Tag: Job Hunting

Celebrate your Successes!

Dr. Joseph Barber

As 2010 begins to wind down – I know, it is hard to believe the year is almost over – now is a good time to think about some of the personal and professional milestones you achieved in 2010. This is an important exercise for two main reasons: 1) you will need to be able to talk about your achievements any time you are on the job market (in your cover letter, resume/CV, and during interviews); and 2) it is important from a psychological perspective to celebrate your successes and not just focus on those aspects of your life that you don’t think are going so well. If you are like me, and can remember all of the awkward, embarrassing things that have happened to you throughout your life much better than all of the times where you were actually suave and confident, then focusing on the positive is very important.

Let me talk about some of my recent successes. In terms of professional achievements, I was the primary point person for organizing the 2010 Biomedical & Life Sciences Career Fair at the end of September. I couldn’t have done this without the help of the rest of the graduate and postdoc team at Career Services, but this was a project that was most definitely on my to-do list. Working with my colleagues, and making use of all of the resources at my disposal (e.g., contact databases, LinkedIn, contacts I made through work), I was able to get 28 employers registered for the fair – and this was really the maximum number of employers that could fit in the space we had reserved. We also attracted 299 PhD students and postdocs to attend the fair, which is a great number even if it is irritatingly short of 300! If I hadn’t put in the hours working on this fair over the summer, then we wouldn’t have gotten as many employers or attendees. It was my actions that lead to this successful outcome. If I were writing about this experience in a resume, I might say something like:

  • Communicated effectively with CEOs, managers, scientists and recruiters at pharmaceutical companies and organizations seeking candidates with scientific backgrounds, resulting in 100% of career fair registration slots being filled by employers.
  • Coordinated actions of 4-person team to attract 299 PhD students and postdocs to attend fair, creating 4 posters/flyers as part of career fair announcements.

The first bullet above speaks to my ability to communicate with a wide range of people from different backgrounds. I am as comfortable speaking with scientists interested in finding particular candidates with certain types of research skills as I am talking with non-scientist recruiters looking to fill consulting positions. The second bullet focuses more on leadership/management skills, as well as sneaking in a mention of my creative skills. Both bullets use this formula: situation-skill-outcome. There was a situation where I used a specific skill to achieve a positive outcome. Use this formula in your resume and you will do a great job illustrating how effective your skills are (and not just saying that you have skills, and then relying on the employer to take your word for it). Only by taking the time to think carefully about what I achieved, and how I achieved it, can I highlight my skills in this way. So, when you are on the job market, celebrate your successes by thinking about all of the different skills you have used to achieve results (big results like getting a paper published, and small results like improving the efficiency of ordering supplies for your lab).

I am very happy that the career fair was a success. On a slightly more personal note, I am even happier that my own network of contacts played an important role in this success. If you have been to Career Services for an appointment or walk-in, chances are that you have been told how important building and maintaining your network are to your future careers. It is true – it really is. People can turn out to be great contacts for something that you never imagined they would be helpful for. Here are some of my networking experiences related to the career fair:

  • Got the names of two recruiters from a contact I had made with someone from Charles River Labs at a symposium I had spoken at 3-4 years ago. CRL did not end up registering for the fair, but I was able to add these new contacts into our employer database.
  • Reached out to a friend of mine from my undergraduate days who is a VP medical director at a medical writing firm in New York, resulting in her organization sending two representatives to the fair.
  • Followed up with a postdoc I had met with at Career Services who had mentioned in passing that she knew someone at a pharmaceutical company that I had been trying to connect with. I was able to get some contact details, and the company ended up registering for the fair.
  • My wife and I had a friend from Oxford stay at our house while he was visiting the US with his girlfriend over the summer. He is doing some website design work for Nature in the UK, and happened to know a good contact for me to reach out to in Nature Publishing’s New York office. Nature ended up registering for the fair.

Unlike the first three, my Oxonian friend has no connection with science at all. His PhD was in the humanities, and his current position in IT. Still, he was able to provide me with a contact for an organization that was on my high priority list. This was certainly a success worth celebrating.  Each contact in your network knows someone who knows someone who might just be the person you are looking to connect with. And who knows which organization your next contact’s significant other works for. Somewhere down the line you will find unexpected help from someone in your diverse network of contacts – especially if you take the time to maintain and build your relationships with them.

The more you focus on your successes, big and small, the more positive your outlook will become. This positive outlook will be reflected in your job application materials and in the way you come across in interviews – even if you are not consciously aware of this fact. People like to hire positive and confident people.

Celebrate your successes thus far in 2010, but don’t forget that there are still several weeks left for you to achieve even more. That is plenty of time for you to schedule an appointment at Career Services to see how we might be able to assist you. Making use of available resources to help you achieve your career goals is definitely a successful step in the right direction.

A Day in the Life: Publishing

Read Jamie Cheng’s archived tweet feed here: http://www.vpul.upenn.edu/careerservices/JaimeCheng_Feed.pdf
If you have a love for the written word, then a career in publishing has likely crossed your mind.  There is more than meets the eye in the publishing sector, you can publish books, magazines or industry specific journals.  Furthermore, the sector has a wide range of opportunities beyond editing and writing – spreading the word.  Jaime Cheng (SAS ’99) posts for @PennCareerDay on Wednesday, December 8th and will highlight a day in her life at Elsevier.  Read more about Jaime below, and follow her next Wednesday!
Jaime Cheng

Jaime Cheng is a Product Marketing Manager at Elsevier, the world’s leading publisher of science and health information. Jaime’s team provides hospitals with electronic reference solutions that meet the training, education, and reference needs of the nursing staff and leadership to optimize patient outcomes.

