Category: OCR

Telling The Story: A Narrative Approach to Interviewing

by Sharon Fleshman

Once upon a time — those words signaled the start of many stories that captivated us, particularly in our younger days. Whether it is meant to scare, delight, convince or teach, there’s something about a good story that can pull listeners in. As it relates to a job search, a narrative approach can be used to present your career interests and qualifications in compelling and creative ways. Consider the following tips for incorporating “story” into your interviews:

1) Prepare for the “Tell me about yourself” question. Indeed, your answer to this can set the tone for the entire conversation and should make clear why you are sitting in front of the interviewer. Don’t default to just stating “I’m a senior at Penn majoring in…” Trace relevant themes in your background. For instance, suppose you are applying to a position in international development. You may not have a track record in that field per se, but perhaps you can help your interviewer connect the dots regarding your international experiences. You should also identify the defining moments that helped you discern your interest in a given career. For the international development example, you could talk about what occurred during your travels that caused you to become interested in development work.

2) Make sure your stories illustrate relevant skills and accomplishments. Go through your resume and develop the stories that emerge from your experiences. Your stories should have a “plot” with a beginning, middle and end that speaks to the job description. A good way to structure such a story may be to start with the situation at hand, proceed with discussing the actions you took to address the situation, and then end with the result that came from your actions. This approach is especially useful for behavioral questions (“Give me an example of how you served a difficult customer”) or other questions (“What are your strengths?”) where the interviewer wants evidence to back up what you claim to be true. You may not know exactly what you’ll be asked, but anticipate the types of skills that employers seek. Prepare to address areas such as problem solving, teamwork, leadership ability, strengths, weaknesses, and working with difficult customers/clients. Whether you played a key role in increasing membership, improving operations, boosting morale, or strengthening your own performance, you can build a story around the impact you made.

3) Keep it professional and positive. Stories for job interviews should not sound like autobiographies as much as snapshots of experiences that demonstrate that you are a great fit for the position. For instance, discussing resolution of conflict on a team for a group project is likely better than reminiscing about how you broke up a fight between two housemates. Look for the most pertinent highlights from your previous jobs/internships, volunteer experience, study abroad, extracurricular activities and class projects. Also, make sure you maintain a positive attitude. Even if you have to discuss a negative situation, resist the temptation to cast yourself as a hero and others as villains. Stick with sharing what you learned and how you developed in the process.

4) Practice. Storytelling flows from the human condition. It is very natural for us to reflect on what has happened on a given day and “tell the story” to those closest to us. However, applying this tendency to the job search may not feel as natural, so it is good to practice with those who are willing and able to offer helpful feedback. Career Services counselors are available to help you with mock interviews.

Use of stories in the job search can also be applied (in a more concise way) to resume and cover letter writing, as noted in the book Tell Me About Yourself: Storytelling to Get Jobs and Propel Your Career, written by Katharine Hansen and available in the Career Services library. Using storytelling will not only help you to prepare well, but will build your self-awareness and confidence along the way to a positive “The End.”

Vampire Teeth and Other “What Not to Wear” items for OCR Interviews

By Claire Klieger

I guess the Twilight series had a more profound impact on college pop culture than I thought because earlier this week we actually found some fake vampire teeth in our waiting area at Career Services. (Sorry, if they were yours and you were hoping to claim them, I’m afraid they’ve already found their way to the trash). While it should be obvious that fangs are inappropriate interview attire (and I would think inappropriate to bring to Career Services in general—but hey, maybe that’s just me), students do often agonize about what is appropriate to wear to interviews.

Taking the "bite" out of interview attire.

As we enter into the start of OCR interviews this week, here are some tips:

1) Go easy on the “pieces of flair.” I once saw an interviewing guide that encouraged people to wear no more than 13 accessories, but I think even that is too much (frankly, I’m not sure I could even list 13 different types of accessories). Any jewelry you wear should be fairly subtle. Avoid overly large or dangly earrings and especially if you have a facial piercing, you may want to consider removing it for the interview. Essentially, you don’t want to wear anything that will distract from what you are saying.

