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Filming on Vocation: Julie Olsen

Posted in Filming on Vocation

SYNOPSIS

Learn about Julie Olsen’s work as both Registrar and Associate Dean of the College. Hear advice for branching out trying something off-the-wall during your time at Wabash.

http://youtu.be/INwwjvSmFfg

SELECTED TRANSCRIPT

Julie Olsen: Associate Dean of the College

0:30 Julie Olsen: I am the Registrar of the college, which entails the normal record keeping part of the academic world. I am also the Associate Dean of the college, where I deal with hiring, safety issues, and legal compliance cases as well.

2:20 When are we going digital with class registration?

There is nothing on the table at this point. I suspect at some point that it will happen.  Right now it is actually more convenient for students to be coming through our office because we do a lot of assisting and advising when people come through our office.  When students come through our office and they are not able to get the classes that they want, we are able to help them find other courses that they need.

3:20 What are some of the skills and talents you have to draw on?

I am an administrator and what that means to me is facilitating processes and making things go, trying to keep them smooth, efficient, and effective for  people.  That means you are always looking ahead and trying to understand how things could work and how they could work better.  I also figure out how to work with people and different kinds of people and what it would take to help them do their jobs better.

4:20 How did you end up in your dual role that you are in now?

Julie Olsen: I was a chemist by training and I had taught off and on at the college.  In the mid 1990’s when Don Herring became Dean of the College he came over and asked if I would work with him as an assistant to the dean of the college.  There had not been any support staff in that office before and we initially agreed that I could do that.  Our initial agreement was that I could resign from the position after a year or he could ask me to the leave the position after a year, but we never got to that point.  I went to the Dean’s office in 1993.  One of my first jobs was to put in place a monitoring report and assessment plan and to get it passed for accreditation.  Another big task I took on during that time was beginning to co-chair the safety committee, which I still do.  I looked at a lot of issues like dealing with blood borne pathogens, organizing chemical hygiene plans, and emergency plans.  The college is legally required to have a number of safety plans in place, so I have gone about establishing a lot.  I also began to assist the dean with the budgeting process.  Under the dean of the college there are several hundred budgets  and we worked our way through organizing those.  We also set hiring procedures in place for hiring faculty.  There had not been any written guidelines up to that point and we put those in place. I became registrar in 1998 after the current registrar retired, so that was kind of added to my mix of responsibilities.

6:55 What do you miss about teaching?

Julie Olsen: I have found that I have liked the administration much more.  I had never imagined I would do that kind of work.  It wasn’t something that occurred to me that I would enjoy.  But there is a lot of the same kind of figuring how to do things and making things work that is also involved in teaching. Up until 5 or 6 years ago I still had a research lab going and had students working for me, so I wasn’t completely removed from teaching either.

8:12 What advice do you have for current students?

Julie Olsen: Find something you really like and imagine that you could see yourself doing for a long time.  Life is too short to put yourself in a position to have to do things you don’t like.  Find something that really appeals to you and is intellectually satisfying to you. While you are here in college this is probably your last chance to do some unusual things, either activities or course work that you are never really going to have an opportunity to access again, so go find some of that strange stuff and do it.  You can make the most of your time here by looking broadly at what’s available and sampling it.

9:10 What advice do you have for students who want to end up in administrative work?

Julie Olsen:  A student interested in administrative work will probably have to earn a PHD.  People interested in a Dean’s position will typically have earned their PHD, taught for a while, and gradually worked their way over to administrative positions.  On the registrars side you see two types of people in those positions.  Some have come through an academic/ faculty role into the registrar’s position.  While, others that have come up by working their way through a registrar’s office and have eventually come up to being a registrar.

12:20 When there is more bad than good what is your inspiration?

In the long run, being able to facilitate things and make things happen for the good.  You work your way through difficult times and you figure out how to straighten things out and working with people to do that is satisfying.  That’s a good thing to be doing.

13:12 What inspires you?

I don’t know if there is something that really inspires me, but sometimes when I watch old Star Treks and think about command structure, I think I would like to be Captain Kirk.

14:06 What’s one thing every Wabash student should do?

Pick one really off the wall course that you really wouldn’t imagine yourself normally doing and go in and try it.

 


Filming on Vocation — Joe Haklin [CS]

Posted in Filming on Vocation

SYNOPSIS

Watch the inimitable Joe Haklin talk about his work, his development, and how Wabash men can build a body of experience useful for their entire lives.

http://youtu.be/dfaGYaQen74

Joe Haklin Highlights

0:20 Joe Haklin: It’s my charge to administer 10 intercollegiate varsity sports programs here at Wabash in addition to being the chair of the wellness committee here, the director of campus wellness, I would say that 75% of my time is spent on the athletics side and 25% on the wellness side, but we’ll see how that plays itself out over the years. So far in my first seven months here, that’s the way it’s gone. All the athletic teams, their coaching staffs, the athletic training staff, the athletic support staff such as the equipment manager and our administrative assistant report to the athletic director here and I’ve got to sort of lead the way to make sure that we’re moving in the right direction in all those sports and serving the student athletes of Wabash in a positive way so that their experience here is both educational and enjoyable.

3:35 JH: In preparation for athletic administration, work on your communication skills. The written skills are very important to put down on paper, via a simple email, or memos, or reports to be able to get across an idea or an argument in a concise, clearly stated manner in a skill that is really going to do you well.

7:10 JH: Don’t sit in your dorm room and expect that you’re getting yourself ready to be an athletic administrator. You’ve got to get out there and gain some experience leading people.

7:53JH: You’ve got to plan. If you don’t plan your weeks, your days, your months, you get in a bind. You get behind on things.

8:38 JH: Establish healthy routines in your life, so that you know you’re getting your academic of life taken care of, as well as meeting your athletic goals.

9:32 JH: Put yourself in leadership roles as much as you can. Try to rise to the level of a leadership role. It’s just like anything else.  How do you get to be a better baseball player? How do you get to be a better rower? A runner? It’s by doing it over and over and over again and trying to learn from your past experiences. If you don’t have a body of past experiences, then you get into your adult life, and you don’t have much to fall back on.

 


THE BETTER LETTER

Posted in Nuts and Bolts Advice

—Stephen Batchelder

Writing Better Cover Letters

Over the course of this year I have dished out a considerable number of resume reviews and I hope that the feedback has proven constructive and beneficial. In comparison to how many questions I have fielded regarding resumes, I have been asked significantly fewer questions about cover letters.  This has puzzled me as a young peer career advisor.  If the resume is really the only thing that matters, then why are cover letters important?  For this blog I would like to turn my attention to the first article that most all employers will see, the Cover Letter.

Signing the Cover Letter

The truth is that the cover letter is often an overlooked marketing tool.  In a competitive job market a strong cover letter can significantly improve your status as an applicant.  The cover letter laid out in our Job/ Internship/ Gradate School Search Guide is very good for helping us Wabash Men get the gist of the basic cover letter format, but my aim is to help point out some finer details that will help you write a “Better Cover Letter.”

The first piece of advice; you need to research the company you are applying to.  It is not enough to have a generic cover letter that you simply change the address on.  An employer will often see hundreds of cover letters that are not tailored specifically to the company that you are applying to.  Especially if you have a connection to someone within the company or you demonstrate a good knowledge and interest in the company, you can prove that you are interested in the position and your resume more often than not will receive more careful consideration.  However, it is important not to simply demonstrate your acquaintance with an employee with the company, but state something like “I learned about this position through a recent conversation with John Doe.”  Depending on the size of the company you are applying to it may be necessary to state your contact’s connection/ position with the company.

