Category: Nonprofit Careers

“What I did on my summer vacation….”

by Jamie Grant, C ’98, GEd ’99

If your grade- and high-school teachers were anything like mine, you might have had to give a little “report” at the start of the school year with the title, “What I did on my summer vacation.”  This was always a nice way to learn about classmates’ adventures, but I’m sure forced many of us to struggle and think back over the loooong months of summer, trying to remember all that we had done and experienced.

I encourage you, should you be a returning undergraduate or graduate student, to go through the same exercise today – for the benefit of your resume.  Think back over the last three months, on all you have done, learned, achieved, or experienced.  Think of your outcomes and learning at your internship, or the adventures (and foreign language practice!) you had while traveling.  Consider the progress of your research project(s), or what you learned in the courses that you added to your transcript (or took for fun!)  If you volunteered, try to articulate the value you were able to bring to your organization and the positive connections you were able to develop with the people with whom you spent your time. 

Perhaps your summer months held a different kind of experience than I’ve mentioned, but regardless, do your best to consider how that might resonate with your career plans, and include it on your resume!  I know I personally am looking forward to reviewing many resumes in the coming weeks and learning about all the wonderful ways Penn students spent their summers!

Finding an internship in a nonprofit organization

If you’re considering a career in the nonprofit sector, you are not alone. There are over 1 million nonprofits in the U.S., employing about 10% of the work force. Nonprofit organizations are driven by a cause rather than by making a profit. People often think of nonprofits as youth centers and soup kitchens, but they also include religious institutions, universities, hospitals, trade associations and unions, and museums. A great way to learn if a nonprofit career is for you is to try it out for yourself by interning or volunteering in one. Last summer, 13% of The College students interned in a public interest, social service, or cultural organization and an additional 37% worked for an education, healthcare, or government employer. (Career Services Summer 2011 Survey)

There are many ways to find a nonprofit internship and you should use multiple methods to increase your chances.  The pie chart below shows how students found out about their nonprofit internship last summer.

If you’re looking for an internship in a nonprofit this summer, you may start with some of these resources below. As you go through the internship search process, also feel free to consult with a Career Services counselor who can help you tailor your search to your goals.

Contacts

  • Penn Internship Network – a listing of Penn students who have volunteered to speak with others about their summer internships:  
  • Penn Alumni Career Network (PACNet) – a database of Penn Alumni who have volunteered to be contacted with career-related questions. Although it is not appropriate to ask PACNet advisors for jobs, they can provide a wealth of information on career fields and employment outlooks.

 Online Job Sites

  • Idealist.org – Listings of domestic and international opportunities (full time, internships & fellowships) with non-profits.
  • Opportunityknocks.org – Opportunity Knocks is the national online job site focused exclusively on the nonprofit community.
  • Career Resources by Field on the CS website – With information on, links to, and speaker/panel notes on careers including: nonprofit, philanthropy, policy, think tanks, social services, government, politics, environment, advocacy, education, and international development
  • CS Online Subscriptions –Password sites like: humanrightsjobs.com, ethicaljobs.com, ecojobs.com, internships.com, internship-usa.com, GoinGlobal.com
  • Riley Guide.org – On Nonprofits, Foundations & ThinkTanks

Other Career Services Leads

  • PennLink -Penn’s Online Job Search System and On Campus Recruiting.
  • iNet – Online Internship Search System with consortium of universities across the country.

Special Programs at Penn

Day in the Life: Pennsylvania Council of Children, Youth and Family Services

What is it really like working in a state-wide nonprofit network?  Maggie Potter addressed this on Tuesday, March 13th. Get insights into this field in preparation for  the Philadelphia Nonprofit & Government Career Fair at St. Joseph’s University on Tuesday, March 20th. Post your questions to our Facebook page or send us a tweet  to @PennCareerServ or @PennCareerDay.   Maggie will answer them directly. Read more about Maggie below and check out her insights on our Storify page where her tweets are available.

Maggie Potter graduated from Williams College with a Bachelor in Psychology in 2004. Following several years of working and soul searching, including a stint abroad in Nepal and a year as an Americorps VISTA in Boston, she landed at Penn for a dual Masters degree in Social Work and Social Policy. She graduated in 2011 and now works at the Pennsylvania Council of Children, Youth and Family Services, a statewide membership association of nonprofits. She works closely with non-profit leaders, public officials at the state and local level, and foundations to advocate for better policies and practices for children and families involved with the foster care, juvenile justice and behavioral health systems. In her free time she enjoys traveling the world, reading, baking and doing yoga.

The Just in Time Hiring Season is Here

Are you just starting to think about what to do next summer, or after graduation? Perhaps you have been too busy with your academic work, your activities, your part-time job to do very much of a search. Or perhaps you‘ve done all the prep work and have just been waiting for the hiring cycle to begin for the industry you want to join. Well wait no more. If you do nothing else this month, attend our Spring Fair, which will be held this Friday, February 17 in Houston Hall. Over 100 employers will be attending, and the fair will run between 11:00 and 3:00. Every year numerous students find positions at this event: bring copies of your resume.

This fair has a broad range of employers. Whether your interest is in media/entertainment, consulting, public service, health care or technology, this is the fair for you. And for the first time, we have a “fair within a fair” for start-ups. Over 20 will be here, all rapidly growing, filling full-time and internship positions. There are opportunities for technical and non-technical candidates, in (among other cities) New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco and Chicago. Find out what all the excitement is about in the start-up ecosystem. Don’t miss Career Services’ Spring Fair.

Where Do I Start???????????

By Barbara Hewitt

The internet is a terrific resource for job seekers, making information on job openings, employers, and job search techniques instantaneously accessible to all of us. The down side, however, is that the amount of information can be overwhelming. Luckily, Margaret Riley Dikel has provided a terrific resource through the Riley Guide to help you sort through all of this!

The Riley Guide is a regularly updated directory of employment and career information resources available via the Internet. It provides instruction for jobseekers and recruiters on how to use the Internet to their best advantage. While she links to job hunting resources on topics like writing cover letters and resumes and interviewing, I most appreciate her A-Z index which makes finding specific links relevant to your particular search a snap. Click on ‘N”, for example, to find resources for your nonprofit job search or “E” if engineering is your passion. The RileyGuide has loads of links, so you will still need to do some searching to see which might be the most useful for your personal job and internship search, but it is a terrific starting point.