Chance and Serendipity

by Julie Miller Vick

One of my favorite phrases is “Chance favors the prepared mind,” by Louis Pasteur.  I quote it when I talk to students about their job searches.  I use it when I urge my own children to continue working to achieve their goals.  And I often say it to myself when I have an “Ah ha” moment.

Margaret Newhouse, a career and life coach once explained Pasteur’s quote better than anyone else when she said, “This speaks to appreciating the delicate mix between planning and preparation, on one hand, and openness to serendipity and course correction on the other.”   Being prepared to interact through chance encounters with particular employers or luminaries in your field while attending a career fair or an academic conference, has the potential to advance your career.  While Career Services staff always urges you to be well-prepared and to plan your job hunting strategy, we don’t want you to be so fixated on your goals that you miss unforeseen opportunities that can help you on your current path or expose you to something totally new.

There’s so much pressure on job seekers to land not just a job, but the “perfect job,” that many feel an almost desperate need to rigidly follow a template or outline of tips.  In trying to adhere to such a plan it’s possible to fail to sense things that are staring you in the face.

Having the attitude of a child helps avoid over-analyzing everything.   I’m reminded how, many years ago, while visiting Beverly Hills with my family, my then eight year old son walked by a sign that said Rodeo Dr.   Having no idea that he was traipsing down one of fashion’s top avenues but knowing that his dad was a family physician and his great uncle a veterinarian, he stopped in his tracks and said, “Wow!  Rodeo doctor!  What a great job!”   Only he saw that; the rest of the family was not open to perceiving it in another way.

Unexpected sources — your  hairdresser, grandmother, running partner or insurance agent — may have information, or a point-of-view, that can open up a range of possibilities you might have overlooked.  Being open to possibility – and serendipity – can reveal options and opportunities that can change your life.

Joining LinkedIn to Take the Lead in Your Job Search

By Kelly Cleary

If you haven’t already, you should certainly consider joining LinkedIn, one of the most important and effective tools in your job search kit these days. I’m sure you’re at least familiar with the social network, often referred to as the professional version of Facebook, but nearly every day I talk with students and alumni who aren’t using this basically free resource to its potential so I think it’s worth another mention in this blog.

If you don’t already have an account with an up-to-date profile, you should since your LinkedIn profile is usually one of the first hits a person finds when they Google your name.  And employers certainly are using social networking sites to find and check up on potential candidates (See Most Businesses Use Social Nets for Hiring from emarketer.com). Your LinkedIn profile is a great way to be proactive in creating an impressive professional presence online.

Here are a couple of tips for making the most of LinkedIn for your job search:

Finding & Making Contacts

Advanced People Search If you don’t find what you’re looking for in the Penn Alumni Career Network PACNet, you can search for alums (or even people with whom you don’t have a common affiliation) who work in the fields and/or organizations that interest you  by using the Advanced People Search function. You can view profiles of professionals in your field of interest to see sample career paths and gather ideas for prospective employers.

Make It Personal If you want to “connect” with people (like “friending” on FB) you should always include a personalized message introducing yourself and explaining why you want to connect. I very rarely accept an invitation that doesn’t come with some type of note that explains why a person wants to connect with me, and I think most people who don’t fall into the friend/contact collector camp take the same approach.

Making Contact If someone is one of your contacts or is a member of one of your group affiliations, you can contact them directly through LinkedIn to ask specific career related questions or to request an informational interview. With an upgraded account you can send direct messages to people who are not your connections to ask for advice. Personally I haven’t upgraded. If I want to contact someone who is not in my list of “contacts”, I use Google searches, employer websites, and the general Penn directory to find email address of people with whom I want to connect. While this is more like cold calling, if it’s done respectfully and professionally, it can be worthwhile.

Joining Groups

There are thousands of groups in LinkedIn (i.e. alumni affiliations, specific industries, national and regional professional association etc.) where people share job postings and other career-related information, and they also serve as a forum for asking questions and gathering answers from more experienced professionals. Joining groups, both industry-related and personal history related (like joining the UPenn alumni group) is an important first step toward maximizing the benefits of using LinkedIn to advance your job search.

Want to learn more about maximizing the benefits of LinkedIn? This overview of LinkedIn will help you get started.

For more general information about networking visit our Making Contacts page.

Need a Break?

by Shannon Kelly

As we approach August, arguably the last month of summer, I want to remind you to take a break! When I think of summer I think of the shore (or beach if you don’t go to New Jersey), Phillies baseball games and barbecues.  However, for many in the professional world, summer is a time characterized by professional development conferences, summer projects, working on annual reports, etc.  The summer can easily fly by and before you know it, it’s August (aka less than 2 days from now) and your window of vacation opportunity is closing.

via mandolin davis on Flickr

It is important to take care of your professional responsibilities, but it is equally important to not burn out.  If you burn out,  your productivity at work will likely nose dive and your ability to execute your responsibilities effectively will go with it.   You don’t want that, period.

Time away from email, the daily grind and just unplugging from regular life is priceless.  We are only human and do need a break every now and again to re-charge.  So whether you can take two weeks, or two days, I encourage you to take advantage of vacation time.  It is there, use it before you lose it (or your mind).

