Why Networking is Not Just Asking for Stuff

By Angela Sun

Networking. Of all the ambiguities of internship and job hunting, networking probably takes the cake.

The Career Center's guide to networking is a wonderful overview of the ABCs of networking, and a great place to start for delving into the practice.
But after studying the basics, you may still have some questions, or be wondering why you don't seem to be as successful as you had hoped to be. This post will help you reflect on the purpose of your personal journey in developing a professional network, which should provide some guidance about how to network.

Before writing this post, I asked around to see what questions students had about networking. The key feedback I received was uncertainty about how to ask for things without seeming like you're asking for things.

So very first, the secret to growing a sustainable and substantial network is that it's not just about asking for things! Getting a reference, feedback on your resume, or even low-and-behold--a job offer immediately, is not always the best, or even right thing to have in mind when networking. 

Am I Networking for the Right Reasons?

Despite having found the contact through an electronic database, and potentially exchanged all conversation via email, at the end of the day, there sits two persons behind the computer monitors. Engaging with contacts in a professional network is in many ways similar to connecting with friends and family. One size does not fit all.  Personality, preference, and schedules will dictate how they prefer to communicate.  So consider taking the conversation off-line.

There is still an element of 'unnaturalness' to cold-emailing a stranger, or making a relationship out of a career fair speed date, but acknowledge the human aspect of networking by considering where the other person is coming from.

What does your contact do? How much time does he/ she have to communicate with me? Why would he/ she want to help me? What can I offer him/ her?

Thinking through these questions will help you manage expectations, which should be a range--rather than one item. It is for the most part impossible to know where a conversation with a contact might lead you. Here are just some of the items you could get out of networking:
- Informational interview (range in length and format)
    - Insight into their job
    - Advice for your next steps
- Recommendation/ someone willing to "vouch" for you
- Referral to someone else in the target company
- Internship/ job (information about a job, an offer for an interview).

Think realistically about your contact's position and which items would be appropriate to anticipate. A Human Resources Recruiter is in a position to offer you an interview, whereas a consulting firm employee might not be. Targeting the appropriate expectations will help you avoid asking for too much and putting the contact in an uncomfortable position.

On that note, it is usually not appropriate to ask a contact to look over your resume. They could offer to do this, but refrain from asking. Set-up an appointment with the Career Center for a resume critique, so that you're bringing an already polished resume to the table.

Also recognize that there is no hard-and-fast rule for the timing of networking. Just because you are interested in accounting, doesn't mean if you meet a news producer at an event, you shouldn't follow-up with a thank you note and add them on Linkedin. One of the most common remarks I heard from panelists at the Harvard Women in Business Conference was that your interests will probably change. You never know who could be relevant when.

The human component also means people are busy. Sometimes it's hardest to get a response from senior executives or higher ups in a given company. A contact might offer to help you with something, and then fall through on doing so. You might never hear back from someone--for no real reason. It is important to be mentally prepared and maximize your chances by reaching out to many people, but also establishing a compelling and specific argument for why they should respond to you.

One effective networking technique is to start with your immediate circle. Linkedin is a great resource for this because it tells you if you have a 2nd connection with someone. That way you can ask your 1st degree friend/ contact to refer you to your target contact. Give the same dedication to Linkedin as you do to Facebook, as the more 'connections' you have, the better your chances are at knowing if you have a mutual contact. The Tufts Career Advisory Network also provides you with a good starting point as it is full of alumni wanting to help out fellow jumbos. 

Networking is an exercise in strategically managing relationships. You may find your professional 'lunch buddies', 'study buddies', 'mentors' and so on. Being flexible and intentional will help you network for the long term. Your career begins rather than ends with your first job offer. Taking the time to get to see through the lens of the person you are networking with, and making the effort to stay in touch with holiday greetings, emails, or sending articles along from time to time will go a long way.


Am I Networking in the Right Ways?

So you can already see some of the ways in which a changing perspective on networking affects how to network.

A great tip I learned is to start of with a compliment, what's more revealing about the human component of networking than that? You can't compliment an online job portal and hope it'll bump your resume to the front!

As college students, we might not have the same things to offer a contact. But every relationship goes two ways, and recognize what you do have to offer. Sometimes, it could be as simple as a show of appreciation for someone's dedication to their industry. This could be the best boost for them at the end of a 10 hour cubicle shift!

But we're also bright, educated, hardworking students who happen to be masters of communication. So sell yourself a little in your early correspondence. Explain what your skills are and what experiences you already have relating to the industry/ position. This will help a contact understand why you are reaching out to them. What else? You might be in a position to offer publicity about their initiative, especially if they are trying to reach out to a college audience--offer to spread the word.

And effective communication means being specific about what you are seeking. One pitfall is sending an email that says, "I would like more information about xyz position/ company." Your contacts likely don't have the time to send you 'information', but they might have time to answer your questions about specific requirements, recruiting time lines, or a typical job description. The Linkedin page of the contact is usually a great source for inspiration for questions.

Different communication portals also have their strengths and weaknesses. Face-to-face meetings are always best because they allow you to make an impression on someone, and to adapt to their nonverbal cues. However, this might be unrealistic for contacts who are extremely busy, and might prefer phone or email. Phone offers the opportunity to change questions depending on the answers, while it is difficult to have the same fluid, two-way conversation via email. It is also usually more work for the person answering the email to type out all the answers. However, a contact may still prefer email because it allows him/ her to answer on their own time. So take all these things into consideration when you set-up an informational interview.

Some ambiguities of networking will still be ambiguous. This may sound daunting, but feel empowered that you already have plenty of experience under your belt. Everyday, we manage a complex web of relationships, reading people, adapting our communication styles to their personalities...without even thinking about it! With a little practice and critical evaluation, many of these skills can easily be applied to networking.

With practice, networking will become clearer and even comfortable.  I strongly recommend working alongside a career center counselor through the process.The counselors are incredibly knowledgeable and patient, and great people to connect with professionally...sound familiar?

Please interact with us on Facebook/ Twitter @Tuftscareer. We would love to hear your blog post suggestions!

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My Experience With the Job Hunt: The Search Continues

For so many of us, spring is the season of job-applying overdrive. As summer inches closer and employers start to think-ahead, it feels like full-time job opportunities have slowly starting cropping up. Come March, my once-hopeless “writing/journalism” job search began generating more results. I started noticing more relevant and diversified listings featured on Tufts Career Connect. The best part? Hiring “now” could be loosely interpreted as “hiring in 3 months.”

In response to this promising upturn, (and my parent’s frequent “check-ins” on my struggling job hunt), I started taking my search more seriously than I had first semester. While doing so, I found that the “two-week-turnaround” reputation of media hiring isn’t so rigid. True, media employers are notoriously last minute, unable to afford the same early recruiting efforts as say finance, engineering, and accounting. But if you highlight the fact that you’re a graduating senior and willing to start work in just a few short months, employers might just give your application a careful glance.

While perusing Tufts Career Connect mid-February, I came across an opening that seemed, well, just about perfect. The job was for a Public Affair’s Assistant’s position at a NYC-based strategic communications firm that specialized in critical public issues like healthcare, education, sustainability, and international affairs. The job description involved a healthy mix of writing, editing, research, media relations, social media, and administrative support. I decided to look past the March hiring deadline, confident that May might just cut it. Inches away from uploading my resume, I then read the job qualifications: 1-2 years of experience. Uhhh..

So: the “1-2” years experience add-on. How does a seemingly straightforward phrase contain such muddled meaning? Does “1-2 years” include internships and relevant campus experience, or does it mandate full-time experience? (If so, why are you teasing me on my college career website?) Mulling over whether or not to invest time in a cover letter, I ultimately thought, why not? At the end of the day, we can’t exactly decode every ambiguity in the application process; what we can do is put our resumes in front of employers’ eyes and let them determine if we fit their mold.

It’s a good thing that I ignored that intimidating tidbit. Just a week later, I received an email from the current assistant, a Tufts alum and 1-year-veteran at the firm, who invited me to New York to interview with the firm’s Managing Director. In a one-two motion, I grabbed my cell-phone and dialed my mom, exclaiming multiple pieces of news in an incomprehensible jumble: I had an interview in a few weeks; that worrisome “1-2-years” piece didn’t matter; and (lucky for her) I’d soon be spending the weekend at home in New Jersey.

