Managing your job search messaging from the conscious to the subconscious

By Dr. Joseph Barber

The career exploration and job search processes are very active, fully-conscious experiences. It is important to be intentional, proactive, and to communicate in very direct ways your career goals to yourself (yes, sometimes you still need convincing too) and others. Throughout the process, however, there are some occasions when paying attention to communication happening at a more subconscious level is also important. Sometimes you can use this to your advantage, other times, you want to make sure that it is not putting you at a disadvantage. Here are some examples:

Networking

When you reach out to someone to request an informational interview (an opportunity to learn form them about their job and experiences getting to where they are today so that you can use this information as you possibly apply for similar jobs), there are a handful of reasons why they may say yes to your request to chat:

  1. They are an awfully nice person, and love chatting with new people
  2. They benefited from someone helping them in a similar way in the past, and are happy to pay it forward with you
  3. They are actually looking for a possible candidate for a role that might match your experiences and interests
  4. Someone has recommended them to you as a great person to speak with

Points #1-3 are specific to your contact’s needs and interests – you won’t have any influence here. Point #4 involves an external party, however, and this begins to create a situation where you can have an impact. In terms of networking, if I can reach out to a contact and bring in a third party into my introduction (e.g., Julie says that you will be a good person to reach out to with my questions), then I am giving my new contact a good reason to respond to my outreach because they probably don’t want to lose any of the social reputation that they now feel that they have (albeit at a subconscious level). After all, if Julie recommends them as a great person to talk with, she can also change her opinion and feel the opposite if she hears that they don’t actually take the time to chat to people she recommends. Leveraging this type of subconscious social pressure by reaching out to people you know so that you can then reach out to people that they know is an effective networking strategy. This won’t guarantee that people will respond to you, but it certainly increases the likelihood that they will.

Resumes

Most of the resumes you send when applying for jobs will first be “read” by Applicant Tracking Software (ATS) that matches your keywords to those from the job description to determine whether there is a high enough match for your application to be passed on to an actual human. For the time-being, it is likely that these robots are just doing their tasks in an objective manner without too much of a subconscious to worry about (at least I hope so!). However, when your resume makes it through to an actual person (thanks to all of the customizing you did before submitting it), it is time once again to think about how your language and formatting can affect what they think about you.

Small fonts and margins, and a lack of any white space in your resume will make it feel cramped, slightly intimidating, and possibly overwhelming – not concepts you want associated with you. On the other hand, resumes with too much spacing between lines, excessive margins, overly large fonts, all spread out over multiple pages will make it hard for the reader to picture all of your experiences at once. It will feel as if you are communicating too slowly and inefficiently.

Your resume will have an experience section. If you call it “Work Experience”, you may be limiting what you talk about to formal, paid positions. However, if you call it “Relevant Experience”, then not only do you create a subconscious signal to the reader that what they are going to being reading is relevant to them (you still need to make sure it is), but you can also include experiences that are not purely employment related. For example, you can talk about your research as a student or postdoc, or an independent project you worked on with outside collaborators, or the role your played as part of a student group or club. So long as the experience is relevant to the job you are applying to, in terms of the skills you are illustrating, then they can be concentrated together in this one section.

Occasionally, people will create a section in their resume that is called “Other Experience”.  The term “other” doesn’t leave the reader with much in the way of exciting imagery to associate with the experience or skills. Indeed, if the writer doesn’t know what these experiences or skills represent, then the reader is going to have a much harder time deciphering the value of a section that feels a little like a “stuff” section.

When it comes to writing bullet points in the resume, a commonly used phrase to describe experiences is “responsible for…”.

