Category: Work-Life Balance

Can I Take My Dog To Work?

Editor’s Note: A version of this blog originally ran in June of 2012.

June 21st is Take Your Dog to Work Day! Employees across the nation will collectively bedazzle their furry best friends with tours of their cubicle, the water cooler and perhaps even the view from the corner office. If your number one priority is a Fido or FiFi-friendly company culture, how would you know where to look for work?    To find a good fit with your next position and organization (no matter what your priorities happen to be, pet-friendly is just one example), take advantage of Career Services’ resources to help current students and alumni learn more about the places that they might work.

Researching employers with Career Services’ online resources

Researching potential employers is a critical element of every job search.  It is extremely important at the beginning when you need to identify your options, and necessary during the application and interview stage, to help you communicate the match between a prospective employer’s needs and your relevant skills, values and accomplishments.  Before you are called to interview, do your best to find out the following about the organization:

  • Mission; product/service (i.e., what is the purpose of this company/organization?)
  • Sector: non-profit, private (for-profit), public (government agency)
  • Structure and management
  • Financial health
  • “Clients” and competitors  (i.e., who receives the services of this company, and who else is targeting this group with their services
  • Company/organization culture
  • The hiring process

Career Services offers several online resources through our library subscriptions pages to help you research potential employers.  You must log in with your PennKey and password to access the subscriptions, which are listed alphabetically.  For those interested in exploring industries such as consulting, healthcare, and investment banking, Wetfeet.com and Vault.com are particularly useful.  These reference resources allow you to read overviews of various major industries, discover the “major players” (i.e., biggest, influential companies), and learn more about typical position types within each industry.

We also subscribe to ReferenceUSA, which provides contact information as well as specific company data for United States businesses in particular (as well as some Canadian and other international businesses).  If you use the advanced search option, you can get information on credit ratings, company histories, executives’ names, and even the company’s local “competitors”.

For international students, GoinGlobal and H1VisaJobs offer databases which can help you identify the companies who have applied to the federal government in 2010 for H1Visas (this gives you a head start if you know a company is willing to hire international candidates, or is familiar with H1 Visa hiring procedures.)

Use networking as a tool to find out employer or industry information you can’t get through your online research.  If you are a current Penn student or alumnus/a, be sure to use PACNet (our online networking database) to identify alumni who can give you the “inside scoop” on a particular organization or field.

Once you use these resources to research an employer, you will be better able to:

  • Connect your accomplishments to the performance criteria that the organization is looking for.
  • Identify the most important skills, qualifications and experiences that are in demand in a given industry.
  • Assess an organization’s potential workplace needs and how you can contribute given your work style.
  • Show how your goals match those of the company (given its mission, size, structure, and market specialization).
  • Understand how your values match those of the organization; and how the environment will help you be productive.

Employer research makes for a more effective job search, and in fact for a better fit once you land an offer and start your new position.   You (and possibly your pet) will be glad you put the effort in.

Post Script:  How would you know where to look for work, if your number one priority is a Fido or FiFi friendly company culture?  While there are plenty of  websites focused on pet-friendly employers –  unfortunately it seems the number of corporate pet friendly employers is pretty limited, with Amazon.com rating as one of the top.

Timely Advice on Job Offers

Right about now, some of you may be actively interviewing for jobs and internships, or in the process of receiving and deciding on job offers.  A big mystery is knowing “what you are worth” and evaluating the offers to make sure you are getting fair compensation, and the work conditions that will make you happy to accept the offer.  You can read tips on our website, “Deciding on Job Offers,” or gather data from Career Plans Surveys (including salary information for recent graduates) or learn about negotiation strategies.  Below is a short collection of blog entries written by career services advisors that provide great advice to anyone at this stage of the job search:

The Nights & Weekends Plan

onion_bg-766346Regular readers of my columns will know that one of my favorite topics to discuss here is work/life balance or “doing what you love vs. loving what you do.”  As someone who has an entirely separate “night time” career outside of Penn, I’m always interested to see what people have to say on the subject.

That’s why I was particularly intrigued to see The Onion, the bedrock of all satirical websites, running an Op/Ed piece that would feel at home here on Penn & Beyond just as easily as it would aside a spoof news article about how much Vladamir Putin loves his kitty cat.  The article, by David Ferguson, speaks for itself – I encourage you to read it here. (Go ahead and read it now.  I’ll wait here.)

If I could add one thing to Ferguson’s otherwise fine message – it’s that you never know what your nights and weekends might lead to.  I spent my nights and weekends writing – and now I’ve been published multiple times by a respected imprint.  Albert Einstein worked in a patent office and look where his nights and weekends led him!  If you are truly passionate about something and take the time to pursue it at any opportunity, then that passion will show in your work – and maybe one day, it will become your full time job and those nights and weekends will be free again…

…of course that gets boring fast.  Maybe you’ll find a second passion.

