Career Plans Survey – Penn & Beyond

Check out the new LinkedIn Students App

Alyssa Perkins-Chatterton, Administrative Assistant for the College Team

Last week, LinkedIn launched its newest feature, the LinkedIn Students app. The app is geared specifically graduating seniors who are looking for help in their job search. The app helps you look for jobs that are a good fit based on your major, companies that recruit at your school and the career paths of alumni with similar degrees.*

LinkedIn wants students to look at this new tool as their “personal job exploration guide”. When accessing the app you are given 5 items to review: a career suggestion based on your school and major, an article to read on various career-related topics, a company that often recruits from your school, a list of job suggestions based on recent alumni from your school with a similar major, and lastly, the app provides an actual job posting that you might be interested in based on your major/school.** What is also helpful is the “extra credit” option that allows you to swipe through more of these suggestions and add even more information about yourself such as your interests, goals and careers you find interesting. This option allows you to have a more personalized experience. Keep in mind that the app does tend to use a student’s major as one of the main data points when making suggestions. As we know, your major does not firmly dictate a straight path to your career. We’ve had English majors go into Finance and Religious Studies majors join the FBI! Just check out our survey reports to see! While your major should certainly reflect your interests, your supplemental activities and internships also help you learn what career path is right for you. This is especially true for our liberal arts students who can often have a variety of experiences that contribute to their career goals. That being said, be sure to utilize the extra credit section and add in those extra details about your interests and goals in order to have a more tailored experience!

In general, LinkedIn has received positive feedback from student users. The most common trend being that students reported the app very easy to use and navigate.

This is a great first step and career exploration tool for graduating seniors to use when planning for those next steps. However, be sure to utilize our office and resources as well! Again, we have career plan survey reports that offer great data and insight into what our recent grads are doing post Penn. And as always, call us to make an appointment or stop by for walk-in hours! We are here for all of your career related needs.

*https://blog.linkedin.com/2016/04/18/introducing-the-linkedin-students-app–helping-soon-to-be-colleg

2015 – What a Great Year!

by J. Michael DeAngelis, Information Resources Manager

As we reach the end of 2015, we naturally want to reflect on the year that has passed. Here at Career Services, we’ve just published the final Career Plans Survey report for the Class of 2015 and it shows that this past year was a great one!

Look at that! Between full-and-part-time employment, graduate school enrollment and military or volunteer service, 92.4% of our respondents have a solid plan after graduation! Even better, the seeking employment rate is only 4.5% six months after graduation! Looking back at recent history, that is an amazingly low number!

You can see the full report for the Class of 2015 as well as reports for individual schools and historical reporting for the last several years.

CS Radio Episode 8: “Timelines”

Welcome back to the podcast! This week, A. Mylène Kerschner and (birthday boy) J. Michael DeAngelis take a look at career timelines. We’ll look at ways you can use Career Services at different points of your undergraduate experience, as well as look at data from our career plan survey reports that show when Penn students accept job offers (Spoiler: You don’t need to worry about having a job secured by your first semester senior year!)

All that, plus the usual look at the week ahead. Enjoy!

Are you a GRADUATE STUDENT WHO JUST GRADUATED?: Please fill out the career plans survey!

by Julie Vick, Senior Career Counselor

Your response provides us with critical information about job market and salary trends that is extremely useful to current graduate students considering career options and to Career Services staff. In the aggregate, the data from the surveys provide us with statistics to share with current and future graduate students who are evaluating career possibilities. Previous years’ survey results on our website.

Go to: https://upenn.co1.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=SV_0CcMYApwiCpVcaN. You will be asked to input your PennKey and password. It will take only five minutes to complete it.

All individual responses are confidential. If you haven’t finalized your plans, please fill out the survey anyway. And, remember: our services are available to you for as long as you may need them. Do not hesitate to call (215) 898-7530 to make an appointment or find out about walk-in hours.

Help Us Tell Your Story

by Barbara Hewitt, Senior Associate Director

Did you know that over 75% of the Class of 2014 entered the workforce immediately after graduation and that nearly 16% entered graduate or professional school? That financial services, consulting, technology, healthcare, and education were the most popular industries Penn graduates worked in and that medical school and engineering were the most common graduate programs? How about the fact that Goldman Sachs, Teach for America, the University of Pennsylvania and the Boston Consulting Group were all in the top 10 employers of Penn graduates?

We are able to share this data (and lots more!) because of the Career Plans Survey we conduct every year. The data collected allows us to determine many things including average salaries of undergraduates, offer dates, signing bonus amounts, and major employers and graduate schools attended and it is incredibly important. You can check out past surveys on our Career Survey Reports page. (http://www.vpul.upenn.edu/careerservices/reports.php)

If you are a senior you should have receive a personalized email with a link to report your career plans. Thanks to all of you who have taken the time to complete it. We are very grateful. For those of you who have not yet completed it, please take a few minutes to click on the e-mailed link and fill it out before graduation. (If you need a new link emailed to you simply email Barbara Hewitt (hewittb@upenn.edu) and we will be happy to resend it.) The survey is only accurate and useful if a high percentage of seniors fill it out, so we encourage all students to complete it. If you are still seeking opportunities, feel free to fill it out now indicating you are “still seeking” and then you can update it in the future once you finalize your plans. Please be aware that individual responses to the survey will be held in strict confidence within Career Services. Data may be shared with the Office of Institutional Research, who will assist in data analysis, but only aggregate data will be reported.