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

 

Your Career Fair Checklist

Dr. Joseph Barber, Senior Associate Director

If you want to make the most of your career fair experience, then try to achieve as many of the following steps as possible:

1. Find the dates for our upcoming fairs on Handshake – they are all listed right here: https://app.joinhandshake.com/career_fairs

2. Click on each of the fairs and gently browse the various employers who have registered, or do a more targeted search using filters such as job types, school year, major, and industry.

3. Take some time to think about some of your career fair goals. Are you exploring, networking, looking for information, checking in with employers you have already interacted with, or applying? And yes, you might well have different goals in mind for different employers.

4. Create a list of employers at each fair that you want to connect with. It doesn’t have to be a long list. You may only want to speak to a few, and that is perfectly fine, as it can still be an incredibly valuable use of your time.

5. Now that you have a preliminary list, you will want to prioritize it. You can sort the employers into different industries if you are exploring multiple career paths, and you can identify the employers that you are most interested in, those you are a little less interested in based on what you know, those you want to learn more about, and maybe have a few that you are just somewhat curious about.

6. Here is a really important step – do research on all of the employers you have listed. Look at their website to know what they do and how they do it. Look at the jobs that they have posted on Handshake. Look at the jobs they have posted beyond Handshake (LinkedIn the “careers” page on their website are good places to start). Create a list of smart questions you hope to ask (smart means not questions that can be answered through easy online research).

7. Since you cannot just walk up to a table at a career fair, ask a bunch of questions, and then run off without saying anything, you need to work on the narrative you are going to use when introducing yourself to employers. Make a list of information you want the employer to know about you. Again, this might be different for different employers. Put it all together into a well-structured narrative. Practice your introduction aloud, and do it several times until it sounds and feels natural.

8. Think about what you want to wear. You don’t have to be in a suit, but you still should look professional. Think about which companies are at the top of your prioritized list, and try to dress in a way that their representatives will be dressed at the career fair. For example, representatives from law firms that come to campus looking for PhDs to be patent law specialists typically dress in suits. If you turn up in jeans and a t-shirt, you will create an obvious, visual disconnect.

9. Have a good resume to share. This will usually be a document used as a shared reference for your discussion, rather than the document that is used for an actual application, but it should be good enough to do both. Get your materials reviewed before you go to the fair.

10. When you arrive at the fair, choose one of the employers that is lower down your list of priority organizations to ease yourself into the process – this will help you to practice your introduction one last time, and to get a sense of the timing of the interactions that you will be having with employers at the event. Since some fairs can be busy, the next employer you meet with should be one of your priority organizations.

11. Don’t start by handing someone your resume – start with a strong handshake and good eye contact. All employers have name tags on, and you can even start with a strong “Hello Julie, thanks for being here today…”. Did I mention that your handshake should be strong and confident…, and dry! Find out more here: https://ulife.vpul.upenn.edu/careerservices/blog/2018/04/04/handshaking-a-guide-to-making-the-right-impression/

12. Introduce yourself, ask some smart questions, share your resume, ask for a business card, and offer to follow-up with an electronic version of your materials. Thank them again, shake their hands, and move on with a smile!

13. Within 24 hours, and if you have their email address from their business cards, send a thank you email thanking them again, telling them why you found your conversation together helpful, and sharing anything that you said you would share. You might learn something about an internship or a job from your discussion at the career fair that makes you want to change something in the general resume you took with you to the event in order to better highlight your fit for a particular position.

14. Make sure you apply for specific jobs you talked about at the fair through Handshake, and some companies will need you to apply through their websites too.

15. Celebrate your successes. Think about what went well from the fair, and plan to improve on what didn’t go so well when it comes to the next career fair you go to. There are quite a few of them each semester. An appointment with a career advisor can help with this.

Good luck with your networking and information gathering, if these are your primary goals for your career fair experience, and make the most of your conversations to update your application materials if you are actively applying for positions.

Following up on the Career Fair “Love” Connection

By Claire Klieger

It’s February and love (Eagles, in particular) is in the air so I wanted to revisit and update this blog post from several years ago….

So you meet a great employer at a career fair (perhaps the spring career fair this past Friday) and it’s love at first handshake—sparks fly, resumes and business cards are exchanged and you feel like you’ve really made a connection. But just like coming down from the high of a great first date you ask yourself, now what? How do I follow up? Do I wait for him or her to call?  Do I email? Who initiates the next move? Similar to a budding romance, it’s about finding that balance between demonstrating interest and not coming off as desperate. Here are some tips and things to remember when following up with employers after a career fair:

Email a thank you note

Yes, even though the representative at the Career Fair may have spoken with dozens of students over the course of the day, this is one way to make yourself stand out. We hear all the time from employers that they really appreciate this kind of small gesture. Despite how it may seem, many applicants do not take the time to do this and so it does make a difference. Increasingly, employers rely on sophisticated tools to help them track contact with candidates and so not only will this gesture be welcomed by the contact, it may very well be officially noted as part of your online file with that employer.

 

Err on the side of being more formal

After a first date, you probably aren’t ready for someone to start addressing you as “Babe.” Similarly, some employers won’t feel that you know them well enough to refer to them by their first name. Unless during your initial conversation the recruiter specifically asked you to call him or her by their first name or introduced themselves using only their first name, you should still use a formal greeting (“Dear Mr., Ms., Dr., etc.”). Your email message should also avoid overly casual language, slang, acronyms (TTYL!), or emoticons.

