Guest Perspective – Page 4

Alumni Perspective: There’s More Out There Than Just Finance

by Lee Yanco W’10

As OCR goes on and Juniors scramble to secure internships for the summer, it may be hard to imagine any job outside of finance and consulting. Most internships offered through OCR are focused on investment banking, sales-trading, and consulting gigs – due to both the nature of these industries’ hiring cycles and the good reputation of Penn students. As a result, it may seem like your future lies on Wall Street.

Stop.

Stop, ask yourself, and answer the question, the most important question you can ask yourself when looking for a job: What do you want to do? The emphasis is on the word YOU, because this job search is about YOU and YOU alone, and only YOU can decide what you want to do and what YOU want to get good at.

While I’m sure there are some of you who truly are passionate about finance, my gut tells me more of you are interested in other areas. You should never do something just because it’s the default choice – you will end up hating your job and daydreaming about doing the things you really want to do. And after a year of working in tech, I promise you it is totally possible to spend your working years having fun in a job you love instead of making a salary doing something you hate. There is nothing worse than spending 5 days a week getting better at something you don’t want to get better at, it’s an existential time waste.

At AppNexus, we specifically look for interviewees who want to be here and want to be in tech, for the simple reason that those who like their job and want to do their job will do the best at it and be the best people to work with. Those who have a passion for technology will succeed, those who fake it are quickly weeded out.

However, finance and consulting have one advantage over these other opportunities with regards to OCR – they offer formal training programs for new employees that quickly acclimate fresh graduates to their industries, teaching them the industry-specific skills they need to succeed. Other industries either have not caught up to finance and consulting in campus appeal, or otherwise don’t have a structured educational program in place to train complete newbies to the industry. Because of this, it may seem daunting to stay from the “standard” path.

So, how do you go about showing non-finance companies you are passionate and worth considering despite your lack of skills?

Simply put, there isn’t any way to do it but to do it. You can sit around and tell interviewers you enjoy tech or fashion or healthcare, or you can do something and then SHOW interviewers your passion for tech or fashion or travel. Enjoy tech? Teach yourself a little code and launch a website or two. Enjoy fashion? Create a samplebook or perhaps get your own clothes custom-made. Enjoy healthcare? Join your professor in a research project and get your name attached to a paper. There are many ways to take initiative and get something done, a little work on your end can reap huge dividends later.

When I graduated I took a consulting job through OCR and proceeded to dislike everything about my choice for the next year. I struggled through banal work, thinking that this is just how the working world is: show up, do something you don’t enjoy, rinse and repeat for 45 years and then you can finally enjoy yourself. When they mercifully fired me after a year (the best thing they ever did for me), I threw myself into what I actually cared about: technology. Even though I did not really know how to code, I taught myself the basics and project-managed a few ideas I had to fruition, launching two web services. Those eventually failed, but simply because I went out and actually DID something, all of a sudden I was getting interest right and left from technology companies. That got parlayed into my current job at AppNexus, where I’ve spent the past year doing something I love and succeeding in a field I want to succeed in. You can do the same, there’s nothing stopping you except you.

Good jobs aren’t looking for grunts like they do in finance and consulting. They’re looking for people who are passionate, they’re looking for people who want to love what they do. Finance and consulting jobs may claim to give you a broad-based skill set, but employers in your chosen field aren’t looking for investment banking skills, they’re looking for people who have demonstrated passion above all.

Find something you love and pursue it. The most important person in your life is you, and your time is far too precious to be spent doing something you don’t enjoy.

3 Things Matter to Get the Job You Want

by Desiree M. Tunstall, ‘CAS 2006, Account Director @ AppNexus

There are three things that matter to any employer when interviewing a candidate.

Can you do the job?
Will you do the job?
Will I like working with you?

If you’re an avid reader of the Harvard Business Review, Fast Company or other similar business publications, you may have seen these three questions. Let’s address each from the standpoint of a college student looking to secure his or her dream job.

