skills that are going to matter the most for the jobs that they want to pursue, and then those are the skills we’re highlighting on the LinkedIn. And then, when they demonstrate those skills, they can get those endorsed by supervisors, by their peers on their profile, but let it happen organically. It isn’t something you need to really be asking people for, “Can you endorse me for this skill?” Let it happen organically. Or you might say, “Hey, I really want to make sure employers know I have this skill,” and you might nudge someone to endorse you.
But the goal here isn’t to have a hundred, nobody would expect that. But at least, again, we’re communicating, through the keywords that are in LinkedIn, what kinds of skills you bring to the table, and you want those to align with the kind of work you’re hoping to pursue. So hopefully that helps with LinkedIn, it’s a really great tool, but it does require some strategic thought.
Anthony Martinez:
Yes, definitely. I feel like I already learned so much for my profile. I was like, “Oh my gosh,” I was like, “these artifacts,” I was like, “I’ve been missing out on some gold here, I could have been uploading things.” And so, this definitely helps, and especially, I think, for resident assistants who already have their profiles, being able to upload their programs and the attendance they have, because I’ve heard some of them plan large-scale programs and have that great attendance and those demonstrations are important, and so that was amazing, that was great.
LinkedIn is a networking platform, and the word networking can also feel very intimidating to people, and this leads us into our next question, which is how can RAs start building a professional connection in an approachable way, so that networking?
Dwayne Peterson:
Yeah. Networking is really scary and it’s really hard to think about and hard to do. I have a lot of students who are like, “Oh, I’ll just apply for jobs online.” But the truth is that 80% of jobs that are available in the market at any given time can be found nowhere online, they’re jobs that live in people’s minds, they’re jobs that live on people’s desks, and the only way to tap into those jobs and find them is to build connections with people. So in the show notes, you’ll see there’s a video I’ve put out there, this idea of reframing the concept of networking, and it’s very simple. Instead of thinking of networking as this sleazy, selly thing I’ve got to position myself to, just simply think about it as asking for direction, it’s that easy.
So this is about building authentic relationships with people, and I would say 99.9% of people want to help a young person get their career started. So really, it’s just a matter of asking for direction, like, “Hey, I saw that you have this really cool job. I think that job is so cool, and I’d like to one day have that job. Would you be willing to share a little bit of advice about what I should be doing to get started on that career path?” Or maybe instead of asking directly for a job from someone, maybe try to build a relationship with them first. Is there something of interest about that person that’s brought you to want to know them? And then, I promise you, the job part will come in as you build the relationship. So it’s just as simple as asking directions or showing curiosity about people.
Now, every career center around the country spends a lot of time and money bringing people to campus for students to meet. That’s everything from alumni, employers, graduate school recruiters, sometimes speakers from different organizations. So I really want to encourage students to remember that all those people are potential connections, and so finding ways to build that relationship with them is key. And this includes at a career fair. I think sometimes, career centers talk about this idea of an elevator, selling yourself at the career fair, but what do recruiters really tell me? And I talk to hundreds of recruiters every year, and really what they tell me is the most authentic connections win, just coming up, showing curiosity, knowing a little bit about the company, knowing a little bit about the opportunities they might hire for.
I actually just had a recruiter tell me that they love when a student has even already applied for a job. It allows for a deeper connection to be made. So it doesn’t have to be this transactional connection, where you’re selling yourself. It’s really just like, “Hey, I saw these are the kinds of things you’re hiring for, these are a little bit about my background. I thought I might be a good fit for these. Would you be willing to share more information about them?” And then, suddenly, that conversation’s going to come off super organic and it’s just going to be like talking to a friend. So I think one of the things is just demystifying and taking down the pressure of the networking, and that it’s just about asking direction and building relationships with people, something RAs know a lot about. Think about what the RA job requires, you’ve got to build relationships with complete strangers and you’ve got to get those strangers to care about their community, care about you, care about their roommates, that same skill is 100% transferable to networking.
Anthony Martinez:
Yes, yes. I love always the tie-in that you’re making with these RA roles, so that is perfect. And then, speaking of the RA roles and how RAs move on, do you recommend RAs reach out to alumni, as you’ve kind of touched on, or other student leaders they’ve worked with in the past? And if so, how can they do that effectively?
Dwayne Peterson:
Yes, absolutely. When you are trying to get your career started, even if you’re going to go on to graduate school, remember that the more relationships you have, the potential of more opportunities you have. So I think it’s important for RAs to remember that the people they’re on their staff with today very well could be people that could help them get access to other people or opportunity later on.
So as I shared with you as we were prepping, I got my first full-time job after college. Now, remember, I was an RA for two years. I got my first job, which was in a housing office on the ops side, because of the people on… It turned out it was my supervisor who was going to a different team, different job, and he was like, “Hey, I’m hiring, do you want to apply for this job?” And I still had to apply and earn the job, but it certainly didn’t hurt me that I had a connection with the person who was making the decision. So don’t forget the people on your staff right now, your peers and your bosses, are all people that could be part of your network. Even if you’re not going to do housing for a career, which most RAs won’t, those people are going to end up having careers or end up in places that you might want access to one day, and having those people in your network are going to be key.
