Robert Gannone – Penn & Beyond

The Coming Summer Internship Season

What will you be doing next summer?

Will you have a summer internship? If so, where and in what city? Will you be traveling or will you be doing research?

I know, I know, it’s the last thing you all probably want to think about right now.

However, I’m here to tell you that you may want to consider it sooner rather than later. Why?

Because when classes resume, almost every student will be thinking about it and they will be coming into our office.

I’ve seen it many times over the years.

Come January all the students rush over to see the counselors to get their resumes reviewed and talk about their plans for the summer and our office gets packed.

There are no appointments left, walk-ins are booked, and resume reviews will take several days due to the large volume.

But besides that, another good reason to think about it now is that the sooner you decide, the less stressed you will feel.

Now that Thanksgiving is over, the end of the year is roaring by. It’s a fact of life that time passes much too quickly.

First come the reading days, then finals, followed by the holidays. Then all of a sudden, it will be 2013 (and ideally we will have all survived the Mayan apocalypse!)

I would recommend making an appointment before you leave for break. Even just coming for a walk-in, dropping off your resume, or writing a quick email if you have a question because when the semester starts again in January, you will have a lot more to think about besides what you will be doing over the summer. Therefore, it would be best to start to ponder your options now and have a relaxing break.

If you’re not sure what to do, the best option would be to attend the summer on-campus recruiting orientation. If you are doing OCR, this will answer all of your questions.

This workshop will help you learn about using On-Campus Recruiting to apply and interview for summer internships, as well as the PennLink system.

The next live workshop is on Tuesday, December 4^th. It will be held from noon to 1pm in Steinberg-Dietrich Room 1201.

While many employers use the on-campus recruiting system to hire juniors (so that they can extend full-time offers afterward), it is best if you know what to expect if you’ll be utilizing OCR.

If you can’t make it, you can also view the online OCR orientation for internship recruiting for spring 2013 at the following link:

http://www.vpul.upenn.edu/careerservices/recruiting/Spring2013/player.html

Additionally, our office is open until December 21^st.

In the meantime, good luck on your finals and have a great holiday season!

What Can I do With My Major?

As Barbara Hewitt recently stated on the blog, the Career Plans Survey from the Wharton Undergraduate Class of 2012 is completed.

For current students, the survey is a great resource to see what students have gone onto after they have graduated. While 5.3% of the Wharton students pursued further education, the vast majority went right to working full-time.

You can view the full survey here:

http://www.vpul.upenn.edu/careerservices/undergrad/reports/WHA_2012cp.pdf

(You can view all the reports at the following site: http://www.vpul.upenn.edu/careerservices/undergrad/reports.html The Career Plans surveys for the College of Arts and Sciences and Engineering Schools for 2012 should be done soon.)

Also on our website is a listing of all the companies that Wharton graduates are employed at within the past few years. You see the list here:

Continue reading “What Can I do With My Major?”

Outreaching to Alums

Whether you’re a current student or a recent alum, one of the great things about being a graduate of The University of Pennsylvania is the broad alumni network.

The university provides several resources that you can utilize to connect with other alums.

You can find a database of Penn graduates who have volunteered to discuss careers through the Penn Alumni Career Network (PACNet). You can use it to interact with other alums about their careers and ask career related questions. (Please note that it should not be used to inquire about the availability of a job or for employment.)

You can find PACNet here:

http://www.vpul.upenn.edu/careerservices/pacnet/

Penn alumni also have access to the larger QuakerNet alumni directory, which can be accessed here:

http://www.alumniconnections.com/olc/pub/UPN/

Another great way to outreach with other alums is to join the University of Pennsylvania Alumni group.

There are also numerous subgroups by industry in LinkedIn that you should consider joining. You can find links to them all on our website at:

http://www.vpul.upenn.edu/careerservices/socialmedialinked.html

Career Services has created Facebook groups for Alums. These networking groups are categorized by various geographical regions. These groups are mainly dedicated to sharing housing resources for the major metropolitan areas in the U.S. among Penn students and alumni.

You can view the full list of these groups at the following link:

http://www.vpul.upenn.edu/careerservices/socialmediafb.html

Additionally, if you have questions about connecting with alums, feel free to speak with one of our counselors in the office.

Assessments to Help Explore Your Career

We’ve been getting quite a few questions from students regarding tests for career exploration.

We have several career assessments and inventories on our website here:

http://www.vpul.upenn.edu/careerservices/discovery/inventories.html

These tests assess your interests, skills, and values and help you to explore career opportunities that may be a good fit for you.

The most popular ones are Myers Briggs Type Indicator and Strong Interest Inventory.

Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) is designed to assess the preferences linked to your personality.

The Strong Interest Inventory is designed to assess interests and preferred work styles and relate them to a variety of career fields and occupations.

Also on the website is a link to SIGI 3. SIGI 3 is a comprehensive, free career exploration tool that prompts you to discover your skills, interests, and values and matches the resulting profile to career options.

For current students, it costs $15 for one test and $30 for both.

For alumni, it costs $25 one test and $50 for both.

If you are a current student, the Counseling and Psychological Services office also provides these takes and gives workshops regarding the tests.

You can view information from CAPS here:

http://www.vpul.upenn.edu/caps/html/career.htm

StrengthsQuest is also an assessment tool which lists your top five talent themes and offers advice on how to leverage those talents to achieve success in academics, career planning, and leadership development.

For current students and alumni, it costs $15 to take StrengthsQuest.

You can take it here:

http://www.vpul.upenn.edu/careerservices/discovery/sq.html

Once you have completed your StrengthsQuest assessment, you will automatically receive access to a customized report based on your talents. If you would like to discuss your results further, please contact the office to schedule a meeting with one of the following counselors based on your school.

After you have taken any of the above tests, you can schedule a talk with a career counselor for a comprehensive evaluation of your results and career options.

More Ways to Find Internships

As our Director Pat stated on the last blog, internship recruiting season is here.

Most deadlines are coming up in the next few weeks.

Our website has many resources that are often overlooked, but they can certainly help you on your search.

One of these is the Penn Internship Programs web page, which is available here:

http://www.vpul.upenn.edu/careerservices/penninternshipprograms.html

It lists some of the internships that are offered right here at Penn.

Also, we have a web page of internship resources that are listed by industry.

You can view a list of these sites here:

http://www.vpul.upenn.edu/careerservices/undergrad/internetlistings.html

The listings for company information sessions are on our schedule that you can view here:

http://www.upenn.edu/cgi-bin/calendar/calendar?category=3

Besides searching directly for a company on PennLink, you can also put up the companies that will be recruiting here by date. This is also a good way to see all the companies that will be here on-campus. As you can see from the image below, you can even narrow your search depending on industry or class level.

At the bottom of the screen there, you’ll see “OCR Interview Date.” You can narrow it by certain days, weeks, or even the full recruiting schedule here at Penn. To save the search and come back to it or modify it, save it at the top where it says “Search Agent.”

Best of luck during your internship search!