Responsible for coordinating a 300-person professional development event in coordination with 4 local universities

The challenge with this phrasing is that the reader has a couple of options in terms of what they will take away from this. If they, and their subconscious, are feeling generally optimistic, then they may feel that you have successfully taken on lots of responsibility – which is a positive. Alternatively, if they are feeling more pessimistic, they may note that while you were responsible for doing this, you didn’t actually state that you did it. Yes, you were meant to have done it…, but that is not quite the same thing. A more direct approach that minimizes the ability of the reader to take away alternatives meanings from the bullet point will be to focus on the actual skill used, and how successful it is.

Coordinated a 300-person professional development event in collaboration with senior administrators at 4 local universities, bringing in 14 employers and 22 alumni

Overusing verbs such as “helped”, “participated”, and “worked on” will also create a less tangible image of you in the mind of the reader, because it is hard to picture exactly what you may have been doing when you say “worked”. What specific images to these bullets create in your mind?

Worked on key projects that resulted in 20% increase in revenue

Participated in group projects related to research and development

Interviews

Being the most confident version of yourself is a great goal to have during job interviews. One way to communicate confidence at the subconscious level is to ensure that you have strong beginnings and strong endings your answers. This is a common beginning of an answer people give to questions I pose in mock interviews:

“Ummm…., I think…”

Both of these utterances drain the impact that your answer will have. Here are some better responses:

“Yes…, I…”

“That’s a great question…, I…”

“I was actually thinking about this question this morning, and I…”

The questions you will ask during an interview are also important (because you are definitely going to ask some questions, right!?), and should be framed from an optimistic standpoint. Some students are tempted to ask a positive/negative question:

“What are some of the best and worst part of this job/employer?”

This might be a question better suited to an informational interview, rather than a job interview. In a job interview, none of your interviewers are likely to want to paint the job or their company in a negative light, and so you wouldn’t get valid information anyway. However, making people think about the negative aspects of their work life will make them experience a wave of negative emotional states inside, and your interviewer’s subconscious might associate you with these negative states since you were the one who triggered them. As the interviewers gather to discuss the final candidates, any negative feelings associated with you, even at a subconscious level, are not going to help your cause.

I have seen advice that asking the “what does an ideal candidate look like from your perspective?” question at the end of the interview gives you a last chance to convince the interviewer that you can be that candidate. There is certainly some truth to this. There is also a risk that by answering the question out loud, the interviewers create an ideal image in their head that no longer matches you and your skills and experiences. Asking this question may undo some of your hard work from the interview, and leave the interviewer wishing for more – even if they had been happy that you could do the job based on what you had already answered moments before. They wouldn’t be interviewing you if they thought you couldn’t do the job. You should spend the interview providing illustrations of your skills in use so that they can see what value you bring, and then skip this question.

And asking questions that force your interviewer to do some of your work for you will also leave them feeling a little deflated about the experience. For example:

“What questions haven’t I asked that you think it would be important for me to ask?”

The job search process is a great time for you to market the best, most confident version of yourself with dynamic examples, lots of energy, and good dose of optimism. Doing this in the right way will ensure that you are leaving the best impression on the conscious and subconscious of your future employers.

LinkedIn and Career Research

The fall semester is a good time to reflect on next steps in your job and internship searches. Career Services is here to assist you with navigating the process.  One of the most commonly asked questions from students is “How do I learn more about a particular field/company/speak with people who work there?”.  LinkedIn has become one of the most effective and efficient resources to facilitate introductions, create connections, and learn about employers, industries, and job opportunities.  Using LinkedIn as an information tool is an important aspect of your career exploration and job search.  It serves a variety of purposes such as:  branding yourself/skills, researching employers, as well as connecting with people who can share their insight on topics and career fields and answer your questions.  LinkedIn also provides a convenient and efficient way to network.  Networking is divided into two parts.  First, it can be viewed as an opportunity to gather information and second, it allows you to share information about yourself in order to achieve your career goals.  October is an excellent time to familiarize yourself with LinkedIn and start to establish some connections.  Some key aspects to remember when using LinkedIn:

    • When using LinkedIn, be sure to join the University of Pennsylvania Alumni Group. You’re eligible to be a part of this community while both a student and after you have graduated.
    • Remember that your profile is your brand. Therefore, you want to ensure it’s a professional looking photo (e.g. not from a social/party setting). The summary section on your profile is a narrative that describes your academic and professional background.
    • Linkedin enables you to learn about employers that interest you. You can elect to follow employers within the newsfeed in addition to identifying potential connections at that company who could share with you their advice and insight into their experience, culture and mission of the company, and the hiring process/recruiting process.
    • Connections may be defined as 1st, 2nd, and 3rd degree. The category next to a person’s name indicates how you might know the person and who you may mutually be connected to. This is very useful to know since you could then potentially reach out to a mutual connection and ask for an “e-introduction” with the alumnus/alumna. In the message, you could ask for a 15-20 minute conversation to ask the alum about his/her role, experience at the company and advice he/she may have for you as you move forward with your job search.
  • We can help you with using LinkedIn as a networking tool so feel free to come in for an advising appointment at Career Services. Appointments can be made by calling 215-898-7531 or through Handshake.

Treat the job search like a class.

Jingy Yen, Career Counselor

When I was in college, I had trouble figuring out how to balance my time between my commitments, classes, and looking for jobs. I knew I had to sit down and think about applying for things, but after a long day of exams, meetings and projects this seemed almost impossible. My career advisor gave me some advice that I constantly pass on to my students – treat the job search like a class. By doing this, I was able to compartmentalize and the job search didn’t seem like a looming thing that I stressed about all day. To ensure successful implementation of this strategy, there are two easy steps to follow:

  1. Set aside designated time

Schedule time every week to work on your job, internship or graduate school search. This seems obvious, but the most important thing is to not schedule things over it. Treat it like a class by making it consistent and not something you can easily miss.

  1. Don’t worry about it the rest of the time

You know you will work on “career stuff” at a certain time every week, so don’t worry about it the rest of the week. This helped me tremendously because I didn’t feel the constant pressure of having to look for something when I knew I would have time to work on it later. Let yourself have some time off!

Of course there will be times that you have to do things outside of the designated time, like answer time sensitive emails or go to an interview (kind of like homework!). I found that by setting aside the time earlier in the week, I was able to proactively schedule these things, be more prepared and feel more organized throughout the entire process.

I’ve used this strategy for many other things in my life – so it doesn’t work just for career related things! Anytime you have a stressful issue that seems to take over everything, this can be a way to tackle it one step at a time.

A Season of Opportunities

Tiffany Franklin, Associate Director

Welcome back to campus! We are excited to have you back as we start to see moving trucks lining Walnut and Spruce streets. As you savor the final days of summer before classes begin, this is a time to reflect on what you hope to accomplish this academic year. Preparing for success is more than purchasing all your supplies the bookstore, Target, Amazon, and Bed, Bath & Beyond; it’s also considering the lessons learned from last year and how you’ve grown during that time. During the summer months, many offices take the opportunity to have team retreats to review all they have accomplished in the past year, celebrate wins, evaluate areas for improvement, and formulate a strategy and concrete plan for the coming year. This is so helpful because it gives you a chance to reset, clearly understand what you hope to achieve and build upon past successes.

Such an exercise can be beneficial for you as an individual as well. Even though it’s been a while since my student days at Penn, I like to do this. For example, when I bought my 2018-2019 planner at the bookstore I considered new ways I could organize my projects this year to be as efficient as possible.

One thing I often hear students say is that they wish they had started their job or internship search a little earlier. At Penn Career Services, we are happy to meet with you whenever you are ready; of course depending upon your industry of interest, there optimal times to prepare. Connect with career advisors for your specific college and will be happy to share about timelines for the industries you are considering. In all the years I’ve been a career advisor, I’ve never heard anyone say that they wish they had waited longer to come see us. Here are a few things to keep in mind:

  1. You don’t have to know what you want career wise to come to Career Services

 

When meeting with students, the first question I always ask is “How can I help you today?” There’s no right or wrong answer to this and it shows that we want to meet you where you’re at – whether that’s needing help with your resume, wanting to explore various career paths, requesting mock interview help, questions about specific jobs, how to connect with alumni, or asking for more information about all the resources we offer.