LinkedIn is an amazing tool for this. So one of the things is as we meet professional connections, what do you do with them? How do you keep up with them? How can you keep them in your orbit? And pulling them into your LinkedIn is a really great way to do that. So on LinkedIn, you have, I think, 300 characters to add a note to any connection you’re trying to make on LinkedIn.
Now, if you’re just starting your LinkedIn, your reach is going to be small, there might be only a certain amount of people you connect with, so you might actually only start with peers and friends and maybe supervisors, people that are in your network. But as your network gets bigger, you’re going to have more reach, and there’s different degrees of reach on LinkedIn. But my point is when you are making those connections, equip or include a note with that connection that gives a person context as to why you’re wanting to connect with them. “I really enjoyed working with you on our staff this year, can we stay connected?” And adding that call to action in that note allows the person to know you’re really serious about them staying in your network.
So you mentioned about alumni, LinkedIn also has alumni tools for every university in the country. And so, students can go out to their university page, there is an alumni tab, they can click on that. They can filter that alumni list by any way they want to, what they studied, what they do for a career, where they work, where they live. Maybe I’ve always wanted to live in Denver, Colorado, but I live in Tampa, Florida. Go find some alums that live in Denver, Colorado and figure out how they got there. Those people become your network in Denver, Colorado when I’m trying to move out there. And so, again, the same thing, you will be able to send a request to connect on LinkedIn, but add that note so that they understand that… And I love the phrase, we’ve never met but… “We’ve never met, but I see you live in Denver. I want to live in Denver after graduation, was wondering, could we connect so I can learn more about life in Denver?” Whatever it might be.
So adding that note helps to pull that person into your network. And then, students, remember that once that person’s in their network, guess what? They now have access to that person’s network. So it’s like this ripple that just keeps getting bigger, and the more people you pull in, the bigger your network and the bigger your presence is. And then, before too long, you can start connecting with all kinds of people well outside of your immediate orbit.
Anthony Martinez:
Yes, yes. I’m learning, I’m just eating it all up, this is great, so thank you. And I know we are coming short on time, unfortunately, because I have a million questions I want to ask you. But with that, my final question for you and for everyone listening is, what’s one piece of career advice you wish every student leader, especially RAs, would carry into the new year?
Dwayne Peterson:
Oh gosh, this is so hard. There’s so much to say about careers, careers are so complicated. But I think I’m going to do a selfish plug here, I think the number one career advice is go use your career center. So if a student were to hire me, a professional career coach out in the market, it could cost them $75 to $250 an hour, we’re not free. When I have private clients that are not affiliated with the university, they pay me for these services. Universities provide these services to students for free, and many universities allow you to keep using them for free when you are an alum, so use these.
And sometimes students are like, “Well, I don’t know what I would even say to a person,” but that’s okay, we don’t want you coming in all prepared, we’re here to help you figure it out. We’ll help you here to answer those hard questions. We’re here to help you put together a strategy so you understand how to make that transition from college easier for you. Anthony, I think we have to be honest that the market right now is not the best, and especially in the holidays, it can really slow down. So I think remembering that you already have access to professional staff whose literally whole job is to ensure your career success, connect yourself to those people and their resources, so that’s a lot of online tools.
Most universities have connections with thousands of organizations that are actively recruiting. Here at USF, we have 60,000 recruiting employers. We get 20,000 job postings a month. That is a wealth of opportunity that’s at your fingertips. And those are people who we know through the career center on the other end, so those are real people. Those aren’t just random Indeed job postings where they’re just faceless jobs, they’re actual people that we know. Every university is bringing hundreds of people to their campus every year to physically recruit on that campus. Just go and meet those people, even if you think you’re not interested in the jobs, I promise you, it’s not going to hurt you.
I remember my favorite story is a student went to a career fair because I urged her to, and she was like, “There’s nothing at this career fair for me.” I said, “Well, just go talk to some people.” So she goes and talked to this employer, and it didn’t work out, the employer was like, “Well, I’m not really hiring for what your interests are.” But she goes, “But my brother works in that field, and I’d be happy to facilitate that connection.” And that recruiter shared her brother’s contact information with that student, and that student got an internship through that connection. So remember, these are real people who can also be a part of professional networking, even if they don’t end up hiring you directly. So hopefully, that’s an easy piece of advice, an easy thing that students can do.
Anthony Martinez:
Yes, yes. Most definitely use your career centers at your respective institution, that is, I think, a fabulous piece of advice. Thank you so much, Dwayne, this was amazing. I learned so much, and I know our students listening learned so much. And again, thank you all for listening out there, we really appreciate it. Dwayne, one more thing, is there a way students can connect with you after? I feel like I would be doing a disservice if I didn’t allow them to do that, if they wanted to reach out or had any questions or wanted to see anything else you had posted.
Dwayne Peterson:
Yeah, please follow me, connect with me on LinkedIn. Remember to use the note if you’re going to connect with me so I know, “Hey, I saw your podcast, I was hoping to connect with you.” I welcome the connection.
Anthony Martinez:
Yes, thank you. And again, thank you all for listening again. Please take time to celebrate your accomplishments this year, and again, step in confidently into 2026. Bye for now from us here at Roompact, and we’ll see you next year.
