The Benefits of Career Storytelling

By Sharon Fleshman

Recently, I saw that Penn Nursing will be part of a Story Slam where some students and faculty will share brief stories about their nursing experiences and insights. Not only does it sound like an innovative and engaging event, but it also reminds me of the power of story in the development of careers.  A career story allows you to develop a narrative around highlights, catalysts and defining moments that occur as your career unfolds.   To that end, career storytelling can be of great help in several ways:

  1. Career storytelling offers clarity for your career planning: The first person to whom you should tell a career story is you.  As your story unfolds, notice when you are the most energized.  This process will leave you with clues about the work and the environment that you will want to pursue for your career going forward.
  2. Career storytelling boosts your confidence and resilience: As you recall moments when your work produced great results or had a positive impact on a person’s outlook or situation, you will be reminded why you are on a given career path even when times are challenging or when you are tempted to second-guess yourself. 
  3. Career storytelling allows you to shine during interviews: Stories offer concrete and engaging examples of your work that serve as excellent answers to behavioral questions during interviews. As you share your stories, you will be able to communicate your strengths from an authentic and compelling place.

To identify good career stories, you can utilize our Behavioral Interview Prep Sheet.  To prepare your stories, the following S.T.A.R. method is recommended:

  • S = Situation: Describe the situation or challenge you were facing
  • T = Target: Describe what you wanted to achieve
  • A = Action: Describe what you did
  • R = Results: Describe how things turned out, what impact you made, what you learned, and/or perhaps what you’d do differently if presented the same circumstances

If you would like more assistance with developing and honing your career stories, feel free to consult with a career advisor.

After the Exhale: Making the Most of Your Winter Break (Revisited)

by Sharon Fleshman

Once again, it is that time of year so I have updated my previous tips for career planning during winter break. Many of you are likely anticipating that last paper or exam and that sigh of relief.  Therefore, the following tips should be seen as less like a “checklist” to complete and more like a “menu” from which you can choose what is most useful for you to accomplish during your downtime.  

Reflect: 

Think about your experiences at Penn so far. What have been some of your most energizing projects? Such projects may have taken place in the context of an internship, field placement, clinical rotation, class project, or a student organization.  Write a quick summary of each project, what you accomplished, and what you enjoyed. Are there any common elements that you see from these projects that point to skills, values, and strengths?   These reflections are not only helpful for improving your resumes, cover letters and interviews, but will also allow you to identify careers that may suit you going forward. Career Services has self-assessment resources that can help facilitate this process.

Research:

Winter break is a great time to research careers, industries, employers and job/internship opportunities.  Make sure to peruse the Career Services website for online resources. For example, we have a variety of resources by career field available. Online versions of newspapers, trade publications and other periodicals are other good sources for industry research. Websites for professional associations and regional chambers of commerce can also provide helpful career, industry and employer information. Make sure that you update your Career Interests profile and look up relevant jobs and upcoming career fairs on Handshake.

Reach out:

Don’t forget that you already have quite a network which includes family, friends, alumni, current supervisors, and professors.  Don’t be hesitant about reaching out to your network for insight and consider how you can help others in your network as well.  Helpful resources for this include QuakerNet, LinkedIn, regional alumni clubs, and professional associations related to your field of interest.  Another recently added resource for this is CareerShift, and more information on this tool is offered in a previous blog post written by my colleague Natty Leach.

In addition to networking and information interviewing, you can make connections with others while getting direct exposure to a career.  For instance, volunteering is an excellent way to accomplish this with hands-on involvement. Perhaps you can assist someone in a field of interest in a short-term project. Another means of exposure is shadowing, which allows you to accompany someone in a career of interest during the course of a work day. 

Regroup:

As you assess your career goals and progress you’ve made so far, you may decide that you need to make some adjustments. To do this, consider an approach with “flexible focus” by determining what is most important concerning your career plans and where you can be more flexible. For instance, you may be committed to a particular industry but may decide to expand your geographical options. Invite others to strategize with you.  Once you have revisited your goals, it is time to document your plan of action with concrete, timely and measurable steps. Such a goal could sound something like, “I will conduct informational interviews with at least two people each month after break.”

Finally, the most important tip of all: RELAX!

What’s Your Story? The Power of a Career Narrative

by Sharon Fleshman

You may have career goals which seem clearly aligned with your background or you may be seeking a career transition.  Either way, you will want to develop a compelling career narrative which would include the following:

— An experience that exposed you to a given career and served as a catalyst for you to pursue that career.

— An experience in which you were energized and made a positive impact, confirming for you that a particular career or job is a good fit for you.

With these kinds of defining moments and accomplishments, you can connect the dots between your work history and the next step on your career path.  Consider the following scenarios and career narrative examples:

A student completing a BSN degree and planning to apply to Registered Nurse positions.  
“I became drawn to nursing in high school when volunteering at a pediatric hospital and shadowing a nurse.  I continue to enjoy community service work which allows me to mentor and empower children. In my recent clinical rotation in pediatrics, I was able to bring comfort and clarity to the anxious parent of a patient, which was noted by the parent and my supervisor. This affirmed my desire and ability to offer patient care that has a positive impact not only on children at the hospital but on their families as well.”

