Thoughtful Career Advice for Penn Students and Alumni, written by the staff of the University of Pennsylvania Career Services office and selected special guests.
The summer’s still not half-way through yet, but I’ve spoken with a number of students who are already starting to feel burnt out. In honor of all of those who need a palette cleanser from the working day, please enjoy these images and videos of animals in business settings:
And if these images weren’t enough to help you through the working day, we’re still open over the summer and happy to talk through any career questions or plans for what might come after the summer.
by Natty Leach, Associate Director
Just to preface this before we get started… now is a great time (arguably even the best time) to be looking for summer internships.
Almost every time I meet with a student throughout the year, they feel like they’re behind or late to the internship search process. It always feels like there’s a spike in that this time of year, though, so I wanted to take the time to discuss how right now is actually an excellent time to be looking for opportunities.
Play the tape:
People are always shocked when I show them our summer survey report of when students found their summer internship. The most common months to receive internship offers is actually March/April which comes in at 44%. And May/June is the second most common at 22%. These numbers are representative of the many companies that post opportunities in the month of February or even later. If you combine the entire semester, 79% of summer internships are received throughout the Spring.
Industry specific:
The timing for internships can be really industry specific. That being said, almost every industry outside of Finance, Consulting, and big Tech, interviews and hires their Summer interns in the Spring semester. Even for those three earlier-trending industries, there will be opportunities still posted at smaller companies, startups, or niche sub-groups (like non-profit consulting). Handshake has tons of opportunities being posted every day so continue to look there as well as industry-specific job boards found on our Resources by Career Field page. You can also sign up for our industry-specific newsletters in the Career Interests section of Handshake to get emails about upcoming jobs, internships, and events.
If you wanted an idea of more specific places Penn students have interned previously, take a look at our Summer Industries report.
Bottom line, there’s lots of stuff being posted right now. Feel free to be in touch with us at Career Services about ways to enhance your search, prepare your application materials, or interview over the coming months.
Natty Leach, Associate Director
Too many people don’t really do what their heart’s desire is, but they try to do something else because they think—well, it will be easier to get a job or to make money. And if that happens, then when you’re doing it you feel like you’re working, but if you do what you really want to do, you feel like you’re playing.
With Stan Lee’s passing earlier this week, the world lost one of the creative minds responsible for some of our most popular characters and heroes in entertainment today. In remembering his legacy, I was considering the ways in which we can learn from Stan Lee’s career and was struck by the quote above: it’s nothing special. At face value, it’s just some inspirationally packaged platitudes that we’ve all heard about following our dreams and doing what you love. What stood out about the quote is that Stan Lee got his start and gained prominence doing almost the exact opposite—taking an easy-entry job to earn cash and get started in the writing and publishing industry even if it meant working in a less desirable medium like comics.
Stanley Lieber turned 18 right around the Great Depression. With a love of reading and desire to become a writer, he landed a job through a family connection at Timely Comics, a precursor to Marvel, the now Disney-owned behemoth. In an interview with the New York Times, he explains how comics were so trivialized by people at the time that Lieber felt the need to create a pseudonym to shield himself and hopefully his future, more serious, writing career by dividing his first name to form Stan Lee. One of Lee’s primary goals in the comic industry was to change it and force the medium to evolve by creating more layered characters with stronger stories.
In these ways, Stan Lee started by taking a job that didn’t really meet all his dreams or goals—it was a quick way to gain some writing skills, but in a field that he felt he had to shield his future reputation by adopting a new name. Even if at the beginning, comics weren’t Lee’s loftiest passion, he brought his desire for powerful characters and writing to his career and leveraged his love of literature to take the medium to greater heights. While doing exactly what you love and desire is an excellent goal for us all, we can see from the results of Stan Lee’s inspiring legacy that sometimes bringing what you love to what you do is just as meaningful.
Sources:
https://www.cnn.com/2014/05/28/us/stan-lee-fast-facts/index.html
https://www.nytimes.com/video/obituaries/100000006211149/stan-lee-marvel-dies.html
Natty Leach, Associate Director
As of just last week, Penn students have a new resource for their networking toolkit—CareerShift. With ways to search for companies, contacts, and keep everything organized, CareerShift can be a useful way to keep track of the networking side of your job search. Since it’s a new tool, I wanted to highlight just one key part of the system that can be particularly useful.
Whether you’re in the midst of applying to positions now or gearing up for positions that will open later in the Spring semester, having an informational interview with a Penn alum can be a great way to learn more about the company culture, job function, and overall industry you might be interested in. In addition to LinkedIn and QuakerNet, our alumni database, CareerShift has a great contact search that let’s you look at contacts within the organization by school attended, position, or location:
This can be useful for discovering new contacts or following up from a conversation you had at a career fair or information session. You can also organize all of your contacts by company or job to help keep track of who you’ve contacted so far.
If interested in informational interviews, take a look at the guide on our website with sample questions to ask or ways to craft an email to request a meeting.
Natty Leach, Associate Director
As we approach the last month of Summer, I wanted to take the time to share some exciting new features that will go live to Handshake this Fall.
New Homepage:
The “For You” tab which offers tailored collections of jobs to explore will be clearer and more inviting. While there’s no sample to share right now, the mockups look more inviting and easier to browse.
Reviews:
During the Spring semester, we participated in a trial that allowed Penn students early access to the online Reviews submitted by both Penn students and others in the limited trial. In the fall, this will open up to all other Handshake schools (over 700 nationally) so you will benefit from the input of peers at schools like Princeton, Columbia, UChicago, UVA, Stanford, and many more. You can access these reviews by going to an employer’s profile in Handshake:
In total, you’ll now benefit from:
100,000+ reviews from students from
700+ schools nationwide, covering
300,000+ companies
Q&A:
Also on an employer’s profile will be question and answer responses between students and young alumni. Ask students and alumni questions about anything career related:
OCR – Interviewing on Campus Filter:
When looking at what employers are coming to campus this fall, you can now easily search for specific jobs by adding the “Interviewing on campus” filter to your search:
Android App:
Handshake has made a ton of improvements to their OS app and will be unrolling an Android specific app near the beginning of the Fall semester. The app includes the ability to apply to positions in just one click, register for events and fairs, sign up for appointments, or just browse what’s posted in the system:
