This post is ded­i­cated to all the seniors out there who will begin full-time jobs in the next few months—CONGRATULATIONS! I know you all have worked hard over the past few years and your posi­tions are well deserved.

Per­son­ally, as excited as I am about hav­ing a job post-graduation, I am also appre­hen­sive about enter­ing into a full-time work envi­ron­ment. Like many of you, I have had plenty of intern­ships in the past, but a full-time job marks a more sig­nif­i­cant tran­si­tion. It is essen­tial, there­fore, to have a strat­egy when enter­ing into the work­force that enables you to make the best impres­sion pos­si­ble in your first few weeks with an organization.

WHY: First impres­sions count. In the early days of a job, your boss and col­leagues begin to form last­ing impres­sions about you. They observe and assess your ‘typ­i­cal’ behav­ior, includ­ing atten­dance, punc­tu­al­ity, enthu­si­asm, and even what ‘type’ of per­son you are. Espe­cially in the first few days when intro­duc­tions have begun, first impres­sions about you and your poten­tial can influ­ence your future suc­cess with the orga­ni­za­tion. Of course, employ­ers do not expect you to know every­thing right off the bat. There will be time to learn the ropes at each job. How­ever, there are sev­eral ways you can increase your chances for mak­ing a great first impres­sion and have a major impact on your future standing.

WHAT TO DO: You want to be seen as enthu­si­as­tic, com­pe­tent, and moti­vated in your first few weeks at a com­pany. The key is to remem­ber that you are under care­ful watch in the begin­ning from bosses, co-workers, and the orga­ni­za­tion as a whole, so act as pro­fes­sion­ally as pos­si­ble while observ­ing other co-workers’ habits.

1. Be Pos­i­tive. Hav­ing a pos­i­tive atti­tude is not only infec­tious, but it may help your cause if you acci­den­tally blun­der in your first few days. Hav­ing enthu­si­asm for your work, as well as enthu­si­asm towards your team, depart­ment, and com­pany can go a long way towards form­ing new friend­ships, and carv­ing out a pos­i­tive niche within your orga­ni­za­tion. If at all rel­e­vant, you should show loy­alty to your co-workers and, at least in the begin­ning, find oppor­tu­ni­ties to share credit or suc­cess with the team. And remem­ber to learn their names quickly!

2. Watch and learn. Observe your co-workers’ dress, habits, punc­tu­al­ity, etc.—they will give you a good indi­ca­tion of what is expected of employ­ees, even if noth­ing is specif­i­cally stated in your con­tract or train­ing. When in doubt, dress pro­fes­sion­ally to your new job. In the begin­ning, even if your depart­ment has casual days, try to dress pro­fes­sion­ally because you are still try­ing to make an impres­sion. Young new-hires may emu­late the attire of those who are in higher-level posi­tions to gain some cred­i­bil­ity. Once you are com­fort­able in your posi­tion, watch how your co-workers dress and behave, and start to slowly merge your styles. Often times, observ­ing how a co-worker answers a phone (always politely) or drafts an inter­nal email (pro­fes­sion­ally) will tip you off on how you are expected to con­duct busi­ness within your depart­ment. Though you should try to arrive early your first few days and work full hours, also keep track of when your co-workers arrive, take lunch breaks, and depart from the office. If peo­ple come early, eat quickly, and leave late, chances are you are expected to do the same.

3. Lis­ten and learn. Along with watch­ing, comes lis­ten­ing. Take your first few weeks and sim­ply lis­ten dur­ing con­ver­sa­tions, meet­ings, and gath­er­ings. In the early stages of a job, lis­ten­ing is much more impor­tant than talk­ing and hav­ing some of your new ideas heard—it shows that you value and respect your co-workers exist­ing com­mu­nica­tive rela­tion­ship and that you are not a ‘know-it-all’ straight out of college.

4. Social­ize. Try to stay away from any office gos­sip, but do try to get to know your co-workers. Take advan­tage of after-hours activ­i­ties such as sport leagues or happy hours, while being on your best behav­ior. Ask plenty of ques­tions to your employ­ers, co-workers, or HR rep­re­sen­ta­tives if you are stuck on an issue—it may even be a good way to break the ice with less friendly employees—and always show your appre­ci­a­tion for advice received. You should also con­sider find­ing a men­tor down the line, to help guide you through your career path and intro­duce you to other mem­bers of your orga­ni­za­tion. Above all else, con­tinue net­work­ing and expand­ing your cir­cle of contacts—and never stop!