Secondly, in your body paragraph you are making an argument for why you should be hired. So it is important to include concrete evidence.  It is much more interesting to read about your involvement in a local juggling club and how that has given you the ability to respond quickly to adversity, they to simply say “I have am able to learn quickly and have the ability to overcome adversity.”   It is also important to remember that your selling points should be tailored to the position the cover letter is addressing.  If the position advertises that they are looking for candidates with “strong interpersonal communication skills,” you will want to show how you have demonstrated strong interpersonal communication skills.  This could be a skill developed from a leadership position in you fraternity or on an immersion trip to work with disadvantaged families in Peru.  Where ever you have you have demonstrated these qualities, you should discuss those in depth rather than just writing, “I have strong interpersonal communication skills.” Be Concrete.

My final piece of advice is to remember that the focus of the cover letter is to convince the reader to look at your resume. With this in mind your cover letter says a lot about your resume.  If your cover letter is generic and you are unable to highlight specifics of your resume that make you an ideal candidate for the position, then why would an employer feel inclined to look at your resume?  On the other hand if you write an outstanding cover letter, but neglect to include that information on your resume, that is equally as problematic.   It will seem contradictory to an employer to see an experience described in your cover letter absent from your resume.  This tells the employer that perhaps you felt the experience not significant enough to include on your resume and therefore the wonderful argument you made in your cover letter is disregarded.  To use your resume and cover letter to your best possible advantage the experience or experiences discussed in your cover letter should reflect what will be seen on your resume.  Yet, it is important to remember that the resume and cover letter are not meant to be repetitive.  Rather, the cover letter provides a coherent, argumentative account linking and developing the experiences presented on the resume.

In closing I leave five pieces of advice to remember when writing cover letters.

  1. Take Your Time– Do not wait to write a cover until just days before the application is due.  Think carefully about how you can present yourself in the best possible way to an employer through your cover letter.
  2. Research the Company– Never send a generic cover letter.  Tailor your cover letter like your resume for each position you apply for. Always remember to write to your audience and address their concerns, expectations, and requirements.
  3. Be Specific– Explain a specific experience in depth.  Refrain from using phrases like, “I have a wide range of experiences” or “I have made numerous contributions to a variety of organizations.”  It is not the diversity of your experiences that will get you an interview, but the diversity of your skills.
  4. Convince the Reader– You are making an argument for yourself in your cover letter.  Why would the employer want to hire you?  Just like any paper state a thesis and support it.
  5. Proof Read. Proof Read. Proof Read.

Here are a few cover letter samples that demonstrate the points I have discussed.

http://www.docstoc.com/docs/41475301/SAMPLE-COVER-LETTER-VIA-EMAIL

http://www.docstoc.com/docs/41475209/SAMPLE-COVER-LETTER-FOR-AN-INTERNSHIP

 


Lessons from the Interview Front

Posted in Interviewing, Nuts and Bolts Advice

-Austin Weaver

From beginning to the follow up, what I’ve learned through the interview process.

Over the past couple of years, I have been involved in several interviews—on both sides of the table, and even on the phone as well.  I have learned what to do and what not to do.  Mistakes have been made by myself, and I have witnessed others make mistakes as well.  Here is what I have learned so far:

Before you even land an internship, you must always show the employer that you are interested and reliable.  This is most obvious in two cases:  the time in which you apply, and how you respond to them contacting you regarding an interview.  Never wait until the application deadline to apply—I have made that mistake and learned the hard way.  Don’t apply the exact day the internship is posted, but definitely don’t wait until the final day of the posting.  Following that, if an employer contacts you regarding an interview, be prompt in your response to their email.  Addressing the employer with Mr. and Ms. can never hurt either.

For those who are interviewing with an employer over the phone, these can surprisingly be much more difficult than in person.  During an in-person interview, you often get a read on when the interviewer is satisfied with your answer and ready to move on.  This doesn’t happen on the phone.  Therefore, answer the question, and when your thought is over, stop talking and wait for the interviewer’s response.  Also, if you are one who doesn’t have a very exciting voice, make sure you don’t fall into the monotone voice during the interview.  Always sound interested—standing up and walking around while talking can help.

Once landing the personal interview, people have often made the mistake of not being appropriately dressed.  At this level of interviews, a suit with a white dress shirt and tie is usually always a safe call.

Before the interview begins, be sure to shake the hand of everyone who is interviewing you.  Be prepared for the interview as well.  A standard interview is going to be conducted by the employer stating “Tell me about a time when…,” usually regarding a time when you showcased your leadership, ability to deal with ambiguity, or other attributes relevant to the job you are applying to.  Also, every employer ends the interview by saying “Do you have any questions for us?”  Spend time researching the company and the position prior to the interview, and come up with 3 questions or so to show that you truly are interested in the position.

Finally, follow up every single interview with a “thank you” email sent to each person who interviewed you—I was offered a position and told that a key difference was that I was the only one who followed up with a “thank you” email.

If you have any questions or need to improve your interviewing skills, the Career Services office here at Wabash often runs Mock Interview sessions for students.

 

 


Dating your Career Search

Posted in Nuts and Bolts Advice

–Mark Osnowitz ’12

When you think about it, dating and finding a job are rather similar. Let’s say your friend tells you about his female friend he thinks you would like. First thing you do is go on Facebook and check her out. At the same time, you may have a tab open on your computer for glassdoor.com. Your other buddy talks about a job he is interviewing for and that he thinks you should apply as well. When you are done creeping on the girl, you tab over to Glass Door and look up the company he is interviewing with.

In both cases you are doing a cursory search before you invest more time in the process, either having your friend introduce you to the girl or applying on the company’s website. So those same tactics that help you to find your dream date should help you get the job you want.

1) Do your homework. Since completely blind dates were all but ruined by Google, by the same token you should not apply to a job you know nothing about. The internet is your friend. Check out the company’s home page, websites like glassdoor.com and look at the company profile on LinkedIn.

2) Dress the part. Many Wabash men undergo somewhat of a metamorphosis from Wednesday to Thursday. Suddenly, the bearded faces and sweat pants are replaced with clean shaven men and jeans, perhaps even topped off with something called cologne. In the same manner, when you get the interview you need to dress professionally. Know the industry you are applying to! Even if the company dresses more casually day to day, they will most likely expect a suit and tie for the interview. If you need to borrow a suit or have questions, stop by Career Services.

3) Have something to talk about. There are many guides out there on how to ace interviews with employers, but the fastest way to derail your interview is to not have any questions for them at the end. Taking it back to dating, think how it would go if you only talked about yourself the entire time and showed no interest in learning about the other person. And just how you should ask about the stuff that isn’t posted on Facebook, you should ask employers questions you can’t get answers to on their website.

4) Follow up. Here is where my analogy starts to break a bit. There is no three day rule with employers. Some people still advocate for the hand written letter, but in today’s world they may already make the decision by the time they receive it. The day of the interview send a nice follow up email. Our guidebook actually has a section on follow up letters.

5) Play the field. I would never recommend leading multiple girls on at a time. You may end up like this Hardees commercial. Breaking the analogy again, you need to play the field with your job search process. Employers expect that you will be applying for multiple jobs. If for some reason they ask, you should be honest. Just like you should be when you’re dating! By the same token, when you accept a job, your search is over and you should let all of your other potential employers know. If you end things cordially you may even stay friends, I mean, have a valuable future contact.

So there it is. Five ways in which your dating and job search are similar and the way to do them right. If there is any interest, I may do a follow up entry on how dating and networking are similar, but that is for another day!

 


Filming on Vocation: Dean Gary Phillips

Posted in Filming on Vocation

In the Filming on Vocation series, members of our Wabash campus community offer their insights and advice in an interview with Career Services. We focus on their work, their professional development, and on their general advice for Wabash men. We post the interview, a synopsis, and a transcript with highlights.

Synopsis: Dean Phillips shares from his wealth of experience in higher education and more. (Did you know that he once owned a restaurant?) Watch the interview and check out our highlights to learn more about the role of Dean of the College, the skills and values necessary to promote education at Wabash, and advice for the student still searching for what to do.

http://youtu.be/8HN6zbGW2W8

Excerpts:

Gary Phillips: My responsibility as dean is to oversee, manage, help plan, help implement, and guide the academic side of the house, the curriculum, the faculty work, that leads to student classroom experience and out of classroom experience.

