The Confluence of Career Planning & Decision Making

By Jamie Grant, C’98, GEd’99
Senior Associate Director for the School of Engineering & Applied Science

September and October are such interesting months in career advising, as there is a truly full spectrum of questions. It’s a time of beginnings – the freshmen are here, it’s the start of a whole new school year, new classes.  Yet, it’s also a time for many students to be making career planning decisions all along that same spectrum – what kinds of internships do I want to pursue, where are my skills and capabilities the best fit, which full-time opportunities should I go after.  In a few particular industries, it’s “go” time for full-time and internship roles – deadlines to accept or decline offers are looming, even if candidates were able to get an extension from organizations excited to have a commitment from an amazing and skilled Penn student like you.  Others career fields and organizations are just getting started.

No matter where you or your path(s) of interest fall within this process, we’ve got you in Career Services.  At any time of the year, we’re happy to guide you and help you explore all the possibilities, weigh the decisions and go through the pros and cons of your choices in a methodical, objective manner.  I know this can be tough – just this week, I’ve helped new students brainstorm relevant skills and experiences to include on their resumes, helped a soon-to-be graduate compare two similar offers, down to stock options and healthcare plans.  Such objective discussions perhaps may not be possible with others in your support system – I remember my family and friends all offered their own advice on my job search and decision making, and how much emotion and subjectivity defined those conversations.

Before you meet with one of us, you can certainly start some of this thinking and exploration yourself with the tools on our website.  It’s never too early – or too late – think about the impact of your values, skills and interests and how that all ties together with your educational plans and career path.  And know that we as advisors have years of experience helping candidates look at all the angles and weigh the options, present the best versions of themselves throughout the application process, and pursue and achieve whatever “success” may look like for each individual.

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

 

Retirement

Dr. John F. Tuton, Career Advisor

I’ve been thinking about retirement a lot lately, partly because one of my long-term colleagues at Career Services retired earlier this year and two others are about to retire this summer.  And, full disclosure, I’m old enough to “retire” myself, if I wanted to.  But the main reason retirement is on my mind is that I’ve been meeting with more and more Penn alumni who are approaching retirement age themselves and have come to me for advice.

But before I get into that, why should I even be blogging about “retiring” on this website when most of you who are reading this are probably younger than 30 and looking forward to a future career that may span over 40 more years?  How can you possibly look 40 years ahead, when it’s not at all certain what the future will be for any of us?  And how realistic is it to even consider retirement as a reality, when your first priority right now is launching your career, not ending it? 

My answer comes from the thoughts that senior alumni have shared with me, and even though they vary, there is a surprising consistency to what they’ve said.  When I met with the first one or two, I started the conversation by asking, “What sorts of skills do you have?” hoping to get some information that I’d want to see on a CV or resume.  But their answers went far beyond “job” skills, and included much more personal qualities, like curiosity, empathy, creativity and perseverance.  And when they shared these “skills”, they clearly were excited about claiming them, and I got the message that these were qualities that they truly enjoyed using and, from the examples they gave me, had become quite adept at doing so. 

So my “skills” question went well beyond a simple list of technical abilities, and became an exercise in affirming what they felt were their strengths and how rewarding it had been for them to put them to good use.  And because their enthusiasm was pretty obvious, it led to another question, “Why are these skills so important to you?”  Their answers were even more revealing, and ranged from “Because they’ve helped me solve a difficult problem…understand what someone needs…deal with setbacks…see things in a new way.”   And this led to lots of discussion and clarification about their basic motivations, what they valued most in their lives, and what their deepest concerns were.

Digging a little deeper soon led to a third question: “What helped you along the way?”  And here I discovered all sorts of information about the particulars of their relationships with the superiors, colleagues, family members and friends who had valued their “skills” and respected their motivations and concerns.  Out of all of this came a detailed picture of their ideal “environment” – the people and the places – that had supported the best use of their skills and honored the values and concerns that were most important to them.

From all this, it was possible to create a “template” for what they wanted to do next, why they wanted to do it and where might be the best setting to do it in, and the rest of our meetings were devoted to strategizing about specific opportunities that they might want to pursue. 

So here’s why I’m writing this blog for those of you who are under 30 and see retirement only as a vague concept in the distant future.  Because knowing your “what, why and where” is as important at the beginning of your career as it is for the alums who I’ve worked with who are at the tail end of theirs.  And the good news is that you already started to define your “what, why and where” the moment you discovered a particular job posting.  Choosing a job that fits your resume and skill set, creating a cover letter that communicates your interest and enthusiasm, and even answering an interview question like “Why do you want to work here?”—these are all opportunities to state your “what, why and where” in ways that will work best for you.  And if your application leads to you being hired, your next step is to continually keep track of what you do best, why you do it and where is the best, most supportive environment to do it in, so that your future career path becomes clearer and more fulfilling, no matter how far it may go. 

