Thoughtful Career Advice for Penn Students and Alumni, written by the staff of the University of Pennsylvania Career Services office and selected special guests.
College can be challenging. A full schedule of classes, extra-curricular activities, athletics, exams; my head is already spinning! These responsibilities can become overwhelming and it can quickly become easy to start missing a meeting here and skipping a study session there. Eventually, this trend of behaviors can lead to poor life habits that could lead to a serious problem: the no call no show.
In most cases, the no call no show in a work setting will lead to your immediate termination. It also shows an overall lack of respect for the organization and the people who hired you; not a good place to be in (especially when these people may be providing references for future positions). This is a busy world we live in and time is precious to all of us. Try to stay on top with your appointments and develop a healthy routine. Take advantage of technology to help organize your calendar and set reminders. These are essential skills to develop now and will help prevent future problems; especially when that problem might get you canned.
Life happens. If you need to miss a day of work or an appointment take the time to call and let those involved know. Otherwise, the no call no show will come back to show you the way out of the office.
Last month I blogged about the letter “O,” suggesting that instead of being Overwhelmed by the job search, one could be Optimistic about Opportunities.
A lot can happen in a month. We in Career Services are hearing happy news from some seniors with job offers. For them, I think it’s safe to say, they have arrived at the letter “R,” which stands for RELIEF. And they are also looking forward to some R & R, REST and RELAXATION of course.
Those “R” words may not be the first to come to mind for others of you who have not REALIZED the success you hoped for or haven’t even begun your job or internship search. RIGHT off, let me say, it’s not a RACE! Please RECOGNIZE that it’s okay to set your own pace with your job or internship search.
RELAX! (Everyone can make that “R” word your own!) Let’s REVIEW some of the other “R” words that might be appropriate for the REMAINDER of you RIGHT now.
Perhaps you are READY to get started. If so, let Career Services help you. If you’re READING this blog, you have found our web site. You can REVIEW and REGISTER for our programs and take advantage of our counseling services. Please REQUEST an appointment to meet with a counselor to REFLECT on your skills and interests.
If you slugged your way through OCR, only to find REJECTION, there’s no need to RETREAT into your ROOM. While I REALIZE REJECTION is ROUGH, there are other ways to REACT. RELEASE your REGRETS. You will RECOVER and REGAIN your footing—experience a RENAISSANCE! Penn students always RISE to the occasion and ROLL with the punches. REALLY, you’re REMARKABLE and will REBOUND and RECOVER as you RESOLVE to RECOMMIT to your search.
Maybe it’s time to RECONSIDER your goals. Admit it—some of you only pursued consulting because it’s REGARDED as a REWARD for Penn achievement. REMEMBER that you had other interests before you joined the consulting pack. Some self-assessment might REMIND you of your childhood dreams or REVEAL new ROADS to explore. Again, please REACH out to us in Career Services. We can help you REGROUP and REORGANIZE, perhaps REVIEW your RESUME so that you can REVISE it. How about REHEARSING an interview through ROLE play? We might encourage you to do some RESEARCH into other career fields you haven’t considered, and we can certainly introduce you to some career-RELATED RESOURCES, which are RELIABLE and RESPONSIBLE for many good RESULTS.
Are you RARING to go with your job or internship search now? We’re ROOTING for your success. If you’d RATHER RUMINATE, you’ve got some time REMAINING. After all, the RETIREMENT age is RISING. RELAX.
I’ll have to keep this blog short as I’ve got a new baby arriving within the week and all sorts of tasks to complete before she arrives. Trust me, it is a long, long, long, list of things to do and there seems like there is never enough time to get them done (and still be able to sleep, which I realize will be a luxury over the next few weeks).
Even if you don’t have a baby on the way, chances are that as a graduate student you regularly experience the age-old phenomenon of too much to do, and not enough time to do it. Why is that? Well…, the easy answer is the simplest one – there really is too much to do, and someone has made it so that time never stands still long enough to get them done (something to do with photons, neutrinos, dark matter, and other such mysterious things). The more complicated answer is that we sometimes sabotage our own best attempts to get things done. Most likely, this happens subconsciously, but it does happen. In fact, it could be happening right now – you are reading this blog rather than tackling some of those more pressing tasks, after all.
There is much to get done as part of a PhD, and many variables that you have to try to manage as part of this experience: your advisors, your thesis committee, your research topic (e.g., chickens, neutrinos, 18th century romantic poetry), your flat/lab mates, your social life, your family life, your finances, and so on. There are many reasons we might perform self-sabotage behaviours, and many different ways these can occur. Perhaps you do not have an effective way of communicating with your advisor, and so never get the feedback you are looking for to get a paper published. Perhaps you are trying to make the first chapter of your thesis perfect, and so end up deleting whatever you have written at the end of each day because you feel it does not live up to your high standards. Or perhaps you just get so caught up in checking emails and completing easy but unimportant tasks that you never get to the important ones. Take a look at your daily schedule and you might spot some patterns of behaviours that are not actually helping you achieve your goals. Of course, you also need to have some pretty concrete goals in the first place, or you won’t know what you should be doing on a day-to-day basis.
I have gathered together some resources that might help you to get back on track with your to-do list, and get you motivated to get some of those pesky tasks done (like writing your thesis!). Don’t use these as an excuse not to be constructive today, though! As for me, I have now written this article, and so I will consider this task totally and completely done! Here are the links to some interesting resources:
Actually, I didn’t get much of a summer vacation. Those of us who are administrators work all summer. Of course I did take one week off to vacation with my family, and several long weekends, and I learned I like these mini-vacations, rather than one long one. I read a recent article on vacations, which described research on what makes them satisfying. I learned that the anticipation is almost as important as the actual vacation. So I did lots of anticipating, and I enjoyed that.
I also learned that yes, this region of the country can have an earthquake and a hurricane in the same week. Anticipating Irene was awful, but at least here in Philadelphia we got lucky. But I learned to have sympathy for those states south of here who must endure hurricanes almost annually. At least I didn’t have to anticipate the earthquake, which was fortunate.
I didn’t learn how to putt better, or to come up with a filing system that works, or to do any number of things I had hoped to do. But I learned long ago not to make New Year’s resolutions, or summer vacation resolutions either. The important thing about summer is to find some time for family and friends, to eat produce fresh from the farm, to find a hammock (or a suitable substitute), and read a book. If you found time to do this, you are lucky. I know I am.
Summer’s over now. What did you learn, about yourself or otherwise?
This Friday, June 24th is the 12th annual 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.