GP: At Wabash, the Deans office is where many of these tasks that would be found in a different institutional setting under someone who would be working one level above me and beneath the president would be found.

GP: The task of being a Dean is really grounded in what you believe to be the mission of an institution. And the institutional purpose, we know what the mission of Wabash is. That’s what grounds everything, and it is what grounds me.

GP: I owned and ran a restaurant for three and a half years. When you flip burgers and make pizza, you have to figure out how to work with people…that experience of trying to balance the budget, have fifty five employees and make an institutional difference in the life of the community is an important factor.

GP: If I can enable my colleges to see the work that their work is better, then that’s another measure of my success.

GP: Can you help them ask the right questions? It is important to have answers, but it is even more important to have the right questions. The measure of success of somebody in my role, is can I marshal among my colleges, student, faculty and staff, the capacity to think carefully about complex issues, running an institution and living in an institution is a complex thing, not simple, and can I help articulate those questions and help those around me articulate their own questions to find a way forward.

GP: To teach in a classroom is a sober and important job. It is a life commitment, not just a way to draw to paycheck in my view.

GP: The Wabash student, who is thinking about a job in a college, or in a classroom. You start right with the most practical thing. Take a class, work with a professor, do an immersion experience, do an internship, engage an alumnus, talk with a parent. Do something concrete, practical and real that moves you from your normal zone of comfort, to a place where you are compelled to, think of, engage with and contemplate something that you hadn’t before.

James Jeffries: Lets close with maybe a big inspiration for you, do you have a particular book or a film, a model person that exemplifies a lot of the virtues you have been talking about?

GP: Yeah and its Neo in the Matrix. Why the Matrix? The Matrix is emblematic of all the things I have been talking about, that is, you got to figure out what the question is…it is the articulation of those deep driving questions that bring you to want to do something with your life that you may spend some time desiring to not have to worry about, because its not always fun to have to worry and to think. Thinking can be hard, so why would you want to do that? Well, because everything counts, and there is a lot hanging in the balance.

GP: You have to commit yourself on a day by day basis to something that is larger than yourself.

 


Inside the Mind of the Interviewee

Posted in Interviewing, Nuts and Bolts Advice, Whimsy

By Spencer Peters ’14

Whew. Breathe in, out, in, out.  This leather feels weird on the fabric of my suit; it’s making me sweat. No. Could the sweat be showing through?

I’m wearing a nice grey suit with a white undershirt and a red tie.  I’m set. I look good.  An hour ago I slowly dressed myself in front of my bathroom mirror; choosing to tie my tie in a full double Windsor.  Was this right? Should I have gone with an Oriental knot, a half Windsor? A bow tie? Do I come across as whimsical, professional, carefree?

I’m racking my brain as I sit on the unfamiliar leather couch.  My suit pulls at the shoulders when I lean down to adjust my resume in my planner on the dark wooden table. I read the words over again and again. “John Abernathy” I say in a hushed voice as I read the bolded words in the center of the page.

I look across the room; the secretary sits with her black rimmed glasses peering down at her skilled hands that glide across the keyboard, incessantly typing.   She just types and types, oblivious to the fear coursing through my every vein.  I begin my mental tirade on her unforgiving posture and attitude when I’m summoned back to the room by the sound of her voice.

“Mr. Griffin will see you now.”

“Thank you so much,” automatically reverberates from my mouth.

She hits me with a flashing smile and I wonder if it’s a sarcastic, ‘dead man walking’ smile or one of genuine hope.  Before I can begin sorting them out in my head I grab my planner and for the first time notice how sweaty my hands are.  No. I only hope that they can dry on my twenty foot walk to the front of the desk of my possible future employer.

I find the oiled wood handle of the boss’s door, and turn very gently to stay steady.

The man rises and reaches out his hand.  I greet him with a strong dry handshake while I introduce myself.  Yes, 1 for 1 on the day with handshakes.

“So tell me about yourself John.”