Prior to joining Elsevier, Jaime was a Database Marketing Manager with the Philadelphia Flyers and Philadelphia 76ers professional sports teams. There, she managed the database marketing and research strategy and operations. She also worked at a startup company in San Francisco for three years.

Jaime has a BA in Psychology from the University of Pennsylvania.

10 Similarities between Job Hunting and Surgery

Dr. Joseph Barber

I recently had some minor surgery, and now that I am home recovering I have been thinking about some of the various similarities and differences between the job hunting process and surgery. Note – I am still on some pretty powerful painkillers!

1)      You can spend a lot of time on WebMD trying to self-diagnose your ills, but you often don’t have an objective perspective (I always skip over “brain tumor” and look for something much less serious when seeing which diseases match my symptoms – something like “cat-scratch fever” always seems much less scary). However, it is always better to go to your doctor for a proper diagnosis. Similarly, get a fresh perspective and some expert feedback on your application materials by coming to Career Services for an appointment. Another pair of eyes can help you see your materials from the employer’s perspective.

2)      Job hunting can take a long time, and a lot of effort, but on the plus side, it is not as painful as having your insides poked at by someone with a sharp knife.

3)      I get just as nervous before job interviews as I did before my surgery, but at least you are allowed to eat and drink before the job interview (and this is a good idea, so long as you avoid that jitters-causing espresso!).

4)      It is important to dress appropriately for surgery and interviews. Business formal (e.g., a suit) is always your best option for interviews. And while no-one looks good in hospital gowns, you might get to keep your socks on, so choose a pair that has no holes.

5)      I was asked at least 18 times for my name and what procedure I was having done during the hospital admission process (so I guess writing “do not remove” in permanent marker all over my limbs wasn’t necessary). People who might interview you, especially when you meet with groups, may have little or no idea who you are, as they didn’t have time to review your materials beforehand – don’t assume they know your skills, or what you wrote in your CV/resume or cover letter, and don’t be afraid to make reference to achievements and illustrations of your skills mentioned in your materials.

6)      Always look for networking connections when job hunting. I was connected with my anesthesiologist as he also monitored my wife during her C-section. A connection like this when hunting for jobs can make all the difference.

7)      It is best not to black out completely during your interview. The opposite is true during surgery.

8)      Don’t leave the hospital without your discharge instructions (or your trousers). Don’t leave your interview without knowing their timeline for getting back in contact with you (so that you know when to follow up with them if they haven’t called).

9)      Give yourself some time to reflect upon your interview when it is all over and done with. Think about whether you can do anything better for the next one. On the other hand, try not to think about people poking at your insides with sharp cutting tools, because the remnants of the general anesthesia will make you nauseous enough as it is.

10)  Painkillers are important post-surgery. Talking with your peers, your supervisor/PI, your friends, or with advisors from Career Services is the best medicine to help you with that post-interview period, especially if it didn’t go as well as you had hoped.

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!).

Why Reneging on an Offer is Bad for Your Career Mojo

By Claire Klieger

This is the time of year when people start to feel desperate about jobs or internships and may be tempted to accept something, anything, just because it’s a job and a job right before graduation equals peace of mind. So you’re thrilled to get any offer and you say yes so your parents and friends will stop hounding you about what you’re doing after the semester is over and you breathe a big sigh of relief. I mean, ok, so it’s not your dream job but the places you were really excited about never called you back. Except…sometimes they do.

Occasionally, you’ll later hear from an employer that you’re a lot more excited about that you’re invited for an interview or even that you have been offered the position. And here’s where things get difficult. You may hear from family members and friends things like, “Awesome!  Just back out of that other job offer. What does it matter now that you have what you want? Plus, if you’ve just said yes on the phone and haven’t actually signed anything, it’s not like it’s legally binding anyway.” However tempting, this is seriously bad counsel.

Despite what you may hear, employers consider a verbal acceptance as good as signing a contract. While you’re not legally obligated, you’ve made a verbal commitment and there are definite consequences to reneging on an offer:

1)       First and foremost, you can be pretty sure that you are ruining your chances of chances of ever working for that organization. Employers’ memories are long and you will forever have that figurative little black mark on your file.

2)      In addition, you may be affecting your chances of working at similar organizations. Keep in mind that most industries are relatively small and that the people you angered by saying no may tell (warn) others in the industry about you. As you can imagine, this is particularly damaging in instances where the offer came through on-campus recruiting where recruiters from competing organizations all know each other, making it much less likely that such an individual would have interviewing options with any of those organizations in the future.  In fact, we’ve even seen cases where the thwarted recruiter has called the employer with which the student is defecting to explain the situation and the new employer has pulled their offer (leaving the student with no offers).

3)      Reneging on an offer damages the Penn reputation, and as such, future recruiting opportunities for Penn students. When you renege on an offer the employer doesn’t just think negatively about you, they also think negatively about Penn. In fact, we’ve often had to do serious “damage control” with employers who had one or multiple reneges from Penn students. It may only take one instance for them to conclude that “this is just the way Penn students are” and be less inclined to consider applicants from Penn in the future.

The way to avoid being in that situation is to not accept an offer without carefully thinking it through. You should never tell an employer yes if your plan is to continue to look until you find something better. It’s not fair to them and it’s untrue to you. There are always jobs out there and it is far better to wait for the right thing to come along than to damage your own career reputation by going back on your word.