Where in the World…

By Barbara Hewitt

Money Magazine recently released their annual list of the “Best Places to Live” in the US. The list ranks 746 cities with populations between 50,000 and 300,000 based on criteria such as salaries, unemployment rates, housing accessibility, and the quality of the school system. You can see the list at http://money.cnn.com/magazines/moneymag/bplive/2010/top100.  (Who knew that Eden Prairie, MN, ranked number one, was such a gem?)

Of course, there are many factors that go into deciding where to locate when you graduate from college.  Being near family and friends, living in a place in which you are familiar and comfortable, or enjoying a particular climate are all valid reasons to focus your search in a particular region. However, I often think that new graduates (who typically could be very flexible when deciding where to settle down) limit their career choices unnecessarily by placing too much emphasis on the “where” and not the “what” of their first jobs.  I have seen many students turn down amazing opportunities because the positions were not in their preferred locations.

I also speak from personal experience. When I was graduating from my Masters  program back in 1991 we were in a recession, much like today. Jobs were tight as colleges and universities cut their budgets. My “ideal” job at the time involved working in the career center of a small college. I absolutely was not going to consider residential life positions, as the thought of moving back into a dorm and being on call 24 hours a day was not one I relished. However, as any new student affairs professional can tell you, residential life jobs are much more abundant than career center positions in any given year. My hope was to work on the East or West Coast… I didn’t really care where as long as I wasn’t “stuck” in the vast expanse of the Midwest. I’m not quite sure why I was so determined to avoid the Midwest, as I had no experience with the area. I grew up in upstate New York and attended undergraduate and graduate school in Pennsylvania. Outside of a brief study abroad stint in Spain, I had not lived anywhere else.  Nevertheless, opportunities were scarce, and I eventually accepted a position at the College of Wooster in Wooster, Ohio.  Not only was I living in a state that was nowhere on my desired list, but the position involved serving full-time as the Assistant Director of Career Services AND a residence hall director for a dormitory.  Clearly, this position was not exactly what I had envisioned upon graduation.

Compton Hall: My Home for Two Years

So…how did it all turn out? Great! I loved working at a small school and found it very easy to get involved in the campus community right away because of the school’s size and the fact that I was able to get to know students both in a career context as well as more personally in the residence hall. While a live in position was not something that I actively sought, I realized that residential experience is extremely helpful for any student affairs professional to possess, and managing a staff of five resident assistants provided me with a wonderful supervisory experience. I really enjoyed the town of Wooster itself, (Ohio ended up being a terrific place to live), and I quickly became involved in community service working at a local women’s shelter. Granted, I did eventually tire of living with over 100 college students, but on the plus side I had free room and board for two years – a definite advantage for a new professional with college loans to repay.

The take away for me (and hopefully you!) is that it never hurts to at least be willing to consider a variety of locations during your job search. You will have many more opportunities available and may discover a new place that you never considered before but with which you could fall in love. Maybe Columbia, MD (#2 on the Money list) or Newton, MA (#3 on the list) is just the place for you!

And the Offer Goes To…

By Claire Klieger

No, it’s not Oscar time, but the sense of anticipation or anxiety about whether or not you might get a full-time offer from your summer employer can be just as intense for rising seniors.  However, only a few industries (consulting, financial services, consumer products and technology) typically make post-graduate full-time offers almost a year before you would actually be starting in that position. This is because of the cyclical nature of entry-level roles in those fields—that it is common for people to work for two years and then leave—which allows those employers to predict so far in advance what their hiring needs will be for the upcoming year.  For this very reason, these are the same employers that often participate in on-campus recruiting, so, if you secured your internship through OCR it’s very possible your firm will be making full-time offers to some interns at some point in late summer or early fall.

Regardless of what type of organization you’re working with this summer, if you’re interested in future opportunities with your employer, there are ways to broach the topic with your supervisor. How you approach it depends on your experience at the organization and how serious you are about really wanting to work there.  Here are some tips:

1. Demonstrate your interest. Start by thanking your supervisor for your wonderful learning experience this summer. Explain how the experience has helped you realize that you are really interested in pursuing a career in… (whatever type of work you’re interested in at the organization). Then say that you would certainly be interested in future opportunities at the organization and ask if it would be possible to stay in touch throughout the year.

2. Don’t give a false impression. Be wary of giving the false impression that you would –definitely- work there if you had an offer if that’s not really the case. Avoid saying things like, “I would jump at the chance to work here full time” (unless you actually mean it—as in, if they offered you a job tomorrow you would say yes without hesitation).  The last thing you want to do is give the impression that you would accept an offer if made if you’re not sure that’s true. Remember, the working world is small and you don’t want to burn bridges.

3. Express your interest in future opportunities without committing yourself to anything. You could say something like, “I’ve had a wonderful experience this summer and I really appreciate the opportunities afforded me and all that I’ve learned.  I realize you probably don’t know what your future hiring needs may be, but I’d certainly be open to opportunities that may present themselves in the future.” Notice how I didn’t say “love” or “definitely” or “thrilled” anywhere in there?

4. If you had a negative experience, don’t push for an offer. If you know that you would never in a million years take a full time job with your employer, don’t initiate any kind of conversation like this. Instead, figure out how to focus on the positive of that experience so you can talk effectively about it in future interviews (we can help!).