Wow. I’ve been preparing for this question.  It’s the simplest one and most common too! I got this.

“Well I guess to start, my name is John Abernathy, I grew up in a very small town and graduated from an even smaller high school.  I’m currently enrolled at Wabash College in Crawfordsville, IN, majoring in chemistry and psychology.  I devote a lot of time to my studies and my fraternity.  I also play on the football team at Wabash College.  And now I’m here seeking a job with you.”

By the smile on his face as I finish, I can tell I’ve done my job of scratching the surface of who I am.  I’ve done the job required of the question.  I sit a little straighter in my chair and shift as to readjust in its uncomfortable seat.  I grab my provided water and sip a couple of ounces until he begins in on his next question.

“So John, what makes you the best candidate for this job.  I can see from your resume that you’ve done a lot in your three years in college.”

My three years in college. I’m a current junior.  How do I wrap those up into a coherent answer?  I started drinking in college and have had my share of beers and drunken stories? But why am I thinking about that. Focus. I’ve had significant playing time as safety on the football team, but he doesn’t care about that; he’s looking at my leadership positions.  This is mine to blow, so don’t.

“Well Mr. Griffin. In my three years I’ve had multiple leadership positions, from vice president in my fraternity to president of College Mentors for Kids, and Captain of the football team; I’ve had to supervise and put people on the same page to work efficiently.  If I can corral first grade boys fresh out of school, college athletes pushed to the brink, or fraternity guys who can’t agree on anything, I believe that I can be part of a team that wants to work together toward a common goal.  I would love being given the chance to try.”

Shaky performance but I think I stuck the landing. Now an image of Nastia Lukin runs through my head of her landing from the balance beam.

More questions like this trickle by over the course of an hour.  I pause to form my responses, sip water to calm my nerves, and constantly keep a straight back and professional posture, even if my back is on fire.

The last question comes up.

“What is your biggest strength?”

I stroke my ego in my head a bit. I can outrun anyone in my school at the 40.  I date the cutest girls out of anyone in the fraternity.  Also, I’m a beast when it comes to Call of Duty.  But that’s not what he’s after.  What is my biggest strength that would spoon feed this guy.

“Well, throughout my life, I’ve always been a very good problem solver.  And I don’t mean that in a traditional sense necessarily.  If a problem gets put in front of me, regardless of its content and difficulty, I can solve it; usually by unconventional and innovative ways.  But there has never been a work related problem that I haven’t been able to solve if I have time.  For example, I once was given two days to make a pamphlet for a networking event, complete with contact information and background on the organization.  I did this and it was a hit within the office.”

“Well that’s all I have for you John.  We’ll contact you with our decision next week.  Thank you for your time.”

“Thank you for the opportunity Mr. Griffin.  I’m looking forward to hearing from you.”

I walk out of the office with my head held high. I feel as if I could have done more to strengthen his opinion of me.  However, now it’s my turn to flash the secretary a smile and let her decide what it means.  I hug my planner to my side, button my coat, and walk into the elevator and press the ground floor button.  Smiling.

 


RESUMES: A LABOR OF LOVE?

Posted in Nuts and Bolts Advice

Resumes can go wrong in lots of ways. Generally, writers can misunderstand the purpose and context for the resume or they can lack the craft, the nitty-gritty details of formatting a resume and expressing themselves effectively. But there is a worse problem—at least it feels worse. Even some of the most diligent workers will procrastinate on this dread piece of writing. Once completed, job obtained, we happily eject the resume from our lives like an offending piece of trash. The hope is to never to think about it again. Call this the problem of motivation. The prospect of getting a job motivates us a little to put care into the resume. (Well, some jobs and some people.) But those who treat resume-writing as a labor of love are either inspired by an angel or a demon. Either way, they are mad.

This conception of resume-writing isn’t so much mistaken as it is incomplete. Resumes certainly have a temporary primary purpose—to get you an interview for a job. But there are at least three other values to motivate you to give the resume the attention it requires.

