Parents and the break

During the break, as we all unwind from a demanding semester, you might hear a little buzz in your ear. It's your parents constantly in your face, breathing down your back, and just generally getting on your nerves. Why can't they just leave you alone? Don't they understand that you want to just relax for once?

One thing you can do to help them leave you alone is to show them that you are being proactive in your quest for an internship/job. A good way to do that is to let them see your resume. If you don't have one completed yet, don't worry. The break is an excellent time to start one. The career center has a great guide for you to look at online: http://careers.wustl.edu/documents/resumecoverlettersamples.pdf

If you do have one completed, you can always improve it. One tip is to use your campus activities to your advantage. Many people simply list all their activities at the bottom or the top of the resumes and say nothing else about them. However, you can pick an activity that you are most involved in and develop it just like a job entry, complete with descriptions. Without degrees or much experience in the work field, employers are very hesitant to hire students to handle large responsibilities in their businesses. Employers value activities on resumes because it's a way for students to gain experiences and skills that can be directly transferable to a job, even if you think they are not. From being treasurer, organizing/publicizing an event, ordering materials, conducting meetings to writing group emails, all are things that impress employers that can't be found in the classroom.

Another thing, you know that crazy voice mail you have? The one with the musical interlude and the slang? You might want to change that because you would not want an employer to call with the intention of offering you a position only to retract it once they heard your voicemail. An added bonus is that your parents would be thrilled to see you increasing your professional development.

All in all, if you want your parents to ease up, let them catch you doing something towards getting a job/internship. Don't just do things after your parents have been complaining day after day. Let them discover you with your nose in the internship book, looking up the Career Center resume/cover letter guide, setting up an informational interview or even sprucing up your resume. Have a nice break!

The Calm Before The Storm

I know that the very timing of this post may cause it to fall upon deaf ears, but I hope that it may be of use to some of you after finals. I wanted to write about appropriate strategies and actions for the winter holidays. This can be a great time to prepare for the upcoming season of internship recruitment without the pressures of school weighing you down.

I have spent the past few weeks sending out several internship applications (and I am by no means finished!) and I am going to use the holidays to tie up all of the loose ends. I am going to follow up with companies about my application materials and make sure that I did not leave out any necessary documents. More importantly, I will spend time preparing for interviews. Part of that involves company research. Also, the Career Center has a number of valuable resources available to students for interview preparation for everything from behavioral to case interviews. I want to brush up on my skills so that when I return to WU in the spring I can have a productive meeting with one of our highly trained career advisors. After preparing with an advisor, it will be about time to start company interviews. I will post again about the status of those applications when I find out more information. Until then I will:

1) Keep applying.
2) Follow up with companies about existing applications.
3) Research companies and positions.
4) Individually prepare for interviews.
5) Make an appointment with a career advisor.

Good luck to all of you, and have a very happy holiday season!

More Networking!
So, a great way to network with Wash U alums is to use the Career Connections site. You can find tons of Wash U grads, ranging from recent grads to those who have graduated a long time ago, in a variety of industries and in a number of positions. Everytime I used the site, I have always found tons of people who are happy to talk about their jobs (since they rarely have people calling them up, they're always excited when a student calls them). While all my conversations with alums have been informational interviews and never lead to any job offers, I do know of several people whose informational interviews eventually lead to job offers. Nevertheless, it's always fun to talk to alumni and ask them about both their current positions, career path, and their undergraduate careers. And who knows, you might just get a job outta it!

Professional Associations

Not to beat a dead horse or anything, but networking is extremely essential in landing any type of work opportunity : ) You'll be amazed at how many things in life are about who you know and not so much about what you know. While it is very important to know what you're doing and delivering good results, don't forget that you also need other people to know what great things you've accomplished so they can be an advocate for you when it comes to internships, jobs, promotions, etc. Ideally, you can have a mutual exchange type of relationship with those in your network where they help you in certain situations and you return the favor by helping them in other situations. You know, kind of like "you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours" (or something like that).

I know many people dread the notion of networking and prefer to avoid it at all costs. I completely understand those feelings because I've been there before. The good news is that there are avenues that make networking more accessible and convenient for you. One such avenue is professional associations. Organizations like the National Association of Broadcasters or National Association of Female Executives join together people in similar career fields and basically you have an instant network at your fingertips. You know the people in the organization are interested in at least some of the same things as you, so there is a conversation starter right there! And, a lot of the professional associations have student memberships that are specifically designed to get students acquainted with the profession and begin networking with the members.

You can start off finding one of these organizations by doing a simple internet search of the profession you're interested in. Spend some time browsing different organizations' web sites and see which ones interest you enough to actually attend an event and possibly join. I'm confident that if you join a professional association as a student you will not regret it!

**P.S. - another great place to start looking for a professional association may be the pre-professional groups on campus such as Pre-Law, Pre-Med, etc.

Last week of classes!

A view from beneath the arch at Brookings, 1943. In honor of it snowing today. Good luck with the end of classes and finals!

Networking with friends?

I think networking ends up sounding a lot harder than it is, like the other CPs have said before me, it can really be pretty easy. Also, the great part about networking is you may already be doing it without realizing it! The other weekend I was hanging out with friends and we were talking about one friend’s recent job offer. Someone asked me what I was planning on doing next year and I mentioned that I was interested in working at an art museum or a non-profit. One friend said that he had an aunt that worked at a non-profit in Chicago and she would be more than happy to answer any questions I might have about what it’s like to work in her field. He is going to contact her first and then give me her email so that I could set up an informational interview with her (this is usually a good idea so you can avoid looking like a big creep). Anyway, even I was really surprised how easy it was to find someone in a field I am interested in who could answer some questions. Ask around, you’d be surprised who knows who and how willing people are to offer the phone numbers and emails of connections!

Note: At Informational Interviews people are usually MORE than willing to talk about themselves so getting the contact information and setting up a time might be the hardest part!

But what if my parents can't help me network?

Looking at Dan's post ("A networking experience, or two, or three..."), I'm amazed. Wow for him having contacts and using them to the fullest! But what about those of us whose parents aren't in industries where we want to be?

My parents are a real estate broker and a school-teacher. I didn't really see myself in those areas. My sophomore year, I wanted to work for a non-profit somehow related to Japan, and I was a little confused as to how to begin.

I had a meeting with one of my Japanese professors regarding something else entirely, and ended up mentioning my internship search in an off-handed way. My professor put me in touch with the Japan-America Society of St. Louis. Since I'm from Chicago, that wasn't going to work out even if they did have internships available (unpaid internship in a city where I have to pay for housing, food and transportation? Nightmare. That was before the Career Center offered stipends for unpaid internships). I called them up anyway, and mentioned that I was looking for an internship and was from Chicago, and the people at the Japan-America Society in St. Louis gave me the contacts of their Chicagoan chapter counterparts on the spot. Luckily, the Chicago chapter was looking for interns, and voila! my internship materialized. It was a beautiful feeling.

So your parents don't have to be well-connected (although it's really nice when they are!). There are other avenues: professors; family of friends; Career Advisors; people you work with at your part-time jobs (I got myself a contact in publishing in Boston by talking to the secretary at my work-study job; her college roommate had started her own publishing company and was looking for interns).

Sometimes if you just talk to people and tell them what you're interested in, even if you don't think they'll have contacts, they'll come up with the best ideas or people to talk to. And almost everybody is willing to help, because almost everybody has been in your shoes, and they wish that someone would have helped them out while they were looking. So don't feel bad talking about it! It's just a conversation.

Katie