Breathe: Self-Care in the Helping Professions

By Sharon Fleshman

Many students are juggling coursework, extracurricular activities, a social life, an on-campus job, and perhaps a job or internship search.  However, students preparing for careers in the helping professions really have their work cut out for them.  The typical nursing student also has day-long clinical rotations.  On any given day, an education student may be rushing from his student teaching site to class.  Social work students are heading to field placements three days a week.   If you see yourself in any of these scenarios, self-care is vital to your success during your time at Penn and beyond.

When the issue of self-care comes up, I’m reminded of the common illustration of oxygen masks in the safety presentation given on an airplane.  The flight attendant points out that if the air pressure in the cabin drops suddenly, the masks will drop down.  Passengers are further instructed that “if you are with a child or someone else who needs your assistance, secure your mask first.”   However, there is a potential flaw with applying this analogy to self-care.  You shouldn’t wait until you are in a semi-crisis mode, like experiencing a drop in cabin pressure, to think about self-care.  You need to be intentional and plan ahead so that caring for yourself is part of your day-to-day life.

Begin with the basics.  Eat healthy food.  Get sufficient exercise and sleep.  Make sure you get regular physical checkups.  These steps are obviously important, but often so easy to neglect.

Debrief with others and with yourself.  Process your experiences from a given day on your field placement site by speaking with a mentor or peer and journaling your reflections. Such debriefing can allow for shared insight and the closure to put the events of the day behind you, especially if they were stressful.

Turn down the volume.  Most helping professions require a lot of talking with and listening to other people.  For you, winding down might mean establishing a space where there is less chatter.  I’ve heard some students speak of prayer, meditation, yoga, or deep breathing as ways to do this.

Enjoy creativity in its many forms.  Whether you are on the giving end or the receiving end, creativity can have an energizing impact.  Listen to music that inspires you.  Learn how to knit, crochet or quilt.  Take up pottery, woodwork or photography.  Check out an art exhibit at a local museum.

Maintain a solid support system.  It is ironic that those in helping professions can be reluctant to get assistance for themselves.  Don’t hesitate to get additional help from other helping professionals, such as counselors, as necessary.  Keep in touch with family, friends, mentors, advisors and others who have your best interest at heart.

 

 

Working in the Complaints Department

Last week I went to a comedy show in Old City where the comedians and most of the audience were in their 20s, perhaps some in their early thirties.  One comedian, riffing on the strange habits of co-workers, began his set up with this question to the audience: “How many of you don’t like your jobs?”

Guess what? There were about 3 people, including myself and my friend (a law professor) who indicated we were happy with our work.  I imagine this crowd of Millennials isn’t exactly a random sample; but with all these dissatisfied employees, needless to say there were some good implications for MY job as a career counselor.  Clearly there will be a demand for the kind of service I provide from the upcoming generation.

And so I began to wonder, what was going on?  Was this about the economy and the lack of opportunity for 20-somethings?  Was this about the contagion of emotions, so if you work in a place with a negative atmosphere or are surrounded by friends with discontented attitudes you too may adopt the negative mood? Is it just plain cooler to complain?

I admit I don’t yet have an answer to the questions posed.  I could see that there may be some positive value in being collectively disgruntled, a strength in feeling that if things aren’t “right” at least you can commiserate.*  But my reaction is to consider the opposite approach: that finding what you like in work gives you the energy to address problems or make changes and a sense of purpose and satisfaction.   For example, there I was on my time off, finding the opportunity to think a little more deeply about my work while listening to the audience laugh at the pitfalls of a comedian with a coworker who blamed the office printer for the flatulent noises coming from his cubicle.

Few individuals find their work life perfect, but each can make the choice of focusing on what they do enjoy.  Like today’s Millennials, I graduated from college into a recession, and along with many other young people landed two part time jobs doing entry level work that was not very intellectually engaging.  Even so, I found that I enjoyed a feeling of professionalism, because I knew the employers I worked for needed my efforts, I liked helping people, getting recognition for my work, and organizing and implementing my own projects.  Eventually I chose my profession, returning to school for a graduate degree in counseling based on the insights I gained from my administrative positions.

You can find your work in the “complaints department,” perceiving your experience as bad if there are elements you don’t like, but even a job with clear limitations – one that is frustrating or “dead end” – can give you something positive in the future including an ability to face challenges, know yourself better, and at the very least make a memorable joke.

* There is a fair amount of information out there about how negativity affects the workplace. See this article on complaining in the workplace and note Wharton Professor Sigal Barsade’s work.  (Also see: http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article.cfm?articleid=1708.)