Visions of sugarplums… For December grads and alumni

To the tune of White Christmas…

I’m dreaming of a job market,
Just like the ones I used to know.

Where the postings glisten,
Employers listen,
To hear – all I have to show.

I’m dreaming of a job market,
With every letter that I write –
May you find me merry, and bright,
And may you, please, hire me tonight.

All of us in Career Services send our sincerest congratulations on your graduation!  We know that these are anxious times, but we want to reassure you that Career Services is available to you.  Did you know that as an alum, virtually all of our services are available to you?  Here’s a list of services that you can use whenever you need them – right now, or in the future.  You are welcome to:

1 – Make an appointment with a counselor (in person, or on the phone) to talk over  career issues;

2 – Talk with a graduate study advisor whenever you are thinking about getting an additional degree;

3 – Send in a resume, cover letter, personal statement or other graduate school essay for critique;

4 – Obtain a lifetime @alumni.upenn.edu University of Pennsylvania e-mail address go www.alumni.upenn.edu to and click on “Quakernet” for complete information.

5 – Attend most Career Fairs, Graduate School presentations, and any other workshops, seminars or presentations offered through Career Services – our Spring Career Fair is coming up in Feb!;

6Join the Career Services “LinkedIn” group and follow us on Twitter and like us on Facebook!

7 – Access PennLink where we post individual job announcements we receive from employers;

8 – Sign up for one of our many alumni e-mail job posting lists (yeah – more e-mail from Career Services!).  For complete information, check our Web site for your school;

9 – Access our extensive on-line job subscriptions through the Career Services library – and click on “on-line subscriptions”; (note:  these are different from PennLink listings)

10Connect with Penn alums through the Penn Alumni Career Network (PACNet).

11 – Continue your personal career exploration through the “Career Exploration” section of our Web site.  For a modest fee, a Career Counselor will critique career inventories (Myers-Briggs and Strong) for you;

12 – Use On-Campus Recruiting for one semester/year after your graduation.  NOTE THAT YOU MUST BE IN PHILADLEPHIA AND AVAILABLE TO COME TO INTERVIEW.

ONE FINAL WORD:  remember your Pennkey and Password – since you’ll need them to get into our protected job sites!

From all of us in Career Services:  congratulations, have a very happy holiday and wonderful 2011!  And let us know if you need our assistance – we’re here to help.

Flipping through the Channels…

by J. Michael DeAngelis

Thursday nights always offer up a tough choice.  Do I watch 30 Rock or Big Bang Theory?  Did I choose to spend the night with Bones and Fringe or do I dutifully watch The Office?

Or maybe I should watch all those episodes of Psych I’ve got recorded…or just pop in an old Star Trek on DVD.

Sometimes, I wish everything I wanted to watch was just on one channel.  Today, we’re moving closer and closer to that with the ability to DVR and watch online – with media guides and search functions and TiVO algorithms that help us find exactly what we want to watch.

Here at Career Services, we’ve had the same idea – creating a Vimeo site that features our many career videos.  You’ll find interviews with current students and alumni, discussions with our career counselors, videos of past programs and helpful orientations to various services offered by our office.  Many of our videos are also viewable on your favorite mobile device!

You can check our the main channel or visit one of our specialty channels:

So tonight, when you’re flipping through the channels, why not click on over to Vimeo and see what’s playing on the Career Services channel?

Attention! Website Construction Underway!

The Career Services website is going to be under construction this week.

image via B Tal on Flickr

We’re updating our layout so that things will be easier to find. (Office hours and a Google map of our location on every page! And our phone number, too!)  We’re also combining our resources for undergraduates into one centralized place rather than dividing up resources by school, and on all pages the navigational links will change to be organized by audience.

In the meantime you may encounter some dead links, redirects, and inconsistencies throughout the site.  If you’ve bookmarked a page, you may need to correct the link.  We apologize for the inconvenience and hope you’ll excuse us for the week. By Monday the 23rd we hope to have everything running smoothly again.  If you have any questions please feel free to contact me at mylene@upenn.edu.