An alum who has worked as a teacher, returned to school to study policy, and plans to apply to policy research positions.
“As I worked as a teacher in public school, I began to ponder the best ways to assess student achievement in the classroom. As I did this, I also saw connections to broader and more systemic issues. This discovery led me to attend a graduate program which allowed me to cultivate skills in policy analysis and data analysis to complement my teaching background. I found that in my internship, my track record as an educator paved the way for me to build rapport with teachers and administrators whose participation was vital to my research.   I hope to leverage my mix of experiences and skills to conduct policy research and analysis that promotes increased equity and access in education.”

There are a number of contexts in which you can apply your career narrative:

Cover letters:  Cover letters allow you to address a specific employer about a specific job.  Therefore, you do not want to merely repeat what is on your resume. Instead, adapt and build upon your career narrative to highlight experiences that demonstrate why you are interested in and qualified for the job, and a good fit for the employer.

Career Fairs: Career fairs allow you to engage representatives from various employers, usually in brief conversations.   The career narrative, adapted to a particular employer, can offer a great way to introduce yourself and pave the way to ask a thoughtful question or two.

Networking: Whether you converse with your networking contact at a reception or an informational interview, your career narrative is a great tool to offer a bit about your background and career interests before you ask for perspective or advice.

Interviewing:  Many interviews open with the “Tell me about yourself” question, which can be a bit daunting.  Having a career narrative that connects your key experiences and career goals to the employer and the job will help you begin the interview with enthusiasm and confidence.

Feel free to make an appointment with a career advisor to discuss how to craft your career narrative. In the meantime, take a look at the following articles for more insight:

What’s Your Story? – by Herminia Ibarra and Kent Lineback, Harvard Business Review, January 2005

Younger Workers Need a Career Narrative by Heidi Gardner and Adam Zalisk, Harvard Business Review, February 15, 2013

 

Replenish: Taming Overwhelm in the Job Search and Beyond

by Sharon Fleshman

Career decision-making, the job search, and even starting a new job can be a bit overwhelming, so making room for replenishing is a great habit to start (or strengthen). To that end, here are three questions to ask yourself as you move toward your next semester or phase of life:

Who and what brings me positive energy and joy?
Answering this question is a good way to make sure that you can be intentional about including life-giving people and activities in your day-to-day life. It can also give you clues for finding a good career fit.

What am I noticing about myself right now?
This question can help you to assess how you are feeling and showing up. Any concerns about what you notice can pave the way for helpful interventions, whether quick ones such as deep breathing or calling a friend, or more long-term ones such as attending a mindfulness program or counseling.  Don’t forget to take the time to notice and celebrate the positive as well. 

What is my strategy for self-care?
Even with the most rewarding work, having a plan for replenishing is necessary.  Self-care can encompass many areas of your life (e.g., physical, emotional, relational, spiritual, etc.) so you will want to be holistic in your strategy.

Feel free to connect with a Career Services advisor to discuss how your answers to these questions relate to your job search or other career planning activities.  We also have a list of self-management and personal wellness reflection questions on our website.  

Here are some additional resources to check out:

Wellness at Penn

Student Health Service

Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction/CAPS

Office of the Chaplain

Weingarten Learning Resources Center

 

The Mindful Job Search

By Sharon Fleshman

Mindfulness programs seem to be increasingly prevalent on university campuses and in the workplace.  In fact, Penn has offered a number of these programs for students and staff.  It might be tempting to reduce mindfulness to sitting in a quiet space and breathing deeply, yet it can be much more. 

Jon Kabat-Zinn, founder of Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction, defines mindfulness as “paying attention in a particular way: on purpose, in the present moment, and nonjudgmentally.”

How can mindfulness be applied to the job search? Let’s consider the potential of being mindful as a practice that can enhance the interviewing process.

Prepare positive impact stories

One of the challenges that mindfulness confronts is our tendency to ruminate over past occurrences (usually negative ones) and to worry about the future. What if you could intentionally focus on times when you have made a positive impact on a person or situation? Form a mental picture of someone you helped and tell yourself the narrative of the person’s situation, your actions, and the results.  Imagine that person’s response if someone else was asking them about you.  Journaling your stories and reading them over would likely solidify your positive memories even more and pave the way for increased gratitude. These exercises can not only boost your confidence, but help prepare you to answer behavioral questions in an interview and show how your positive impact can continue in the future.  Even “negative” events such as mistakes or conflicts can be reframed for focus on positive impact if you learned vital lessons and experienced growth as a result.

Press the pause button

Often the job search feels like a job in of itself, and for that reason, it is crucial to give yourself space to replenish.   For more on this, check out my previous article.  Though mindfulness is not limited to sitting quietly in a contemplative stance, regularly taking time to just breathe and embrace the silence can reap future benefits, even in interviewing.  Briefly pressing the pause button during an interview can help you navigate thoughtful or challenging questions and decrease use of filler words (e.g., um, uh, you know, etc.)

Practice paying attention

Imagine a moment when you are talking with a friend on your phone, then you hear the chime from a text message, and then a notification for an Instagram post, and then…. Paying attention to one thing at a time has never been so challenging. Mindfulness exercises can help you focus your attention on activities as simple as breathing, munching on an apple, or watching a squirrel scurry up a tree. This practice allows you to be present in the moment, which will serve you well for interviewing.  For example, it is wise to prepare for interviews by considering how you would answer anticipated questions, but you don’t want to be preoccupied with recalling scripted responses.  With mindfulness, you can be prepared and interact with your interviewers in a genuine and engaging way. 

Please note that a mindfulness program will be offered on-campus for Penn students in the fall. To further discuss how you can use mindfulness in a practical way to enhance your job search, feel free to set up a time to speak with a career advisor.