 

 

Take Some Time This Summer for Self-Assessment Using SIGI3

Some students arrive at college already having a pretty clear idea of what career path they plan to pursue and the path winds up being fairly straight forward and linear. For the majority of students, however, that is not the case, and the path has many twists and turns. Students may take an amazing class and discover whole new career areas they had never even thought about. Others might land an internship thinking it would be a great fit, but discover that the day-to-day work just wasn’t quite as interesting as anticipated. Some students may simply find a particular path extremely hard to break into, so would like to widen the scope of careers they are considering to increase the number of possibilities available.

There are many reasons why people choose to assess their career options and the summer is an ideal time for self-assessment and exploring how your values, skills and interests relate to a variety of occupations. Luckily for Penn students, Career Services offers a great FREE tool to help you explore your options. SIGI3 (System of Integrated Guidance and Information) helps students create a career plan that’s right for them by integrating self-assessment with in-depth and updated career information that is easy to use and provides individuals with a realistic view of the best educational and career options for future success. SIGI3 helps each user examine key motivators and matches work-related values, interests, personality, and skills to educational and career pathways, and then helps individuals explore a range of options based on their personal choices.

Career Services has purchased a license for Penn students to use SIGI3 for free. Student can access it from the Digital Resources link on the Career Services home page. (Note you must use your PennKey to gain access.) Enjoy the exploration!

Option B: Making the Most of Your Job or Internship (Even If It Wasn’t Your First Choice)

I recently listened to an interview with Sheryl Sandberg (Facebook’s COO) and Adam Grant (one of our amazing professors here at Penn). Sheryl has long impressed me with the huge amount of work she has done in empowering and inspiring girls and women to take on leadership roles through her book, Lean In, published in 2013. The book became widely popular and topped the New York Times hardcover nonfiction list. It inspired an immense amount of dialogue about women in the workforce and also resulted in over 30,000 Lean in Circles (small groups of individuals who meet regular to learn and grow together) in over 150 countries around the world. Impressive!

Her newest book, Option B: Facing Adversity, Building Resilience, and Finding Joy, comes from different circumstances entirely and is focused on the hard truth that sometimes we can’t control what happens to us and life doesn’t always work out the way we had planned or hoped. Sheryl lost her husband suddenly and unexpectedly while on vacation, and Option B focuses on how to move forward after such a devastating loss and finding and building resiliency within. Adam Grant, as a co-author and friend of Sheryl’s, contributes with research on finding inner strength in difficult circumstances.

The idea of an “Option B” resonates strongly with me, as I often talk with students and alumni who are disappointed in how their job or internship searches worked out. Perhaps they had hoped to work for a large, well-known firm with a structured training program, but instead landed a job at a smaller organization that offers more “on the job” training. Perhaps they were hoping to land an internship in New York City, but ultimately could not find one that paid enough to cover the exorbitant housing costs in the city, making it an unrealistic option. Perhaps they were hoping to travel the world and land a job in Europe, but couldn’t find an employer willing to sponsor them for a work visa. These are all discussions I’ve had with students in just the past few weeks, and yes, they were disappointing outcomes. Through the many such conversations I’ve had with individuals, I’ve found that the most successful at navigating these disappointments are those who can acknowledge their disappointment and then move on to make the most of and capitalize on the options that they do have available, rather than focusing on “what could have been”. I believe there is always something positive you can take away from an experience, even if it is learning how to work for a difficult boss or how to tactfully ask for or negotiate different or new assignments if the ones you are initially given are not exactly piquing your interest. (Of course, keep in mind that this tactic always needs to keep the needs of the business in mind!) Rather than coming to work with negativity, focus on how you can make a positive impact and contribute. Good things invariably happen when people enjoy having you as a colleague and can feel your positive energy.

Think creatively about how to move forward with your Option B. For the person who wants to work in Europe, perhaps looking at US based multi-national employers would be a good next step – focusing on working in the United States for now, learning the ins and outs of the organization, and then exploring the possibility for an international assignment at some point in the future. For the person working at a smaller firm with less training, try seeking out online programs, workshops or conferences to learn new skills (and maybe even have it paid for by the employer). We all will experience “Option B circumstances” in our work lives. I encourage you to handle them with a positive and forward looking attitude – do the job to the best of your ability, learn new skills, increase your network, and when the time is right move on to the next (hopefully exciting!) chapter in your work life.