Career Decisions – Page 11

Trying It On

When you buy a new shirt, do you usually try it on first to see if it fits? Or do you purchase it, take it home, try it on, and take it back to exchange because it doesn’t fit (or the color isn’t right or it makes you look like a turnip)? There are many reasons not to try something on: not enough time, just don’t care, the fitting rooms are full, wanting to try it on with something we already have at home. But trying something on ahead of time can definitely save time and prevent us from making mistakes.

At Career Services, we try to provide opportunities for our students to “try on” careers ahead of time to see if they fit. Depending on one’s school and year, there are several programs to help students “try on” a career—mentoring programs, externships (job shadowing), practice interviews at Career Services or as part of Mock Interview Day, employers’ programs such as coffee chats or practice interviews, exploration events sponsored by employers or industries, and networking events with professionals and alumni. We encourage you to participate in one of these programs or create this type of opportunity on your own.

Talking with a mentor can provide excellent insight into a particular career path. Several students who have participated in the mentoring program for first-year students in engineering provided comments:

“[My mentor] always replies . . . with deep insights and thoughts. I [have learned] a lot from [my mentor’s] personal experience.” (Bioengineering Student)

“I would recommend this program to other students because it is a great way to connect with a professional. Their opinions and experience go a long way in helping your decision making and career goals.” (Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering Student)

“The program allowed me to explore career paths in more depth and more quickly than I could have hoped for in any other way.” (Electrical Engineering Student)

“There is so much that one can learn from someone who has been through the whole process of going from undergraduate to having a stable career. The interaction is rich with insights. . . . I was very unclear about where I wanted to proceed with my career. Based on my background and interests, my mentor advised me on a lot of issues and was very honest with suggestions for possible career paths.” (Materials Science & Engineering MSE Student)

Wharton undergrads have the opportunity to do an externship, in which they “shadow” their hosts at work for a behind-the-scenes experience.

“I really enjoyed going to the office, experiencing the culture, and meeting the employees. [My host] was great, and I learned a lot about the company.” (Wharton Sophomore)

“My externship went very well. [My host] put me in touch with two buyers, and I learned a lot about the ins and outs of being a buyer.” (Wharton Sophomore)

You can also create these types of opportunities on your own through networking, which is simply “talking to people.” If one of your friends has a relative working in a career field that interests you, ask if you could talk with that person. If you are prepared and ask insightful questions, you could learn a lot about that type of work, and your conversation might lead to a mentoring relationship or a shadowing (externship) opportunity. Don’t be afraid to ask for opportunities to “try on” a career for an hour, a day, or a week!

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Know Your Strategy

I’m glad for lots of activity on campus after the lull of quiet weeks during the warmth of summer. I hope this time of year finds you happy too, and with so many things to look forward to! Aside from coming-back-to-school happiness, one thing that may be on your mind is how you can best be prepared to engage in a job or internship search in the coming year. Along with the standard advice – update your resume, get your interviewing suit cleaned and pressed, perfect your handshake –- I wholeheartedly encourage you to take a moment to determine your personal and unique strategy for your search, based on your interests.

Let me explain the italics – every industry and organization can be different when it comes to recruiting strategy, efforts and timeline for hiring, and your search will likely not be exactly the same as anyone else’s.

From a recruiting standpoint, there are no “rules” or specific dates when jobs are posted and when companies hire. Some recruiters are very savvy – and lucky! – and know 9-12 months in advance how many positions they’ll have to fill, which allows them to schedule interview dates, career fair attendance, and other programs on campus with great speed and foresight. For the majority, though, the process is not so easy or early – hiring projections may not be set, or in the case of many organizations, they may not even know their needs for next year more than a couple months in advance. Depending on the economy, there may also be challenges to hiring early, as uncertainty tends to drive hesitancy in interviewing and extending offers.

From a personal standpoint, while you may share some interests and goals with other students, virtually everyone I have ever met has a fairly unique collection of interests, goals, parameters, values and other variables when it comes to how they plan their job searches. This is not, by any stretch of the imagination, a “one size fits all” type of process. Not sure of your own variables? Try self-assessment or using another career exploration tool; many great ones are available on our Career Exploration website – http://www.vpul.upenn.edu/careerservices/careerexploration/

If you’re looking for a full-time position in consulting, update your Pennlink account and get ready today, for that industry tends to start very quickly and many firms participate in early On-Campus Recruiting and Career Fairs at Penn (i.e. in September and early October). The same is generally true for larger organizations in financial services, some technology firms, and a few other sizable companies that hire many college graduates each year. It’s a little easier to plan your organization’s recruiting strategy – and to start early – when you know you need to bring a specific number of entry-level people on board 9-12 months from now.

However, for most other industries, and some organizations within those industries mentioned above, the recruiting calendar and approach can be very different. You may have heard people refer to “just in time” hiring – otherwise known as posting jobs, interviewing candidates, and making hires when positions are actually available and for which work will start within a couple of months or even weeks. Some industries and individual organizations rely heavily on finding applicants and candidates through word-of-mouth and networking and so hardly ever actually post jobs – there are many different recruiting strategies out there, and you’ll want to be as aware of the possibilities as you can be.

