As my peers and I search for jobs and sum­mer intern­ships, a few sticky top­ics have come up—how do I dress for my inter­view? Write a follow-up email? Tell an employer about my weak­nesses? How can I bal­ance career dreams and com­mu­nity engage­ment? After research­ing these ques­tions, I’ve come up with sev­eral answers.
Dear friends—I hope this helps!

1. What is busi­ness casual?
   For starters, DON’T break out the flip-flops. Most of you already pass this rule. But how do I look sharp? What does this label even mean? Should I wear khakis or Suit pants? Truth is, for most jobs, this will be your wardrobe. Only a select few dress in busi­ness attire every day. Here’s a handy list for dress­ing up, com­piled from our career web­site.
   DO remem­ber that busi­ness casual is more busi­ness than casual.
   DON’T look sloppy. Din­ing hall break­fast garb like sweat­pants and t-shirts is, of course, never accept­able. Also, make sure that your “nice” clothes are all neat and well tai­lored. Noth­ing too tight or reveal­ing!
   For ladies, DO wear skirts and nice dresses. Make sure they’re not too short.
   Also for ladies, DO try any of the fol­low­ing com­bi­na­tions: dress + cardi­gan or blazer, or skirt + sweater set, knit top, blouse, button-down, V-neck, cen­ter­piece shirt, or turtle­neck.
   For men, DO wear pressed pants with a belt.
   For men, DO wear busi­ness for­mal minus the tie and the jacket. Often, a polo shirt can be appro­pri­ate, too.
   If this is for the inter­view, DO research the com­pany you’re inter­view­ing with before­hand. Often you’ll be free to express more per­son­al­ity in an inter­view with Google, Face­book, and other com­puter soft­ware com­pa­nies as well as in the film and fash­ion indus­tries.
   Bot­tom line, DO research before get­ting dressed. If you have ques­tions, con­tact your inter­viewer for more information.
2. How do I write a follow-up email?
   If you’ve seri­ously applied for jobs and intern­ships, the follow-up stage (or, more accu­rately, the do-I-follow-up? stage) is fully stocked with oppor­tu­ni­ties!  Check out Ali­son Green’s short, snappy follow-up email for a good model: http://bit.ly/r60Zrt.
3. Tack­ling the “what’s your great­est weak­ness?” ques­tion.
   Kryp­tonite? Nar­cis­sism? Well, to be hon­est, noth­ing!
   Need­less to say, these answers won’t fly in the job inter­view. This is a tricky ques­tion, and when an inter­viewer asks many of these ques­tions, it’s to your advan­tage to think cre­atively and show that you are a thought­ful, self-reflective human being. You’re not Super­man, and even wear­ing a Super-suit and cape to your inter­view won’t prove that. (Note: do not test this the­ory. See sec­tion on Busi­ness Casual above.)
   DON’T spin a weak­ness into a strength. “I don’t have any weak­nesses,” “None that I know of,” “I fre­quently work over­time at the expense of my social life,” “I’m so effi­cient that I don’t have to del­e­gate” are all great weak­nesses to have. But for the inter­view, you can do bet­ter.
   DO use this model. Wet­feet iden­ti­fies a three-part sys­tem to answer­ing this ques­tion. First, iden­tify a real weak­ness. Next, show how you’ve improved upon that weak­ness. Third, cel­e­brate your improve­ment. That way you’ll come across as human and fal­li­ble but still deter­mined and adept at prob­lem solving.
4. As a senior, do I “give back” or pur­sue a life-long dream?
   In a per­fect world, you’ll be doing both next year—painting, danc­ing, writ­ing, break­ing into fash­ion or film, try­ing your hand as an actor. Why not? You’re young and there’s no (or, well, few) strings attached!
   Yet, you’ve had an uncom­mon oppor­tu­nity in education…you feel like you should give back right away. What do you do?
   Often, you can do both. Rana Camp­bell, a senior and Soci­ol­ogy major, plans to pur­sue her dream job in the media indus­try while also giv­ing back where and when she can—through a local after­school pro­gram or as a vol­un­teer for a pro­gram like Peety Greene Pris­oner Assis­tance Pro­gram, where she has vol­un­teered weekly for all four years of her under­grad­u­ate career.
   For oth­ers, it’s a ser­vice job and a dream on the side. Landed a job in con­sult­ing? You can still take dance class at night. What about travel? Are you tak­ing a job abroad and itch­ing to write a novel? No time like the present!
   Look to the Alumni Careers Net­work to find pre­vi­ous Prince­ton grads that are cur­rently carv­ing the path you desire. You’ll find that a career might take you on paths you never even imagined!
5. How do I find jobs if I want to work in a par­tic­u­lar city in the U.S.?
   Oh, so you want to work in New York? Easy. We’ve got that one in the bag.
   Other cities aren’t so easy to scope out. As an east coast school in New Jer­sey, we might be a bit par­tial to our neigh­bor­ing cities when it comes to jobs. That being said, there are some easy steps to take to find a job—wherever you may wish to be next year.
   First, on Tiger­Tracks and UCAN, the search fea­ture allows you to list post­ings by loca­tion as well as by key­word. Bam. Done.
   Sec­ond, check out GoingGlobal.com. Even though you’re not tech­ni­cally going abroad, the web­site has a wealth of orga­ni­za­tions listed for major U.S. cities. You can browse their lists by city, and then more closely by industry.