5. Get Informed. Learn every­thing you can about your com­pany in the first few days. Gather employee hand­books and com­pany lit­er­a­ture to make sure you are informed before speak­ing up at meet­ings. But also keep track of your accom­plish­ments and mile­stones: track­ing your progress, achieve­ments, suc­cess­ful projects or meet­ings will not only help boost your con­fi­dence, but will also help guide future con­ver­sa­tions with your boss. Request meet­ings with your boss to review per­for­mance and be sure to share your own achieve­ments with him/her too. Cre­ate goals together and work your hard­est to achieve them.

Mak­ing a good impres­sion should not be too dif­fi­cult, how­ever these tips are sure to set you ahead of other ‘rook­ies’ in the group. Enjoy your first job—excel—and remem­ber, if for some rea­son you decide to leave your com­pany and begin another job search, as a Prince­ton grad­u­ate, Princeton’s Career Ser­vices is avail­able to assist alumni at any stage of their

If you’re a senior, all you can think about this month is: Finals! Reunions! Grad­u­a­tion! But slow down—these are the last days you’ll get to spend with your 2011 class­mates before embark­ing on a new chap­ter of life. Take the time to enjoy each other’s com­pany one last time.

One goal I have had this week is to find out where all my friends will be after col­lege, so I can con­tinue to keep in touch. I have been sur­prised by some of their answers: three of my friends are start­ing their own respec­tive com­pa­nies, many are going into finance in New York or Chicago, two brave friends are mov­ing to Sin­ga­pore for PIA, and another to Mis­sis­sippi as a TFA instruc­tor, and three are start­ing law school in the fall. It is excit­ing, to me, that my one group of friends breaks down into such a diverse range of career paths, but then again, that’s Prince­ton for you. We all started in Forbes Col­lege, we all like to travel and lis­ten to music, but some­how, we are going to end up on oppo­site sides of the coun­try or world, all doing what we love in dif­fer­ent indus­tries. Though I always imag­ined us leav­ing Prince­ton as a unit, I think everyone’s post-graduation plans fit their career and life goals, and will make for much bet­ter (and hap­pier) con­ver­sa­tions at reunions to come.

Talk­ing to my friends about their post-graduation plan got me think­ing: What is the rest of the class of 2011 doing? So, I asked some seniors to sit down with me on cam­era and share their plans, and here’s a video with their responses:

As col­lege grad­u­a­tion is rapidly approach­ing, I find myself rem­i­nisc­ing about my time here at Prince­ton and all of the great expe­ri­ences I have had. I remem­ber when I was a fresh­man, I made a list of all the things that I wanted to accom­plish while in col­lege. Now, after four years, I can­not say that I have checked off all of the things on my list (I have yet to travel through the steam tun­nels or steal a cam­pus flag), but I still made quite a large dent. Even more inter­est­ing though, are some of the things I did that were not on the list-such as change my major 5 times, eat at least once at every eat­ing club, and go sky diving.

Though the accom­plish­ments that didn’t make the list may seem silly, I have come to real­ize that some of the seem­ingly ‘irrel­e­vant’ or fun things you do on cam­pus can lead to major life and career deci­sions later on. For exam­ple, had I stuck with the first major I declared in sopho­more year-Politics, I might have been swayed by other Pol­i­tics majors and friends to intern on the Hill over the sum­mer, instead of tak­ing my first intern­ship in Los Ange­les at a pro­duc­tion com­pany, and begin­ning my love for media. Eat­ing in every eat­ing club also forced me to branch out socially, allow­ing me to meet twice as many peo­ple as I would have had I sim­ply stuck to my meals at Tiger Inn. Know­ing peo­ple from many dif­fer­ent social cir­cles has helped me this year as Annual Giv­ing Co-Chair as I reach out to the entire Class and solicit pledges for Princeton’s Annual Fund. And finally, on a whim, I went sky div­ing last year after finals to cel­e­brate the end of junior year. Hav­ing never done any­thing ‘crazy’ before, div­ing out of a mov­ing air­plane showed me that not only could I be spon­ta­neous and adapt quickly to sticky sit­u­a­tions, but also that I could sur­vive almost any­thing, whether it be plum­met­ing towards earth or a bad grade on a paper.

The point I am try­ing to make is that ALL of your expe­ri­ences mat­ter and they are all…priceless. What you do now shapes who you are and who you will become. Try­ing new things at Prince­ton can lead to greater con­fi­dence and more informed decision-making in your future.