  1. Self-understanding—Yes, this sounds hokey. But writing the resume provides a great opportunity and a challenge to really understand and adequately express what your experience so far amounts to. If you mine your experience effectively for details and genuine accomplishments, you can see how valuable and employable you really are. It also helps isolate shortcomings, which can help steer your goals for further professional development.
  2. A tool for communication—The process of concisely expressing your experience helps hone your communication skills far beyond the written resume. You will need to be able to talk comfortably about yourself and what you do in many different contexts in work and life, and the place to develop the words to do this on the resume. Both the content and the skills for writing the content will transfer in unpredictable ways to other parts of your life, so do the job right on the resume so you don’t have to fret about the rest.
  3. A secondary purpose—Beyond getting you the interview, the resume-format is useful for a lot of other purposes. It’s a more versatile piece of writing than you might think. One great tactic is to write a forward-looking resume to express your goals for a new job. What do you want your resume to look like in a year or five years? Write that resume with all the attention and detail you can, then start checking off the boxes. You can also use the resume-format to assess your personal, rather than professional, profile—use it for personal, and not just professional, self-development.

These might just seem like parlor tricks for combating the ennui of facing the resume. But try them out, and you might just find yourself, not exactly enjoying, but at least valuing the work you put into it. With abundant motivation, you’re much more likely to get all the nitty-gritty parts right. And, by the way, that will help you get a job.

 


Internships: Don’t get lost in the black hole

Posted in Internships

Guest-blogger Nathan Parcells, CMO and Founder of InternMatch, shares some advice on navigating this internship season.

How to apply to online internships and avoid getting lost in the Black Hole

“A black hole is a region of space-time from which it is impossible to escape.”

-Stephen Hawkins

Black holes in space consist of collapsed stars where neither sound nor light can escape.  In the job world, the term black hole is used, for when applicants send countless resumes to employers and hear nothing in response.

Few things are more frustrating than spending hours crafting and customizing an internship application, only to submit it, and hear nothing back. This problem exists for a number of reasons but the fact is that fewer than 5% of employers follow-up with every applicant they receive and even fewer communicate the real reasons about why they made the choice they did.

While it might seem easy to blame companies for not doing a better job of responding, the reality is that most HR managers receive hundreds of applications every week and are over worked reviewing them – so it’s up to you to stand out. By understanding a bit more about how the online application process works, you can figure out how to navigate this abyss and make sure you emerge on the other side with your ideal internship.

Where do all the resumes go?

As you can probably guess, applications for internships rarely follow the same path.  Some employers ask you to apply directly to their email inbox. Others ask for you to apply using a job website like Taleo or InternMatch so that they can save the applications in a database online and share them with other employees in the office.

Depending on the size of the employer and how they are accepting applications you need to think up the best strategy to make sure you don’t get overlooked when it comes to decision time. For example, if you’re given a contact name or email address, do some research on the individual and customize your application materials to them personally in addition to the role for which you are applying.

Building a better rocket ship.

The other important skill to develop when applying to internships online is to learn how to make your application stand out.

Here are 5 tips to help:

1.) Follow-Up!

The biggest piece of advice we can recommend to avoid getting ignored is to follow-up consistently with an employer after you submit an app. This is an art not a science, but most students are way too hesitant to follow-up with employers even if just to ask what their time frame is on responding or to remind them that you have applied and are excited to get the internship.  For best practices see our guide on how to follow-up with employers.

2.) Remove all typos from your resume.

Another reason you may not hear back from employers is because they tossed out your resume at first sight. Even if you have one typo on your resume, it shows an employer a lack of professionalism and attention to detail. In fact almost 50% of employers stop reading a resume if they see just one typo! So double check your resume with a resume template and guide for extra help.

3.) Be unique.

As an employer who has hired many students I can safely say, my job is a lot easier when a particular student breaks the mold by standing out. Don’t just spam employers with a standard cover letter, take the extra hour to write something. If the employer has a twitter account tweet at them about how excited you are. If they are coming to your school for a career fair, go and introduce yourself to the recruiting staff and start building a relationship. Your hard work will pay off when it comes to decision time.

