Category: Postdoc

Online Dating: Jobs Edition

LinkedIn website traffic volume is booming –  employers and job seekers are proactively using the site as an effective tool to connect.   There are also many articles on current recruiting practices and social media.  As the LinkedIn community becomes more central to hiring for many companies, I have become interested in the fact that most people now are including a photo, a component of what LinkedIn considers to be “completing” your online profile.

In the USA, the convention of attaching your photo with your resume faded away in the late1970s with the civil rights movement and the establishment of ideas of equal opportunity in hiring.  Are we taking a step back as we embrace the future with social media job searches?

Few people want a potential employer to pursue them – or disregard them – because of the way they look.  Yet, unconscious or even overt inclinations can influence hiring practices. To be very objective in finding the best candidates, hiring managers likely will be combating well documented proclivites towards hiring people who look like them, preconceptions about ethnicity and gender, biases about people who they find attractive or ugly, as well as stereotypes related to age or visible disabilities.   You can read more about hiring biases and discrimination online – in essence, studies indicate that people are prone to making quick judgments, having nothing to do with a candidate’s skills and accomplishments.

The question is, how would you feel knowing that someone might not look further into your LinkedIn profile if you don’t have an appealing picture?  Do you think that your picture reflects well on you and improves your chance of getting hired?  Obviously, even in the past when photos were not readily available, as soon as a candidate showed up for the interview, a hiring manager’s biases regarding the person’s appearance could come into play.  But at this point in the hiring process, the job seeker has already impressed the employer with their resume of accomplishments, or their well written cover letter.  They have the chance to verbally counter some of the biases based on their looks.

I will continue to look for more information or articles on how hiring practices and biases may be affected now that it is so easy to find a picture of someone online. While I think this newish trend (or retrotrend?) of incorporating photos in professional profiles is not going to change, I do believe that employers can be vigilant in training recruiters to address their biases, and to acknowledge the benefits of diversity in hiring.  Here is an example of guidelines developed in the Human Resources industry, which addresses this issue: http://www.shrm.org/TemplatesTools/hrqa/diversity/Pages/default.aspx .

For you the candidate?  In addition to being thoughtful of the image you put forward via social media, there are also suggestions for breaking through biases during your interviews: http://www.culturosity.com/articles/interviewbias.htm.

Your new lab mate’s father may have the answers you seek

Dr. Joseph Barber

Networking is a funny old game. The proactive steps you take to reach out to people you think can offer you great insight into future careers can be filled with obstacles and barriers. Here are some common ones:

  • You can’t find any contact information for the person you want to connect with
  • You found an email address, sent them an email, but have not heard back from the person
  • You can’t find anyone you know who knows the person you really want to know to allow you to connect in person
  • You had a good conversation (by email or in person), but can’t think of a way to build the relationship and keep the conversation going

A fair proportion of all of your networking outreach efforts might not initially succeed through no fault of your own. Like I said, it’s a funny old game, and you’ll win some, and you’ll lose some when it comes to successfully making connections with people. Whatever your success rate, setting aside time in your busy schedules to be able to make contact with people with similar backgrounds to yours, but who are now in various different careers, will be a very valuable investment. Your future career planning may be based on the perspectives you gain from talking with people who look like they might be doing the kind of job you would like.

And then there is your new lab mate’s father. This is a true story. A postdoc I met with recently has been exploring consulting jobs in an international setting, and was having a hard time connecting with people who have worked as consultants in one specific country of interest. Networking effectively when the chances to physically interact are very limited adds another level of challenge to this endeavour. And then one day, as the postdoc was chatting with a new arrival to her research lab, she happened to mention her interest in consulting as a future career path. Lo and behold, the new lab mate not only stated that her father had been a consultant, but added that he actually had some experience in the geographic region that interested the postdoc.

This is the pure-blind-luck approach to networking – an added bonus you can sometimes get if you also spend time being proactive in your outreach, and setting yourself some networking goals to accomplish. Since people generally like to be helpful, if they know how they can help you then chances are they will. However, if you haven’t clearly articulated the information you seek, or the help that you need, then no-one will be able to offer you their valuable insight, and the even more valuable access to their own network of contacts.

Happy networking!