I give you three exam­ples of per­sonal friends:
Talia Kwartler ’12 never thought she would study abroad. How­ever, dis­cov­er­ing her love for the Ital­ian lan­guage at Prince­ton, it became read­ily appar­ent to her that she would need to study in Bologna, Italy in order to per­fect her con­ver­sa­tional skills. While abroad, Talia stud­ied Ital­ian paint­ings and used the mate­r­ial she found abroad to help write a suc­cess­ful Junior The­sis. Her knowl­edge of art and her abroad expe­ri­ence also made her a top can­di­date for the Peggy Guggen­heim Col­lec­tion Intern­ship in Venice, Italy, which is one of the most cov­eted intern­ship posi­tions in the art and art his­tory world. Her expe­ri­ence at the Guggen­heim will help her immensely on future grad­u­ate school and job appli­ca­tions within her field.
Annie Shapiro ’11 never thought she would be tap­ping into her dad’s pro­fes­sional net­work, but when her father met the CEO of Learn­Vest at a net­work­ing event, she jumped at the oppor­tu­nity to meet with the founder per­son­ally. From that infor­ma­tional meet­ing, Annie was offered an intern­ship, and then another for the next sum­mer and school year. Finally, as a senior she has been hired full-time upon grad­u­a­tion work­ing directly with the CEO on prod­uct devel­op­ment and mar­ket­ing.
Michael Keaton ’11 has always been pas­sion­ate about entre­pre­neur­ship, but it wasn’t until this year that every­thing fell into place in a way that he believed he could exe­cute. In one year’s time, he found a fel­low Prince­ton stu­dent and busi­ness part­ner as dri­ven as he, a sim­ple idea that could be tested at low cost, and the time and free­dom to be able to build a com­pany thanks to Ed Zschau’s High-Tech Entre­pre­neur­ship class. When Michael expe­ri­enced dif­fi­cul­ties in coor­di­nat­ing group com­mu­ni­ca­tion and events on cam­pus, he took it upon him­self to develop a web-based tex­ting plat­form for stu­dent orga­ni­za­tions called Swoop­TEXT. In addi­tion to let­ting stu­dents receive instant updates from their groups’ lead­ers, Swoop­TEXT pro­vides stu­dents with a vir­tual cam­pus activ­i­ties fair so users can actively man­age their sub­scrip­tions to groups. As a senior, he has had more free time to be able to per­fect his prod­uct, and is in fact test­ing Swoop­TEXT at Prince­ton next month, with the hopes of launch­ing in the fall. Michael cred­its his time at Prince­ton for pro­vid­ing him with the free­dom, resources, part­ners, and test sub­jects to enable his ini­tial idea to morph into a full-fledged company.

As my time as a Com­mu­ni­ca­tions intern for Career Ser­vices is com­ing to a close, I want to be able to cap­ture the sto­ries of some of my class­mates, to hear about your expe­ri­ences at Prince­ton and how they may shape your future! This week, armed with my flip cam, I will be a “rov­ing reporter” look­ing for stu­dents to inter­view for one of my final assign­ments. If you see me com­ing, please step up to share your story!

Although I have writ­ten about using social media for pro­fes­sional pur­suits before, I would like to take a minute to empha­size LinkedIn as a way for seniors to ener­gize their job searches. Believe it or not, con­nect­ing with peo­ple on LinkedIn can be a fast track to find­ing busi­nesses and job oppor­tu­ni­ties that match your career goals.

LinkedIn offers stu­dents a medium in which to cre­ate pro­fes­sional online pro­files and inter­net rep­u­ta­tions, research com­pany pages (that align with indus­tries of choice), and reach out to experts in var­i­ous fields for advice and assis­tance. This online social net­work of com­pa­nies, pro­fes­sion­als, and job seek­ers is more advanced than a reg­u­lar job board because it puts your con­nec­tions to work, pro­vid­ing the tools to reach out, degree by degree, with the con­nec­tions of your con­nec­tions for mutual ben­e­fit. In using LinkedIn to your full advan­tage, you may be able to research your dream job and com­pany, reach out to con­tacts within the orga­ni­za­tion, apply online for a posi­tion, and obtain job refer­rals all on the same site. With over 60 mil­lion users, LinkedIn may be your best (and most con­ve­nient) bet to quickly make con­nec­tions in your field of inter­est and find a job.

As some of you are not yet on LinkedIn, I will explain the basics. LinkedIn also offers tuto­ri­als on their web­site for stu­dents and first-time users, so as to make the process as easy as possible.

