Beth Olson – Page 3 – Penn & Beyond

Gifts for You!

As many of us enter a season of gift giving, don’t forget to claim the gifts that Career Services has for you. Many of these gifts are available throughout the year or at set times, in person or online, occasionally or 24/7. What do you need? If it regards your career, we probably have something you can use.

Thinking about being a scientist? Teacher? Marketer? Filmmaker? Consultant? Programmer? Professor? Unsure? We have information to help you learn about different career fields, whether you are exploring a wide range or are ready to dig into a specific area.

Want to talk to other students or alumni to learn about their career paths? Use our resources or meet with us to explore the many connections available to you. Or read our surveys to see what other students have found in their internship and job searches.

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Forbidden Foods

When was the last time you spilled something on your shirt? Picture the shirt. Picture the stain. What were you eating? Had it ever happened before? Same food? Different food?

Now, where were you? With your friends? With your family? In a dining hall? At a restaurant? Let’s hope it wasn’t during a job interview!

There are many opportunities to spill something during an interview—especially during a meal. So whether you’re simply accepting a cup of coffee in the office or having lunch together with the interviewer, be careful. Your behavior is part of the interview and is being observed. The interviewer wants to see how you conduct yourself in a business and social setting and, if hired, if you will be able to represent your company in a professional manner.

So, plan ahead to avoid making a poor impression. There are many resources on dining etiquette on our website and elsewhere, even including videos. Check out some of this information to test your knowledge of manners and etiquette. Do you know which silverware to use? Which glass is yours? What to do when you drop your fork? (Don’t pick it up. Ask your server for another fork.) How to eat your bread? (Don’t fold it over and make a butter sandwich.) How to cut your food? (Don’t cut it all at once after you’ve been served). What to order? (Follow the lead of the interviewer.) How much to eat? (Don’t feel like you have to finish everything on your plate, but don’t order too much.) How to order dessert? (Don’t.)

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What You Said: “Work Is . . .”

What is work? . . . Drumroll, please. The jury has spoken.

With apologies regarding my thoroughly unscientific method, I want to share some of the input offered by you through my survey “What Is Work?” (still open to anyone who wants to complete it).

I asked respondents to define work ranging from “to earn a living” (1) to “a purposeful calling” (7) with “an even balance between the two” (4) in the middle. The ideal vs. realistic definitions of work swung from ideal being at the higher end of the scale—just above “an even balance between the two” (4.48)—to the realistic being closer to the bottom—near “to earn a living” (2.94), with over 50 percent of the responses being a 1 or 2.

This wasn’t a surprise. Most of us want and seek meaningful work but must balance that with the necessity of earning a living. The open-ended responses were more interesting.

33% mentioned earning a living (“making ends meet,” “livelihood”).
15% described doing something you “love” or “enjoy.”
12% mentioned “money.”
12% mentioned doing something “meaningful.”
1% mentioned “enjoying” it.
Only one person used the word “occupation.”

The actual responses ranged from bluntly realistic to idealistically hopeful:

“slave labor”
“Beyond being a societal norm to have ‘work,’ people thrive on being busy. It offers an important (at times frustrating) contrast to leisure.”
“Don’t know yet. What you do.”
“Work is a huge portion of one’s life. It is crucial that it is enjoyable and challenging so that one does not feel as if he or she is wasting away all of his or her time to earn a living, but obviously money cannot be ignored either.”
“A necessary part of life”
“Work is personal labor that fills our time and life with expressions of our particular gifts and skills.”

Thanks for your input! (The overwhelming majority of respondents were Penn undergrads but also included a handful of others (people employed full-time at Penn or elsewhere).) I find articles, opinions, and artistic creations about “work” very interesting and apropos—given my own work as a career counselor—and I’ve enjoyed sharing current Philadelphia artistic endeavors about work in two blog posts this year.

Considering Jobs

My favorite barista is a dancer. Today, while preparing another of her oh-so-perfect lattes, she mentioned that her dance company is interviewing people about what their jobs mean to them. They’re at the beginning of this creative endeavor, allowing the process itself to take them to an unknown destination. They do plan to create a dance. Will they interpret their interviewees’ stories through movement? Use interviewees’ words? Voices? Where will the interviewees’ stories lead the dancers? Where will the process itself lead them? Where will their artistry lead us all?

What is a job? What does “job” mean to you? Does it matter?

We’ve used the word since the 1620s, but I would guess that many seventeenth-century jobs are uninteresting to today’s students or no longer exist. According to Merriam-Webster, a job is “something that has to be done” or “a specific duty, role, or function” or “a regular remunerative position.” I assume most of us associate “job” with that third meaning, similar to dictionary.com’s “post of employment.”

None of these definitions address why we need a job, other than “remunerative.” (Perhaps a better definition might be “something your parents ask you about during spring break”!) “Remuneration” is something that rewards or pays. What the reward or pay might be is not part of the definition. So, what do you want your reward to be? A paycheck? A large paycheck? Vacation time? Healthcare? Prestige? Comfort? Luxury? Creating something? Changing an expectation? Providing care? Increasing knowledge? Changing the world?

These questions might not be on your next interviewer’s list, but they should be on your list so that you will know what you’re seeking, why, and how to demonstrate that you and the job “fit” one another. Exploring these questions with a friend, family member, or a career counselor (or on our website) is an ongoing, challenging, and meaningful exercise.

So, what do you think? A past blog of mine addressed a similar issue and invited readers to complete a survey. You are welcome to do so now, and to share this invitation with friends and family so that we have many responses.

As a career counselor and someone immensely curious—from a sociological and historical perspective—about “work,” I am looking forward to the future dance creation of Real Live People (in) Motion, and I’d love to read your thoughts in our survey.

Fun in an Interview Suit

Yesterday as I walked down Locust Walk past a student group promoting an upcoming concert, one of them shouted to another passing student, “Hey! You in the suit! Come to this concert tonight. It’s more fun than OCR!” I laughed out loud at this creative sales pitch.

OCR (On-Campus Recruiting) is one of those things that “adults” would probably say is good for you. Perhaps no one would define it as “fun.” But it might actually help you get what you want. Same thing goes for wearing a suit.

How could dressing up in a suit and interviewing be more fun? We asked David Letterman for suggestions (not really), and the resulting top-ten list is as follows. (Please note, that as an “adult” I must refer you to our online interview resources and tell you that the following is not to be taken seriously!)

The Top Ten Ways to Have Fun in an Interview Suit
10. Dress up like Ben Franklin (except for the hair).
9. Select final-round candidates based on how long they can keep jumping in a moon bounce.
8. Challenge other candidates to arm wrestling to determine who gets the final second-round interview.
7. Wear a zoot suit.
6. Make every Tuesday costume day and make internship/job offers to candidates who show up in the best costume.
5. Bring your cat to the interview with you. Consider wearing matching outfits.
4. Forget that the tie you borrowed from your dad is a light-up birthday tie.
3. “Accio!” Use the summoning charm from Harry Potter to bring a job offer directly to you.
2. Wear different colored socks. Or don’t wear socks but color your ankles with markers.
And the #1 way to make interviewing more fun: Have John Cleese as your interviewer!