Can you do the job? Employers know that you are fresh out of college and you will need on the job training. However, there are certain skills you can bring to the table that employers need you to have from the start – you either have them or you don’t. They include:

Problem Solving: If I give this person an issue to tackle, will he/she think about all sides of the problem? Address all potential outcomes? Weigh various sides of the issue intelligently? Provide a sound resolution quickly?
Effective Communication: Can this person effectively and efficiently articulate a point? Can he/she explain complicated matters in a simple, easy-to-understand fashion? If I put this person in front of our CEO, would he/she know what is important to share?
Comprehension Skills: Can this person receive, interpret and act upon information he/she is given quickly?

Will you do the job? An employer can tell if you are interested in the job. It’s like going on a date. If you are only there for the free meal, the person on the other side of the table can tell. Apply for positions at companies that interest you. That way you can easily demonstrate the most important characteristic that employers look for here – investment. Investment means that you are not only interested in being at the company, but you are willing to put in 100% effort to exceed expectations and contribute to the company’s success. During your interview, you demonstrate investment by researching the company well, clearly articulating how the position maps to your career goals and being enthusiastic.

Will I like working with you? It’s no secret that you are likely going to spend a lot of hours at your first job. Most Americans work anywhere from 40 to 60 hours per week – some even more than that. Those hours are best spent around people you enjoy. Employers want to like the person they are hiring. Gone are the days of clocking in at 9:00AM and leaving at 4:50PM. Companies are trying to make their workplaces more integrated in their employees personal lives, making work a more social experience. Liking the people around you is more important than ever. I certainly don’t suggest going to an interview and trying to be liked. Just be yourself. Be your naturally nice, smiling, charismatic, friendly, inquisitive, intuitive, emotionally intelligent self. You got into PENN with it. Now go get that job!

An Unconventional Path to Finding the Right Job

Sushanth Bhaskarabhatla, C’12

My experience finding my job was a bit unique and less straightforward compared to that of many of my peers, so I thought it would be worth sharing to other students as an anecdote.

Though many of my friends received job offers through OCR during their senior year, I did not formally go through OCR since I was working on my own start-up at the time. It turned out to be very useful, though, for me to attend the Penn Engineering Career Fair (open to College students), where I met folks from AppNexus and other tech companies. Later, I had two phone interviews with them in September of my senior year and then put the process on hold. Once I finished working on my start up a few months ago, I got back in touch with the folks from AppNexus that I met.

Sending one thoughtful email re-establishing that connection and describing my experience over the past year and why I was interested in their company had a much stronger impact than dozens of resumes I was dropping at the time. I want to thank Career Services because the initial Career Fair helped me laid the seeds of a job offer that I did not receive until over a year later.

I am now a Technical Account Manager at AppNexus, where I work with 3^rd party developers to make apps for our clients in the advertising industry to use. The work combines both business and technical aspects in an exciting and growing start-up and industry. I never would have found this opportunity, however, if I had beelined for what I thought at the moment was the right job.

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A Penn Road Less Travelled By: A Career in International Development

By Hannah Peterson (C ’12)

“Wow, that’s so amazing. I wish I could do something like that!”

“I’m so jealous of you. You’re actually going to be helping people, while I’m sitting stuck at my desk all day”.

“That’s such a great decision, I wish I had decided to travel while I was young.”

These were the responses I heard over and over again by my friends, classmates and family when telling them my decision to move to Nicaragua to work for a community development non-profit after graduation. There were feelings of jealousy, regret and paralysis, and I couldn’t understand it, because there was absolutely nothing stopping them from making my same decision.

As I was starting my final year at Penn I was stuck in the age-old dilemma of coming to terms with my future. I put on that pants suit I had spent treacherous hours searching for in the mall the summer before. I bought myself one of those fancy leather Penn folders and I pasted a smile on my face. I walked around the OCR career fairs pretending like I was enjoying what I was seeing. I went through all the motions as I thought I needed to, yet I kept having the feeling that I was choosing the best of the worst option. Their pen design is better, so I must fit in there. That recruiter gave me a ping pong ball with the company’s logo on it, they must have a fun work environment. When trying to write my cover letters it was painful to find reasons I wanted to work at each firm. In fact, what I found myself searching for on each of their websites was their charity work they in order to convey any genuine interest in my statement.

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