What does this mean for you?

If you have even a rough idea of what you may want to pursue for your first job after Penn or your summer internship for next year, be kind to yourself, reduce your stress and worry, and find out what the “hiring timeline” and advertising strategies are for positions within your field(s) of interest. The easiest way to do this is to consult with a career advisor in Career Services. Our teams have years of experience in analyzing and understanding job markets and industries, and our advisors are happy to help guide you in finding your best job or internship opportunity.

Descending the Corporate Ladder

By Rohini Venkatraman, CAS ’10

I graduated from the College with a Psychology degree, after which I landed a job as a product manager at a large tech company. Eighteen months after graduating, I decided that I wasn’t doing the “big things” I planned on doing when I received that diploma. A recreational blogger, I, somewhat on a whim, decided to write a book in my free time. I didn’t quite know what it would be about, and nothing I came up with felt “good enough.”
Early in the book-writing journey, I found myself out at a bar with friends, sharing my writing aspirations with a middle-aged man and complete stranger.

“Wait what? You just told me that you are a product manager at a technology company down the street. You are writing a book?” He asked judgmentally. I chose not to respond. He continued, of course. “Your life is boring as shit. You need to accomplish something first. You want to write a book? Go work for Kiva. Go make a difference. Then write about what you learned. That’s what people will read.” This destroyed me. For days and maybe weeks, I couldn’t have felt more insignificant. I was wasting my college degree, my potential, my life. And then it struck me: this “conversation” could be the premise of my book.

My first few years in the real world were much less than what I expected them to be. After spending my academic years pushing through to the finish so that I could set myself up for some palpable and immediate success, the corporate world came as a disappointment. More specifically, at a point in my life when I believed I would be able to soar and take the world by storm, I was instead learning how to bullet my emails and buzzify my speech. Mostly driven by a need to prove that I was capable of a corporate job, I forced myself to try to be an intense career person like the many of my friends who ended up on Wall Street. While it never felt right, I never let on to that. It took several trials for me to finally accept that it wasn’t necessary for me to mold myself into my first corporate role and that, for the first time ever, my work did not need to be my life. I needed to turn inwards and reflect not on what I was doing but why. And sometime during that journey, I really and truly discovered my true passion — this, writing.

In talking to friends and witnessing a few more waves of people enter the real world, I realized that my experience was anything but unique: We’re all trying to do these “big things” and at some point or another, we’ll convince ourselves that we are not making any traction. And that’s the problem: While plowing towards that title that looks wonderful on paper, we’re discounting our day-to-day as nothing but a means to an end.

It has been three years since I graduated from Penn and while I don’t know a lot, I know a little more than I did back then. I’m here to tell you to forget your epic ending and instead get lost in the pages. Think about what you deeply value. The dreams that consume you. The moments that define you. That’s your story. You’re writing it every day and you get to make it a good one. If you want to read my story, check out my book, Descending the Corporate Ladder, on Amazon.

Summertime and the Living is Easy

Sue Russoniello

Today, July 25, falls right in the middle of summer. I’m sure we all have fond memories of summers past….running freely around the neighborhood, spending time at the swim club or beach, attending camp, taking family vacations, visiting with grandparents. As a child, the hot days didn’t bother us. We were happy to be outside playing. We’d rush through dinner so we could spend another hour or two playing outside before the street lights went on, living the carefree life of a child, enjoying our “summer friends”.

Alas, as we grow up, we spend more time working than playing. Most of you are probably working this summer, either at a summer job to earn money for school expenses, or at an internship to help you choose your career path. However, even for those of us who have full time jobs, summer seems to be less demanding, and just plain fun.

I hope whatever you’re doing, it’s enjoyable, and you also finding time to relax and play outside of work. There is great value to changing your routine. It helps your clear your head and regroup. It lets you try something new, see different people, read books you don’t have time for during the school year, look at life from a different perspective.

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Start My Job Search Now?

Start my job search now? Yes! Whether you will graduate next year or are an incoming student, it’s not too early to start developing your job-search skills. And note that I said “job-search skills,” not “job skills.”

“Job skills” include abilities necessary for a specific type of work (such as lab techniques, programming languages, art skills, knowledge of particular facts) as well as transferable “soft” skills (such as communication, collaboration, organizational skills).

“Job-search skills,” however, include knowing how to explore and find opportunities in the career field(s) of interest to you.

“Job-search skills” are not necessarily as challenging as they are time consuming. So, if you can start now, do! Devoting some time to developing competence in the following abilities will help you get ahead of the game (and make it easier to excel in these practices in the future). These suggestions for developing your job-search skills can also be rather fun!
Talk to People
Be Curious
Pursue Interests
Become an Expert Communicator
Be Amazed
Tell Stories
Send Fan Mail
Be a Sleuth
Get Experience
Start Now!

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