There are a few basic steps to enter­ing into the LinkedIn com­mu­nity, the first and fore­most being build­ing a pro­fes­sional pro­file. All LinkedIn users, like Face­book, have a per­sonal pro­file that adver­tises your pro­fes­sional infor­ma­tion to other users. How­ever, unlike other social media sites, LinkedIn is not a place to con­stantly update your friends about daily sit­u­a­tions or to add pho­tographs from par­ties and gath­er­ings. Think of your LinkedIn pro­file as some­thing you would be proud to show an employer and co-workers, and a place that ade­quately sum­ma­rizes your career path so far. You should add a professional-looking pho­to­graph, an eye-catching header, and a strong sum­mary state­ment that is con­cise, spe­cific, and pointed towards your accom­plish­ments and future aspi­ra­tions. You can build your pro­file using infor­ma­tion from your resume. Once you are more expe­ri­enced with the site, you can begin to request/add rec­om­men­da­tions from past employ­ers and friends who have worked with you and know your strong-suits. And finally, you should begin to incor­po­rate your LinkedIn account into other aspects of your pro­fes­sional life, such as you email sig­na­tures and resume. LinkedIn offers an excel­lent video tuto­r­ial dis­play­ing good exam­ples of pho­tographs, head­ers, and sum­mary state­ments to get you started: http://learn.linkedin.com/students/step-2/ You can also check out Career Ser­vices’ guide­lines tai­lored to Prince­ton stu­dents: http://bit.ly/auZjCm.

Once you have cre­ated a pro­file, it is time to start research­ing your career inter­ests. Since LinkedIn is a data­base of the career paths of nearly 60 mil­lion users, you can begin by search­ing for peo­ple with careers in which you are inter­ested, such as mar­ket­ing or jour­nal­ism. By typ­ing “mar­ket­ing” or “jour­nal­ism” in the key­word sec­tion of the advanced peo­ple search, you can gen­er­ate a list of pro­fes­sion­als who have those words in their pro­file, and see if you are con­nected through your net­work or share any LinkedIn groups with them. When you click on one of the pro­files, you can see their edu­ca­tional infor­ma­tion, as well as all of the past intern­ships and jobs he/she might have held to obtain his/her cur­rent position—essentially a career path laid out. You may get inspired by his/her career path, or you may find it ben­e­fi­cial to start join­ing some of his/her LinkedIn groups to meet other pro­fes­sion­als with sim­i­lar career inter­ests, as well as par­tic­i­pate in indus­try dis­cus­sions. Finally, you may also start look­ing at the individual’s com­pany page to begin build­ing a strong list of com­pa­nies for which you may wish to work. Again, check out LinkedIn’s tuto­r­ial to see a spe­cific exam­ple of a search and its results: http://learn.linkedin.com/students/step-3/

Since over 70% of jobs are found through net­work­ing, LinkedIn is the per­fect site to begin build­ing your pro­fes­sional net­work. Even though seniors may be new to the work­place, LinkedIn is a place where you begin build­ing con­tacts, despite not know­ing peo­ple directly. You can start off by adding your friends and fam­ily by going to the con­tacts tab and search­ing for them. Once you have con­nected with the peo­ple you know directly, you can begin to tap into their pro­fes­sional net­works for your own ben­e­fit. You should also join Princeton’s Alumni Group by search­ing in the group directly tab. Here you can meet alumni in diverse fields who are inter­ested in con­nect­ing with other indus­try pro­fes­sion­als and work­ing with recent grad­u­ates. Reach­ing out to these group mem­bers, keep­ing up with your cur­rent con­tacts, and cus­tomiz­ing your “request to con­nect” mes­sage will help you build a pool of rela­tion­ships that you can use in a job search. http://learn.linkedin.com/students/step-4/ Also, see Career Service’s sug­ges­tions for build­ing a net­work: http://bit.ly/ibzDn1.

When you are ready to reach out to your net­work and begin your search for a job, LinkedIn is a good place to send con­tacts a friendly mes­sage detail­ing your goal of find­ing a job in a spe­cific indus­try, and ask­ing for both advice and help in learn­ing about job oppor­tu­ni­ties at their respec­tive orga­ni­za­tions. You may want to ask your con­tacts to keep an eye out for job list­ings on their var­i­ous LinkedIn group pages, while you check out the “jobs” tab to search for post­ings in your area of inter­est. LinkedIn allows you to see which of your con­tacts works for the com­pa­nies with the job post­ings, so you can ask your con­tact for help, refer­rals, or fur­ther con­nec­tions when apply­ing. To see tem­plates for reach­ing out to your con­nec­tions, as well as how-to instruc­tions for look­ing up job post­ings, watch the fol­low­ing video: http://learn.linkedin.com/students/step-5/

Finally, should you have suc­cess in your search and land an inter­view; you can use LinkedIn to research the peo­ple who will be inter­view­ing you. You can study the LinkedIn com­pany page for infor­ma­tion like mis­sion state­ments and gen­eral infor­ma­tion, indus­try knowl­edge, com­peti­tors, insider secrets, and ongo­ing updates to help sure-up your inter­view answers. And of course, you can go to Career Ser­vices to prac­tice an inter­view set-up before the big day. http://learn.linkedin.com/students/step-6/

As you can see, I have made a pretty pow­er­ful argu­ment for join­ing LinkedIn and begin­ning to build your net­work as you search for job oppor­tu­ni­ties in the “home stretch” between now and grad­u­a­tion day. For more infor­ma­tion, visit Career Ser­vices’ Social Media Page (http://bit.ly/9y0Fvk) and come con­nect with me on LinkedIn.