 

What to say…

An email to an employer should be brief but detailed. Reiterate your interest in the organization and remind the recruiter of details you discussed at the fair. “Thank you for taking the time to speak with me at the Penn Career Fair on Friday. As I mentioned when we met, I’m really excited about this internship because as a health and societies major, it blends my interest in healthcare and communications. In particular, I enjoyed hearing about the kinds of projects that past interns have had a chance to work on and believe my leadership role as publicity chair for my sorority will enable me to…(reference what you will be doing in the position). I’m excited to submit my application online.” It could also just be thanking for them sharing some particular piece of advice or resource that resonated with you. Often, the best thank you emails are simply ones that show appreciation without an expectation of any follow-up or responses to questions.

 

Show that you really listened

You know how impressed you are if someone you’re interested in remembers something you mentioned (like a book you read that you enjoyed), unless, of course you have a stalker and then it’s just creepy. The same holds true for recruiters. If there was advice or information that a recruiter gave you at the fair (a professional association or recruiting website to check out), thank them for making that suggestion and show that you followed up on their advice. “Thanks so much for recommending ______. I spent some time looking at it this weekend and it’s a wonderful resource which I think will really help me….”

 

How long is too long?

Remember that recruiters are really busy and don’t have much time so they want to be able to get through your message quickly. Ideally, it should be no more than a few sentences. I think a good rule of thumb is whether or not the entire text of your message can be seen when the message is opened on a regular computer screen. If the message requires scrolling to finish reading, it’s probably too long.

 

Not getting a response doesn’t necessarily mean they “just aren’t that into you”

While some recruiters will respond to individual emails not everyone is good about replying. Don’t assume that if you don’t get a response that the recruiter isn’t interested in you as a candidate. They may just be too busy. That said, if it’s been more than a week since you initially emailed AND your message was something that required a response (like an answer to a question), it’s fine to follow-up with a second (even shorter) email referencing your initial email and asking they have had a chance to consider your question. After that second follow-up if you still don’t receive a response, it’s time to back off (remember, being labeled a stalker on the job market is no better than in the dating world). The “ball” is in their court and they will get back to you if (and sometimes only if) they are interested. Remember that all employers are on different timelines so it may take some time to get a response.

CS Radio – Episode 55: “Job Trekking”

It’s career fair season again. It’s possible that you find keeping up with all the employers you have or want to connect with daunting. It can be easy to be overwhelmed or feel disorganized before, during or after a career fair. Michael and Mylène discuss some of the techniques they like to use to stay on top of things, including the online platforms JobTreks and CareerFair+. Plus…are business cards still a thing? Are career fairs even still a thing? All that and much more on this week’s episode! Enjoy!

Show Note
Upcoming Career Fairs
JobTreks on our Digital Career Resources page
Career Fair Plus (iOS)
Career Fair Plus (Android)

Managing Career Fair Jitters: First-Gen Stories

Alyssa Perkins-Chatterton, Assistant for the College Team

Career Fair and recruiting season here at Penn is fast approaching! I remember quite vividly my own experience first attending a Career Fair as a student. I was a first-generation college student and throughout my time at school, I was lucky enough to have supportive mentors that I could turn to for guidance when needed. However, this did not ease my anxiety any less when it came to the idea of walking around a crowded gymnasium, in an uncomfortable suit jacket (which I did not own), talking to strangers about why they should hire me.

The night before the fair I remember pacing around my room practicing my 30 second pitch and also stressing about what to wear. After pulling everything out of my drawers, I decided that I had nothing that would work and that is when panic wave #2 set in. I thought to myself, “Well, Alyssa, this is a sign, looks like you aren’t going to the career fair tomorrow.” Luckily, I worked my way through that ball of stress, and my roommate graciously offered me options from her own closet to choose from.

By the time the fair rolled around I felt as though I had been through every emotion, but I also felt confident going into the day. I had prepped my resume and I felt as though I had a firm grasp on what I was going to say to employers that I met. Let’s be real though, career fairs are intimidating. You are surrounded by your peers in a packed room, all trying to impress recruiters who you hope will offer you a job. I am happy to report that I made it through the event and even left feeling good about the connections that I made throughout the day!

This time of year can be stressful, which is why Career Services tries its hardest to offer as many opportunities as possible to prepare for fairs and upcoming recruiting events. In addition, we are so excited to be offering the Quaker Career Wardrobe again this year! Come see us on Thursday, September 7th from 10:00-3:00pm down in the On-Campus Recruiting Suite to pick out a free professional outfit that you can keep! We are also offering many Career Fair Prep workshops leading up to the events this semester to don’t miss out on those!

Career Fair Prep Workshop, Friday, September 8th 3:00-3:30PM | Huntsman F45
Career Fair Prep Workshop, Monday, September 11th, 12:00-12:30PM | Huntsman F45
Career Fair Prep Workshop, Monday, September 25th, 1:30-2:00PM | McNeil Room 97

And, if you can’t make any of those, check out our podcast on Mastering Career Fairs. It is okay to feel overwhelmed during this time of year, but know that Career Services is here to support you throughout!