Category: Food For Thought

Make sure Facebook is your Friend, not your Enemy

by Lin Yuan

My name is Lin Yuan and I’m a workstudy for the Career Services office. I do a lot of Facebook and Twitter posts for the office. It’s a pretty sweet job because how many people can say they get paid to be on Facebook and Twitter all day? It’s definitely a fun job, but also pretty informative and I’ve already learned so much from work that I want to share with you all.

I come across a lot of articles at work about social media making or breaking a job offer. Employers these days definitely search  job applicants on Facebook and other sites to see if they can dig up any dirt or just get to know you better. Even if you’re not applying for a job or internship now, make sure your Facebook profile always puts your best face forward:

1)      Untag unattractive or incriminating photos of yourself. Better yet, ask your friends to delete them.

2)      Use Facebook’s friend lists functions.  Friend lists are great to classify your hundreds of friends into manageable groups. I made a friend list for acquaintances and family friends called PG, with limited access to my profile. Closer friends go into a PG-13 list. And remember, if it’s R, it probably shouldn’t be on Facebook!

3)      Put some thought into your About Me section. Employers might have something in common with you that could give you more to talk about in an interview. Use your About Me section to make your profile more personalized and show off what an interesting person you are! (Check out this student branding success story).

4)      Exercise general caution on Facebook. Facebook creates a huge, complicated web of contacts, so even if you do use privacy settings, make sure you don’t put anything on your profile that you wouldn’t want everyone to see. For example, a popular privacy setting is only letting Friends of Friends see your Facebook photos. It sounds pretty reasonable, but when you have 500 friends and each of them have 500 friends, that’s suddenly a lot of people with access to your pictures from last night’s party.

More resources and tips about Facebook can be found on Career Services’ Social Media page.

And if you aren’t already, become a fan of University of Pennsylvania Career Services on Facebook!

We’ll keep you updated on our events & workshops and post information that can help you with your career search. (I promise to keep the corny puns to a minimum!)

The “big and little L” of Leadership

…a leader is not only to be found in the team captain, class president, or valedictorian…Consider ways in which you have led by example; when you have helped or taught others; when you have assumed responsibility to do something well or to see something through, even if you weren’t the one “in charge.”

The ability to lead – and lead well – is a highly coveted skill in the employment market.  Maybe you’ve taken a class with “Leadership” in the title; perhaps you’ve been a captain on an athletic team or the President of a student club.  Intern and entry-level candidates devote entire sections of their resume to the details of their elected or appointed leadership positions held throughout their school years.  Scan just about any job posting and it is easy to see that employers are consistently looking for candidates that have demonstrated this valued attribute.   

 However, a leader is not only to be found in the team captain, class president, or valedictorian.   When speaking with students in career counseling meetings, I often discuss the difference between the “big and little L” of leadership – those times when you may have been appointed or recognized as the leader – the “big L” – and other times, when you weren’t necessarily or formally “in charge,” but demonstrated characteristics and qualities that illustrate your leadership potential and talents, and would be ideal to share with a potential employer. 

John Quincy Adams once said, “If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.”  I encourage you to think of the ways that Adam’s interpretation of what makes a leader resonates with your own life experiences.  Consider ways in which you have led by example; when you have helped or taught others; when you have assumed responsibility to do something well or to see something through, even if you weren’t the one “in charge.”  Chances are, this has happened often in your life – with classmates, siblings or relatives, co-workers and others.   By detailing those experiences, and the personal and professional development gained, you have the potential to be considered an even stronger candidate for the careers you are considering!

Thank You Notes

by Sue Russoniello

Hard to believe, but January, 2010 is almost past.  The poinsettias are long gone.  You’re back at the gym working off those cookies you couldn’t resist in December.  And your mom is still bugging you to write those pesky holiday thank you notes, right?  Why don’t you put that etiquette training to good use in your job or internship search?  How’s that, you ask?

Well, for instance, a friend and I were chatting recently about our respective holidays.  She was telling me about a connection her daughter made over the break.  “Mary” accompanied a friend to a holiday party where she had the typical conversations — Where is she studying?  What degree is she getting? What are her career goals? Pretty humdrum, right?  Whoa! Wait a minute! What a coincidence!  The host of the party is on the board of directors of an organization in the very field she wants to enter when she graduates in May!  He told her to be sure to get in touch in the spring, and he’d be happy to help her in her job search in whatever way he could.

I urged Mary to write to him NOW.  And I encourage you to follow up on connections you made, as well.  Write that note; thank him for the lovely party; impress him with your good manners while gently jogging his memory about the conversation you had regarding your employment goals.  Be sure to include your contact information so he can reach out to you if he wants.   Let him know you’ll be in touch in the next few weeks to follow-up.  (Then, of course, don’t forget to do that.)

So even though it’s almost February, it’s not too late.  Sit down for a minute before the semester kicks into full gear.  Think about the people you spent time with over the break.  Perhaps you didn’t make as exciting a connection as my friend’s daughter, but maybe you had a nice conversation with your best friend’s parents or your Aunt Sadie who had some good leads for you.  Reach out to them with those thank you notes and let them know how much you appreciate their guidance and friendship.  Use the good manners your mom has taught you and at the same time kick your job search into gear.