4.) Don’t use scammy websites to apply for positions!

Top job boards like your Career Center website, Indeed, or InternMatch work hard to make sure every position that is online is up to date and is a high quality position.  If you are finding positions by doing a Google search or on Craigslist, you can find some great opportunities but as a rule of thumb the further you go from trusted sites the more likely you are to be applying to a position that has either already closed or doesn’t exist altogether.

5.) Don’t get discouraged.

Last but not least don’t get discouraged. A lot of employers are getting overwhelmed with applications in the current down economy, so even if you are over qualified for a position you simply might not hear back. If you keep at it and keep improving your application skills such as following-up, being unique, and using top job boards, you are going to start getting interviews and eventually find a position you’re excited about.

 


MISTAKEN MISTAKES IN THE INTERVIEW

Posted in Nuts and Bolts Advice

A favorite interview question among hiring managers asks you to tell your serious mistakes and expose your weaknesses. “Tell me about a time you made a costly mistake?” or “What is your biggest weakness?” (Check out some variations: questions 14, 17 and 18 here). These questions provide a great opportunity to demonstrate your ability to mature from your experience, take responsibility, lead, work with honesty and integrity, and communicate well about uncomfortable subjects. But not all mistakes are created equal. Here is how to deal with the difficult “mistake” question.

In general, you need to think up a mistake you  made, express it concisely, and talk about what you did to correct the mistake and the overall lesson you learned. The best response then mentions a similar example showing that you did not make the same mistake twice. But what mistake should you choose to talk about? This is the more difficult part.

The mistakes we make

Suppose you plan a key event for your club—a dinner with a major speaker. You plan for fifty guests and only fifteen show up, with the resulting great embarrassment and waste of money. Now how you frame this mistake can vary, and the honesty of your interpretation can vary too. If the event has been well-attended for ten previous years, and there was little reason to think this year would be any different, then it is an excused mistake. Don’t use excused mistakes as your example, because they are too weak. No hirer cares to hear how something bad happened in something in which you were involved, but that, really, you weren’t to blame. Unfortunately, one tendency of interviewees is to try to rationalize all their “mistakes” into this category.

Suppose instead you failed to discover a competing event posted two weeks earlier. Here you are more culpable for the mistake. If you knew about the competing event, but other obligations made you too preoccupied to deal with it effectively, then again you have a mistake to explain. These are the kinds of mistakes to talk about. Hiring managers do not want to hear you rationalize all your mistakes, evade responsibility, or point out your pernicious flaws. They want to hear how an otherwise competent worker took responsibility for a genuine mistake and matured in the process. Sometimes the mistake can even be enormous, so long as you dealt with it in an impressive way. Tell them about those times, and hirers get a great glimpse into your prospects as a capable and productive worker in their organization. On the other hand, if you present an enormous mistake poorly or expose an incorrigible character flaw–this is too strong. You want to be Goldilocks and present the mistake that is just right.

A good mistake

One manager told me the answer he would give to a “mistake” question. He has a position in public relations where the communications he and his office issue must be clear, accurate, and exceptionally well-written. Every piece of writing may be scrutinized carefully by its recipient, and any error reflects poorly on his organization. (Hint: he’s in politics.) Early in his career, he drafted a letter for public release and handed it off to his superior, who pointed out a typo and told him to be more careful. One week later, he did it again—another typo. He was reprimanded. Another week went by, and he turned in yet another flawed document. This time, his boss had a serious talk with him: a boss’s time is too valuable to spend on proofreading his work for typos. But more importantly, there was a lack of sensitivity to the importance of his work, to the gravity and seriousness with which any error reflects on his organization if it gets into public view.

The realization that his work had this importance led to a refined sensibility. It was something he should have already known—an unexcused failure to understand his job—yet he needed to make this mistake several times before learning the lesson. But the goodwill of his boss gave him the chance to learn, and he has been extremely successful since then. This is a mistake worth talking about, and one hirers would admire you for discussing.

–James Jeffries