2. You can’t cram a job search

While some people thrive under the threat of a deadline, the job and internship search process is more of a marathon that cannot be crammed into one weekend. Ideally, it’s something that you will weave throughout the year and Career Services is here to help you every step of the way.

3. Don’t miss opportunities to connect with employers – Checkout out Handshake today!

 

 

There are a lot of events the first few weeks of school including workshops on every career topic you can think of, career fairs starting just after Labor Day, upcoming information sessions, and a host of job listings (and even some internship postings) in Handshake. Be sure to activate your Handshake account right away and check out all the great events coming up. Even if you are interested in an industry that does not recruit until later in the year, it’s still a good idea to explore an array of options and attend workshops now that can help you prepare.

Hope this is a wonderful academic year for you! Please be sure to check out https://www.vpul.upenn.edu/careerservices//appointments for walk-in times and come see us!

Organizing Your Job Search

Tiffany Franklin, Associate Director

Photo Credit: University of Pennsylvania

You’re walking along Locust Walk, your phone rings and you think it’s your best friend and answer it without thinking, but then you realize it’s a recruiter calling to schedule an interview. With all the noise, you don’t hear the company name and you’re scrambling to get to a quiet place. You find yourself saying yes to an interview, but you applied to numerous companies, so which one could it be? You try to think back to how long ago you applied. Later that afternoon, the recruiter emails you details for the phone screen, but it’s for a company you barely remember applying to and the job description link is no longer live. You try to remember the details for your upcoming interview.

If this scenario has happened to you or someone you know, you are not alone. A few years ago, I lived in Nashville and was driving down to Atlanta to see a friend. While going down Monteagle Mountain, I answered the phone (on speaker) thinking it was my mom and it was a recruiter for a job I had applied to two months before. She wanted to talk right then, so I did my best to answer questions, but it was not easy going around a mountain with a spotty signal. After a few more interview rounds, I received an offer for that job, but the thought of that conversation still stresses me out.

There are a few strategies you can incorporate into your internship/job search process to avoid this stress.

1)Your Phone – Only answer your phone when you are in a quiet place and can talk. If you receive a call from an unknown number when you’re in class or out in a crowd, let it go to voicemail, check your messages within the hour, and call back any recruiters as soon as possible that day when you can talk without interruption.

2)Excel Sheet – Create an Excel sheet or Google spreadsheet to track all your applications. Include columns for company name, job title, location, Job # (if available), date you applied, notes, and have a link to the job description and company website. Add a column for interview requests and follow-up, so you can check off that you sent thank you notes.

3)Use Data Analytics to optimize your search – If you are applying to various types of jobs and have different iterations of your resumes, indicate version A resume and version B resume and beyond. Then, you can add that column to your spreadsheet and after every 10-20 applications, see which version is generating better results. Review the versions of the resume (come see Career Services) and consider why one version is resonating with recruiters. How will that affect your strategy as you go forward?

4)Digital Job descriptions – When applying, copy and paste job descriptions to which you apply into a Word document organized by company name and in alphabetical order. That way, if the job disappears from the job site, you still have all the info and can easily find it.

5)Make the info accessible – Email yourself both the Excel and Word docs so you can easily retrieve both from your phone.

When searching for a job or internship, there are many details to track, especially when you have applied to multiple places. Given that everyone has so many things to balance in their lives between school, activities, and other responsibilities, you want to keep your search as efficient and effective as possible. Remember that Career Services is here to help you at every stage of your search whether you are still exploring careers, looking for resume and interview help, or need advice on negotiating offers.