If you are a senior, like me, who has a full-draft of your the­sis due next week, it is tempt­ing to jus­tify putting off your job search for another few weeks—or even until your the­sis is done–BUT YOU SHOULDN’T. For those of you inter­ested in non­profit work, the time is now to “pull out all the stops” in your job search.

Unlike many of our class­mates who inter­viewed on cam­pus in the fall with major cor­po­ra­tions and invest­ment banks, careers in non­profit orga­ni­za­tions, think tanks, and non-governmental orga­ni­za­tions require stu­dents to be more proac­tive in their search. Many posi­tions are filled through net­work­ing, vol­un­teer­ing, or intern­ing. Employ­ers may not have the funds, staff, or time to com­mit to a full-fledged recruit­ing process, but there are jobs avail­able for col­lege grad­u­ates, as long as you take the right steps:

Acti­vat­ing a net­work is key. Build­ing a net­work of peo­ple who can assist you in the job search is not as dif­fi­cult as some may think, espe­cially for Prince­ton stu­dents. Nearly any­one with con­nec­tions to the non­profit or pub­lic ser­vice sec­tors can be a poten­tial resource, and all it takes is a sim­ple email, phone call, or meet­ing to begin a rela­tion­ship. For seniors, alumni are a par­tic­u­larly good resource, and using the Alumni Careers Net­work (http://tigernet.princeton.edu/olc/pub/PRU/), is a quick and effi­cient way to search for alumni in the non­profit field who are will­ing to offer career advice. Even if some­one is unable to help, they may be able to intro­duce you to other indi­vid­u­als who are bet­ter suited to answer ques­tions or assist with job searches.

Use every resource pos­si­ble to search for both job open­ings and orga­ni­za­tions. At Prince­ton, you can use tools such as Tiger­Tracks (http://bit.ly/hRfvly). How­ever, there are also a num­ber of post­ing sites ded­i­cated to jobs in the non­profit field. For a detailed list of web­sites with non­profit and phil­an­thropy job post­ings, see the fol­low­ing link on Career Service’s web­site: (http://bit.ly/i1FvUJ). In addi­tion, con­sider using social media tools such as blogs, Face­book, and Twit­ter to meet peo­ple in your poten­tial field and look for job open­ings. Do not rule out intern­ships or temp­ing posi­tions or even vol­un­teer oppor­tu­ni­ties, as they may be easy places to get your foot-in-the-door and gain some experience.

Take advan­tage of Princeton’s focus on pub­lic ser­vice and the many events and pro­grams on-campus. Every year Career Ser­vices hosts a Non­profit Career Fair that is open to all stu­dents. It gives inter­ested par­ties the oppor­tu­nity to meet with dozens of orga­ni­za­tions and dis­cuss poten­tial full-time, intern­ship, and vol­un­teer oppor­tu­ni­ties. This year, the event is in Frist’s Mul­ti­pur­pose room on Feb­ru­ary 25th from 1–4 PM. It is often the only time that so many of the non­prof­its are rep­re­sented on cam­pus, and the most effec­tive way to learn about orga­ni­za­tions. Other Princeton-specific orga­ni­za­tions, such as Prince­ton Alum­ni­Corps, Prince­ton in Asia, Prince­ton in Africa, and Prince­ton Intern­ships in Civic Ser­vice are also great resources. (Inter­ested stu­dents should check the orga­ni­za­tions’ web­sites and Career Ser­vices for infor­ma­tion and appli­ca­tion dead­lines.) Finally, stu­dents should check the Career Ser­vices Events Cal­en­dar (http://www.princeton.edu/career/events/) to see when non­profit speak­ers or orga­ni­za­tions will be vis­it­ing cam­pus. For exam­ple, the IMAGINE Speaker Series is host­ing Kather­ine Brit­tain Bradley ’86 on Feb­ru­ary 25th at 4–5 PM at Career Ser­vices. As founder of City­Bridge Foun­da­tion, Mrs. Bradley will be dis­cussing her career jour­ney in the non­profit field and speak­ing with stu­dents at a net­work­ing recep­tion afterwards.