While you’re at it, thank Mom for the etiquette lessons!

Going Global: Go Abroad Now!

Going Global is a great resource for anyone interested in going abroad to work, intern, study or volunteer.   We currently have an online subscription with them (gain access by visiting our international resources’ page) and their listings are available to Penn students and alumni through PennLink.  Every Monday, Going Global features a piece of advice on their blog to help you get abroad.  This ongoing series is called “Must Do Mondays”  –  a must read if you want to turn your dreams of getting abroad into reality.  Today’s post discusses the importance of building your LinkedIn profile – check it out!

Let the Internship Search Begin…..

By Barbara Hewitt

Last year was the most challenging year to find internships that I have witnessed in my nearly 12 years at Penn. As the economy rapidly declined in the spring, many employers pulled back on their internship programs in an effort to save dwindling resources and an uncertainty about future hiring needs.

Fast forward to today….Happily, the economy seems to be on the rebound and the hope is that intern hiring will spring back with it as employers feel more comfortable in committing resources to their summer programs. However, even with the improvement, it is unlikely that intern hiring will return to the 2006 and 2007 levels.

We’ve just recently completed our summer employment report for the Wharton Undergraduate Class of 2010 which examines the activities they pursued last summer. You can see the complete survey by click on this link!

We can draw a few conclusions from the experiences of the Class of 2010 which will likely be relevant to the Class of 2011.  Among them:

There are a broad array of internship options to consider…even in a tight economy…
Sure, lots of Wharton students pursued financial internships last summer (even with the meltdown on Wall Street). Investment banking was still the most popular industry (with 36% interning there), but lots of students worked in other industries including consulting (12%), nonprofit/education/government (9%), investment management (9%), communications (4%), real estate (3%), manufacturing/consumer products (3%) and retail (2%). The take away? Think broadly about possibilities and don’t narrow your consideration prematurely to a small subset of opportunities.

There are lots of ways to find internships…
Less than half (45.6%) of current Wharton seniors landed their summer internships last year through on-campus recruiting. OCR is a great avenue to interview with a variety of interesting employers, but it is by no means the only way to find an internship. Nearly 11% of students reported obtaining their internships through other Career Services leads (such as non-OCR internship listings on PennLink, iNet, or career fairs), while 17% found an internship through contacts (family, friends, alumni and faculty). Nearly 10% applied directly to employers and over 3% applied through an online site. Cleary there are many ways to land an internship, and you should take advantage of all of them to increase the number of opportunities available to you.

There are many places to go…
New York remained the most popular destination for Wharton interns last summer, with 43% working there. However, California, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and New Jersey were also popular choices, and nearly 12% of the class worked outside the US. (The most popular international destination was Hong Kong.) Don’t assume all the good jobs are in the Big Apple!

Internship offers come at many different times…
Most students reported receiving their internship offers between January and March, but almost a third received their offer between April and June. It’s not too late to be looking for an opportunity towards the end of the semester…in fact, that is when some of the most interesting opportunities arise, and the competition tends to be lighter since many students have already accepted offers.

So, in brief, consider a wide array of internships in a variety of industries and locations. Use different search methods in your quest, and don’t give up if you haven’t landed something by May. The perfect opportunity might be just around the corner.

As you begin (or continue) your internship search, here are some resources to help you get started:

PennLink: On-campus recruiting for internships is well underway and an excellent resource for juniors (mainly) thinking about business and technical opportunities. However, don’t ignore the non-OCR job listings on PennLink. These opportunities are posted by organizations who will not visit Penn to conduct the interviews but still want applications from Penn students. The job listings tend to be more varied in terms of geographic location, industry and preferred qualifications than the OCR listings.

iNet: This is an internship consortium created and shared by the University of Pennsylvania, Georgetown University, Harvard University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, New York University, Northwestern University, Rice University, Stanford University, University of Southern California, and Yale University. Employers interested in reaching students at all of these schools are encouraged to post their internships to iNet, resulting in a diverse set of opportunities for you.

Career Services On-line Subscriptions: Career Services subscribes to a number of resources that can help you with your job and internship search. To access them, click on Online Subscriptions Link from the Career Services library page. You will need to sign in with your PennKey and PennKey password to view the login information for each site. Some of the resources specifically useful for internships include Internships.com, Internships-usa.com, ArtSearch and EcoJobs.com which is focused on environmental opportunities. (Don’t forget that we also have loads of old-fashioned printed materials in our library as well, including quite a few internship directories!) Of course, the Vault and WetFeet Guides also available from the online subscriptions link can be extremely helpful with industry and employer research, as well as interview preparation.

Spring Career Fair: Save the date – February 19th! This is your chance to meet with a variety of employers interested in speaking with Penn students about internship and full-time opportunities. Check PennLink for details.

Career Services Counselors: We are here to help you with your search. Stop in during walk-ins or call the office to schedule an appointment to discuss your search and how we can assist you.