2) Skin is not in. As popular as they may be at frat parties the world over, short skirts or low cut tops are not a good idea. Trust me ladies, those are not the assets you want to be stressing in your interview. Skirts lengths should be right around your knee and while you certainly don’t have to wear a turtle neck, use good judgment about necklines.

3) Know “the uniform.” What you wear to an interview depends a lot on the culture of the organization in which you’re planning to work. For more conservative industries like finance and consulting, this means wearing a dark suit, and ideally, for women, a skirt suit. However, for interviews with say….Polo Ralph Lauren, what you wear is a chance to highlight your fashion sense, which is much more central to your job. Similarly, for interviews at tech organizations that often have a more business casual working environment, you may look much more like a member of the team if you dress in business casual attire.

What you wear to an interview should be something that makes you feel confident, which, in turn, will help you come across that way to a recruiter. The best attire draws the attention to your face because ultimately, you want to remembered for what you say, not what you wear.

Interviewing Intangibles

By: David Ross

With On-Campus Interviews beginning next week, students are preparing to make sure they are ready. While it’s very common to consider what questions may be asked and the best ways to answer them, one often overlooked area of preparation involves intangibles. The little things…minor details…things we don’t usually pay attention to or realize. While intangibles may seem inherently trivial, pay close attention as recruiters do notice and consider them.

What are intangibles? Let’s consider a scenario. Imagine yourself at the interview site. You’re prepared, confident, and ready to go. You have arrived on site and are waiting to meet your interviewer(s). Almost immediately, your appearance will be noticed. Do you have a professional appearance? Do you appear eager and enthusiastic? Whatever the case may be, your initial appearance will leave an impression.

Upon introduction, it is customary to shake hands. Now while this may seem traditional and straightforward, your handshake may be a reflection of yourself to the recruiter. Weak or flimsy handshakes suggest a lack of confidence, while bone-crushing handshakes are an extreme to be avoided as well. Try to find a balance somewhere in between – a nice, firm handshake is a good sign.

Another intangible is eye contact. Good eye contact indicates level of interest – conversely, poor eye contact implies lack of interest or lack of confidence. Try your best to maintain eye contact throughout the process. Of course, avoid extremes – staring someone down for extended periods of time may make the person uneasy or uncomfortable.

Finally, consider small talk or chit-chat as an opportunity. Before you enter the interview room or before the actual interview starts, you may meet a company representative who speaks with you briefly. Use this time to try to build a rapport or break the ice. You want to set a positive tone and show some indication of your personality if possible. Engaging in a quick conversation before the more traditional part of the interview begins may help showcase your fit with employees at the organization.

While these intangibles should be considered, always be yourself. Be confident in who you are and your abilities – you have much to offer, so take advantage of your interview to tell your story while using intangibles to your advantage.

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.

Contest: Name Our Blog!

We want YOU to help us name our blog! As you can see, our staff has been working hard to create interesting content, but the blog needs a makeover.  We are envious of creative blog names here at Penn like Under the Button, Quakers and Shakers, and Tripping Franklins, so we turn to you for help!  Entering is so easy, even a Princeton student could do it (but actually they can’t…the contest is ONLY open to Penn students, alumni, faculty and staff).

How to enter:

Just post your suggestion as a reply to this post using your Penn-affiliated email address. There is a limit of one entry per person, so give it some thought before submitting.  We will create a new logo based on the new blog title, so bonus points to those of you who suggest how your title could be translated into a graphic.

We will be accepting entries until Friday, January 29th  (so you have two weeks…but if someone takes your creative idea before you submit, the prize will go to them).  And speaking of prizes, the winner will get a $25 iTunes gift card and their blog name in lights. Or, at least at the header of our blog.  We’ll announce the winner and new title here on the blog in mid-February.

Good Luck!

*Penn Career Services reserves the right to make the final decision on the new blog title, including selection of a title not proposed via this contest.