Tai­lor your resume, cover let­ter, and inter­view prepa­ra­tion not only to the non­profit sec­tor, but also to the orga­ni­za­tion to which you are apply­ing. Research each orga­ni­za­tion you are apply­ing to and cre­ate a cus­tomized resume and cover let­ter that addresses their spe­cific needs, cri­te­ria, and mis­sion. Also, use your research as you pre­pare for an inter­view by prac­tic­ing your talk­ing points, com­ing up with rel­e­vant exam­ples from your pre­vi­ous expe­ri­ences, prepar­ing your own ques­tions, and show­ing your com­mit­ment to the field and the organization’s mission.

Per­son­ally, my father has worked for a few non­prof­its over the last sev­eral years and iden­ti­fies with the mis­sion of his orga­ni­za­tion. He feels ful­filled by work­ing for a group that is “mak­ing a dif­fer­ence” in the world. Stu­dents who have sim­i­lar career goals may be inter­ested in the non­profit world, and should not be con­cerned if they do not see a large num­ber of non­prof­its recruit­ing on cam­pus. With over 12 mil­lion employ­ees in the non­profit work today, there are plenty of oppor­tu­ni­ties (rang­ing from inter­na­tional in scope to grass-roots level) for those who are proac­tive in their search.

On Novem­ber 10th at 6PM at Prospect House, my super­vi­sor at Career Ser­vices handed me a flip cam­era and asked me to record my expe­ri­ences. I had a few hours to net­work with alumni, talk with other stu­dents, and catch every­thing on video.

Upon first enter­ing, I was imme­di­ately struck by the num­ber of stu­dents that attended. Though the space was quite large, there always seemed to be stu­dents crowded around each alum­nus for the dura­tion of the event. Because of the diverse range of indus­tries rep­re­sented by the Prince­ton grad­u­ates, there was a con­stant flow of atten­dees weav­ing through­out the tables. In fact, I was unable to inter­view sev­eral of the alumni I had orig­i­nally intended, such as Katie Ko ’09 and Dana Dreibel­bis ’78, because they were always engaged in a con­ver­sa­tion with a stu­dent. Despite the fact that time did not per­mit me to inter­view every alum­nus, I did have some very inter­est­ing con­ver­sa­tions with about a dozen grad­u­ates. As a senior, my con­ver­sa­tions were less geared towards gar­ner­ing advice about major and indus­try, and more geared towards cre­at­ing a career path from an entry-level job.

For me, the most com­pelling con­ver­sa­tions con­cerned alumni’s own expe­ri­ences from their first year out of col­lege. I spoke with alum­nus Larry Fox ’77 who glowed as he recounted his years teach­ing at an Amer­i­can school in Cara­cas, Venezuela and explained that it was an impor­tant life step before begin­ning a career in engi­neer­ing and man­u­fac­tur­ing. Lily Hines ’09, only two years out, hap­pily spoke with me about the tri­als and tribu­la­tions of apply­ing for law school while hold­ing a job. I attempted to cap­ture as many of these con­ver­sa­tions as I could on cam­era, but I must admit, it was my first time using the device, and I had sev­eral mishaps. For exam­ple, I had a hard time fit­ting some of the atten­dees in one frame. When ask­ing Kevin McGowan ’95 to share some advice for Prince­ton stu­dents, for instance, I attempted to show off his great Prince­ton tie as he was telling stu­dents to pur­sue a job that they can enjoy, and I ended up cut­ting out his entire fore­head and eyes at one point. I also found it inter­est­ing that the word “pas­sion” was used so many times through­out the inter­views. Nearly every alum­nus empha­sized find­ing a job or sec­tor that a stu­dent is “pas­sion­ate about,” which is excel­lent advice. In fact, this com­mon theme popped up three or four times in each con­ver­sa­tion. (How many times can you count the word “pas­sion” over the course of the video?)

With that said, I had a ton of fun at the event. I loved get­ting mixed advice from both young alumni and those more estab­lished in their fields. As I video­taped the event, I was curi­ous to lis­ten to the ques­tions my peers asked and to hear the tai­lored advice they received. Eat­ing good food and chat­ting with so many tal­ented and smart indi­vid­u­als made the night a great suc­cess in my mind. Hope­fully, despite some mishaps with my cam­era work, I was able to show what a fun and edu­ca­tional night this was. Check out my video below…

Seniors, are you won­der­ing what to say to well-meaning friends and fam­ily over the hol­i­days when asked about your job search? I picked up a few tips from the “Class of 2011: Job Search” event that I would like to pass on to help you to nav­i­gate the dreaded ques­tion: “So, how’s that job search coming?”

