Tuition, books, housing, food, the cost to go to college is expensive. To pay for it all, many students find a job, or two, maybe even three. With 20,000 or so students at BYU-Idaho, it may be a struggle to find a job in Rexburg especially for international students.
Diego Reyas is from Guatemala and is one of those students who needs a job to help him pay for college. He found a job at the BYU-Idaho Support Center.
“Job wise it was hard the first semester because I didn’t have a job in the first place and you know I am an international student so I can’t afford to not work because you have rent and need to pay for things,” Reyas said.
Reyas prayed to get a job for a long time, so when he finally got the job, he felt blessed. His brother who worked in the BYU-Idaho International Student Office referred him down to the Student Support Center where he was able to find that job.
BYU-Idaho is the home of students from all over the world. International students often work on campus. The Student Support Center hires many of the international students. They have a total of 65 student employees. 23 of those employees are international and represent 12 different countries. Those countries range from South America to Africa to Europe.
“We focus more on service aspect of the job,” said Johnathan Cox, student lead for the Support Center. “I think that is the biggest thing our agents here can gain. That every day they can leave work and think man I helped someone today and they can have that good feeling.”
He said the Student Support Center professionally develops its agents. The center wants to help them with their careers.
Jennifer Craner works for the Human Resources Department at BYU-Idaho and works as a student employment coordinator. She has great insights on building a resume.
“Not every job is posted on the job board and a lot of it is word of mouth and honestly students can take their resumes around to different departments of interest or within their career work path that they are looking for to gain actual work experience,” she said.
Students are asked to have a resume and the Career Services Department offers help to build student resumes and help to make them look professional. Small things like grammar and how many pages your resume is can affect you getting hired or not. Taking the time to craft a professional looking resume could land you a job, Craner said.
“(The students) are why we can keep moving forward,” Craner said. “We try to mentor them. We try to help them with school and academics. Make sure they are excelling in school. They need questions, they need a listener, we are here for them too.”
To see the latest job openings at BYU-Idaho, click here.