Womens’ Wages

This topic came up recently in a workshop I was leading on job offer negotiations.  I wanted to answer a student’s question regarding how to be sure as a woman, you are paid the same as men by an employer making a job offer.  The answer is… you can’t, even though it has been the law since 1963. BUT, there are things you can do to help with the issue of income disparity, including your own.

Be aware of what is systemic:

Research the organizational culture. Are there women in leadership or management positions? Does the organization say they are interested in diversity? Does the organization have policies which support issues that might affect your work if you have family responsibilities?  (such as flex-time, maternity leave).  Are the organization’s policies for promotion clear? For example, you can read a recent article on Goldman Sachs diversity initiatives.

Here is information on how to research potential employers. You can also use these tips from LinkedIn, if you have a profile on the site.

Be aware of your own responsibility:

One reason women may not earn as much as men is they may be less likely to negotiate and advocate for themselves. The best time to negotiate is when you have an offer but before you have accepted a position.  Here is more information on negotiating offers.  Learn strategies to negotiate compensation based on your value to the organization and then try.  Learning how to negotiate well is a skill you can use throughout your career – this is important no matter your gender.  Take credit for your own efforts and results, even as you recognize the contribution of others.

Do what you can do to be informed and make change:

Look outside yourself to mentors in your department or company, and through professional organizations such as Catalyst.  Here is a directory of women’s professional associations: http://www.quintcareers.com/womens_networking_organizations.html

Be aware of current data and trends. You can read articles or studies, or support organizations that are making sure this issue is in the news and on policymakers’ radars.  This is a good place to start your research on the topic – Wikipedia’s “Male–female income disparity in the United States.”   Learn about current news such as the Lily Ledbetter case or the recent repeal of the Wisconsin equal pay law.

Whether or not you are worried how the “wage gap” or income disparity will affect you, the idea that you stay informed on trends, that you understand your value as an employee, and advocate for yourself is crucial to your success no matter your career path, field or gender.

 

 

PennLink and You: New Online Tutorials

New Year’s Resolution season creates a sense of urgency to search PennLink and hope to find a job or internship.  As a result, there are many new users, or users who haven’t logged in for a long time and need a refresher on how to navigate the system.  Well, I’m excited to announce there’s a new line of help for all of you PennLink job seekers – old and new.  There is now a PennLink channel on our Vimeo video site – PennLink FAQs for Job Seekers!

These videos walk you through step by step, screen by screen, mouse click by mouse click to answer all your questions about navigating PennLink.  New videos will be added frequently, so keep checking back.  If you have any questions or issues with the system, email me at pennlink@pobox.upenn.edu or leave a comment here.  

 

 

 

Social Media Update

by Shannon Kelly

It’s been a busy semester here at Career Services.  As a result, we knew it was critical to get creative and look for some new tools to add to our social media presence.  We’re always looking on ways to keep our resources up-to-date and help you get the information you need in a way that meets your busy schedule.

New Tool #1: Pinterest – http://pinterest.com/penncareerserv/.  What is it? According to their website, “Pinterest lets you organize and share all the beautiful things you find on the web. People use pinboards to plan their weddings, decorate their homes, and organize their favorite recipes.” We took this in a new direction and are treating it as a visual bookmarking tool to share career resources we come across while surfing the web.  Yes, we have our website that has a TON of useful content.  But, there is so many helpful resources out there that we can’t pass up, and we know these resources are critical to your career and internship search.  We’re creating boards (or categories) organically, so as we find a new resource – we’ll create a board.  I think the most fun boards we have are What To Wear – Men, What To Wear – Women and our Words of Wisdom.  Do you have outfits/words of wisdom/resources to share? Let us know!

New Tool #2: Storify – http://storify.com/PennCareerServ. What is it?  “Storify helps its users tell stories by curating social media”, this was taken from the startup’s About section.   We realize we have lots of social media channels, and that we share a lot of information on them.  Not to mention there are even more resources out there that aren’t created by us on LinkedIn, blogs, Twitter, Facebook, online news outlets, etc.  Phew, that is overwhelming!  Well, our Storify account will help aggregate that information and put it in one place.  This means, if you missed our alum post on @PennCareerDay or didn’t realize we had a week dedicated to Careers in Design resources on our social media platforms – you can access this information after-the-fact.

Stay tuned when you get back after winter break (or over it) for even more from us.  We’re excited to have our brand new Social Media Advisory Board, comprised of undergraduate and graduate students, to help us roll out new tools and enhance our existing ones.