Although these inquiries may some­times seem annoy­ing, it is a mis­take to avoid dis­cus­sions with friends, fam­ily, and asso­ciates about your job search. While you may be try­ing to enjoy the hol­i­day fes­tiv­i­ties to (momen­tar­ily) take your mind off your job search, be sure to stay open to oppor­tu­ni­ties that allow you to net­work. You never know who has ties with an orga­ni­za­tion, or where you may meet an exec­u­tive or recruiter. The best way to deal with ques­tions about your job search is to be hon­est and open about your progress, and take advan­tage of the oppor­tu­nity to ask for advice or referrals.

Here are a few poten­tial “scripts” to use:

“I am look­ing for oppor­tu­ni­ties within (indus­try or field) and have been busy iden­ti­fy­ing and research­ing employ­ers with the help of my career cen­ter, alumni, and oth­ers. Please let me know if you have any sug­ges­tions for my job search. ”

“In addi­tion to fol­low­ing up on job post­ings avail­able through my school, I have been net­work­ing with friends, fam­ily, and alumni. Do you hap­pen to know any­one who works in the ______industry?”

“I am explor­ing all the resources at my dis­posal and am open to learn­ing about as many oth­ers as pos­si­ble. Do you have any suggestions?”

Accord­ing to the National Asso­ci­a­tion of Col­leges and Employ­ers (NACE), about 75–80% of jobs are landed by net­work­ing. Reach­ing out to peo­ple, no mat­ter how awk­ward it may seem, is one of the most effec­tive ways to not only learn about a com­pany, but also estab­lish con­tacts. Some of the best peo­ple to talk to are fam­ily and friends. If some­one gives you the name of a con­tact, ask them if you can use their name when reach­ing out, or whether they could call in advance to let the per­son know you will be con­tact­ing them. You can also look up indi­vid­u­als using Face­book or LinkedIn and reach out with per­son­al­ized mes­sages to peo­ple with whom you would like to connect.

Here are some addi­tional tips for job seek­ers dur­ing the holidays:

1. If you notice fewer new job post­ings online dur­ing this period, increase your indus­try research and indi­vid­ual out­reach. Dur­ing the hol­i­days you may notice fewer online job post­ings. This is the time to expand your search beyond Inter­net job post­ing sites to iden­tify unad­ver­tised oppor­tu­ni­ties. Job post­ings only rep­re­sent a por­tion of avail­able job opportunities—if you focus only on the job boards you may be lim­it­ing your search. Using lists like Busi­ness Week’s “Best Places to Launch a Career” or Collegegrad.com’s “Top Entry Level Employ­ers” may help you iden­tify com­pa­nies that match your career inter­ests. From there, Wikipedia, Google News, and LinkedIn’s com­pany pages are excel­lent ways to research and tar­get spe­cific orga­ni­za­tions or cor­po­ra­tions. Proac­tively reach­ing out to these orga­ni­za­tions to inquire about poten­tial oppor­tu­ni­ties will help you expand your search and tap into the hid­den job market.

2. Take advan­tage of hol­i­day fes­tiv­i­ties to net­work with as many peo­ple as pos­si­ble and use time off from classes to net­work online. Meet­ing new peo­ple (either in-person or online) can broaden your net­work, so be sure to let oth­ers know that you are look­ing for a job. As men­tioned above, tap­ping into the net­work of your fam­ily and friends is a great way to expand your con­tacts. Also, do not over­look alumni as another resource for your job search. Using the Alumni Careers Net­work (avail­able on the Career Ser­vices web­site), you can reach out to estab­lished Prince­ton grad­u­ates who have vol­un­teered to offer advice to stu­dents about their field or pro­fes­sion. Social media tools are becom­ing more and more essen­tial in the job search and the net­work­ing ben­e­fits dif­fer from one site to another. For exam­ple, sites like Twit­ter allow you to fol­low orga­ni­za­tions’ posts to stay up to date on their news and events, you can “like” orga­ni­za­tion Face­book pages, and you can reach out to pro­fes­sion­als in your field using LinkedIn. Using a com­pre­hen­sive approach and a com­bi­na­tion of resources will ensure the best results.

3. Sched­ule an appoint­ment with a career coun­selor before leav­ing for win­ter break or dur­ing read­ing period. Don’t for­get to take advan­tage of the per­son­al­ized atten­tion you can receive via a sched­uled career coun­sel­ing appoint­ment in Career Ser­vices. A career coun­selor can help you develop a tai­lored strat­egy, direct you to spe­cific resources for your field, and offer advice to improve your self-marketing skills.

I check my Face­book about once every few days, but I have a feel­ing that most of my friends check it way more fre­quently. I use the site to keep in touch with friends from high school and col­lege, send and receive reminders con­cern­ing impor­tant upcom­ing cam­pus events, and update loved ones about changes in my life. How­ever, I know peo­ple that use their Face­book page prac­ti­cally as a replace­ment cell-phone: mak­ing plans, flirt­ing, and chat­ting instantly with friends. What I didn’t know, though, was that Face­book is a social media tool that stu­dents are using to adver­tise them­selves to employ­ers.
In the past years as I have been apply­ing for intern­ships, I have been given the same advice from friends, teach­ers, and par­ents: “Do not let your employ­ers see your Face­book.” It stands to rea­son, then, that a Face­book page could be poten­tially a harm­ful tool in the appli­ca­tion process. All of those pic­tures from Win­ter For­mals and those com­ments about Jer­sey Shore might make a com­pany think twice before they hire you. So why, then is Career Ser­vices pro­vid­ing tips on how to use social media in your job search?

In many orga­ni­za­tions, the real­ity is that the HR rep­re­sen­ta­tive or hir­ing man­ager will use Face­book as a way to increase their under­stand­ing of and infor­ma­tional access to appli­cants. A sta­tis­tic quoted in Career Ser­vices’ Career Plan­ning Guide says that accord­ing to the National Asso­ci­a­tion of Col­leges and Employ­ers over 70% of employ­ers check out can­di­dates using social media tools. More and more com­pa­nies have begun to post job offer­ings on Face­book. They are look­ing for media-savvy prospec­tive employ­ees who have a firm grasp on social media tools like Face­book, Twit­ter, and LinkedIn, who can help the com­pany reach a wider base. Dis­cov­er­ing a job on Face­book may be an advan­tage, as it demon­strates an applicant’s grasp of social media, as well as his/her under­stand­ing of the impor­tance of net­work­ing and ini­tia­tive. You can also find out about and sign up for events hosted by the com­pany on Face­book. Orga­ni­za­tions con­stantly scan their post­ings on infor­ma­tion ses­sions or cam­pus vis­its to see which stu­dents have cho­sen to RSVP and attend.

Face­book can also be used to make an appli­cant stand out. If a pro­file appears clean and pro­fes­sional, while still hav­ing per­son­al­ity, it may be the decid­ing fac­tor in a tie between a few appli­cants. Employ­ers look for things like what you are a “fan of” and what your “inter­ests” are. You can make your­self appear very seri­ous about the job by becom­ing a fan of the com­pany and putting pro­fes­sional pur­suits in your “per­sonal infor­ma­tion” sec­tion. By lim­it­ing pho­tographs, graph­ics, wid­gets, etc. and post­ing con­tent rel­e­vant to your job search, you will appear more career-minded and busi­ness savvy.

Finally, for those who have not had much expe­ri­ence in the job mar­ket, Face­book may be an eas­ier way than tools such as LinkedIn, to begin the process of social net­work­ing. While LinkedIn is a pro­fes­sional net­work­ing site, it may be intim­i­dat­ing for stu­dents with­out work expe­ri­ence to begin to net­work with indi­vid­u­als who have been in the field for sev­eral years. (For help­ful infor­ma­tion about how to get started using LinkedIn click here.) Face­book allows stu­dents to fos­ter rela­tion­ships with friends and alumni in a low-pressure set­ting, while still being able to present a business-professional front. How­ever, it is impor­tant to remem­ber that if you begin con­ver­sa­tions with pro­fes­sion­als via Face­book, you must be aware of the other Friends you are con­nected to on the web­site. Choos­ing Face­book friends wisely is essen­tial to Face­book net­work­ing because a new friend can see infor­ma­tion about all your other friends in your pro­file. In essence, your cur­rent friends on Face­book reflect back on you to future employers.

Face­book can be a great way to mar­ket your­self to employ­ers dur­ing the job search. Once you make the deci­sion to use the web­site as a pro­fes­sional net­work­ing tool, you must remem­ber to: 1) clean up your pro­file includ­ing con­tent and friends; 2) limit pho­tographs and extra wid­gets on your pro­file; 3) post con­tent rel­e­vant to your career search; 4) use Face­book to build rela­tion­ships with friends and work­ing alumni. If you do all these things, Face­book could be the tool that sets you apart from other appli­cants in a tight pool.

For indi­vid­u­al­ized infor­ma­tion about how to tweak your Face­book Pro­file and use other forms of social media, visit Career Ser­vices. You can make an appoint­ment by call­ing (609) 258‑3325 or drop by dur­ing walk-in hours every week­day from 3–5 PM to speak with a career counselor.