A few days before heading home, I started to slowly research the firm and prepare for the approaching day-of. I meticulously read through the company’s homepage, familiarizing myself with its history, services, clients, strategies, and the complex issues they represent. I read bios on the company’s main stars, focusing my attention on the Managing Director I’d meet the next day. I read through the press releases posted to the company’s news section for the newest information on initiatives, campaigns, and mergers. I checked out Linkedin and Glassdoor for important company and employee statistics. Meanwhile, I prepped answers to interview questions (Career Services’ sample questions were a major help here), and I am fairly certain that I terrified my seatmate with my slew of creepy, under-the-breath mutters. The fact that I was heading to NYC for this interview—a total 8-hours of transportation---made this particular opportunity feel more real, urgent, and important. This was confirmed as my train slowly approached the vibrant, sparkling night skylights of NYC, where I’ve long dreamed of starting my career.

The next day, my morning jitters were reinforced thanks to the frustrating inconveniences of my town’s trainline. I had an 11 a.m. interview: my two options were to arrive in NYC at 10:45, insufficient time to cross the city, or 9:40 a.m., over an hour before the interview started; recognizing the importance of being on-time, I opted for the latter option. After reaching NYC and arriving at the firm’s offices after a relatively short trip, I spent the rest of the hour in a small, dimly lit coffee shop. Sipping on my signature vanilla latte, I rehearsed some answers, bothered my parents via text, and spent the rest of the hour listening to calming music. After an hour of agonizing waiting (and fierce coffee-slurping), I finally walked around the corner to the office, ready to tackle the interview.

Check back next week for the next installment in this job hunt saga, "The Interview."

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Where are all the applicants?

Over here in Career Services were feeling a bit baffled. Despite high turnout at employer events and information sessions, and the fact that the number of employers interviewing students on-campus is up this year by 8%, Tufts students have applied for the positions posted on Tufts Career Connect (TCC) in unusually low numbers. Employers across a wide variety of industries, from education to environmental consulting to finance have struggled to fill their interview schedules with interested candidates. Many positions have received less than half the number of applications they’ve received in years past. One firm with a long tradition of hiring Tufts Seniors, which had more than 50 interested applicants in 2010, had only 19 this year!

So we’re turning to you, the students, to ask “why aren’t you applying?” Send your opinion about what’s going on to Career Services’ Associate Director of Employer Relations Robin Kahan.

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Prepare for the Fair--Part 1: Do your Homework

Chances are, you’ve probably heard a thing or two about our Career Fair. To refresh your work-overloaded memories, more than 100 diverse organizations and recruiters will be flooding campus on Friday September 23rd, the echoing halls of Gancher to be exact, poised and ready to mingle with us career-aspiring Tufts students. It’s a tremendous opportunity for us job-prowling seniors, especially those with looming recruiting deadlines. But, regardless of your stage in the job-hunt, anyone and everyone can benefit from gaining career information, practicing networking skills, and forging face-to-face connections, which—lucky for us---are essentially timeless.

Some of you may already have an excited, red-inked note scribbled into your calendars. But others might be debating whether to add this to your busy college schedules, especially if you you don’t see a company that instantly piques your interest, or just don’t feel the job-search pressure quite yet. But despite the preparatory work and jittery day-of nerves, it’s worth it. If you find a connection to even just one employer, or want to learn about less familiar industries, why not hand out a few resumes and take in some insightful career banter? Plus, it never hurts to simply get your name out there.

Also, keep in mind that job opportunities aren’t rigidly divided by college major. Lucky for those of us with not-so-straightforward career goals, there’s no neon-yellow sign directing the English majors to the media booths and the economic-whizzes to the finance tables. So, as long as you demonstrate a thoughtful interest in the company-at-hand, you may as well broaden your horizons and chat with a range of employers. You never know where it could lead!

Preparing:

So you’ve decided to attend the Career fair. Now what?

1. Before you do anything, you need to know whose coming. Scout out our list of attending companies, research the job position, and craft a condensed list of the opportunities that resonate with your career-goals. You might even consider crafting a “top-priority” A-list of employers and a second “if-there’s time” B list. But don’t overextend yourself; if you’re feeling overwhelmed, try to minimize your list to 5-6 booths, so that you have sufficient, stress-free time to chat with the employers that topped your list.

2. To eliminate stressful booth-to-booth scrambling, try to map out your career-fair-plan---a basic schedule of the booths you’ll visit and the (expected) time you’ll spend at each. You may get reeled toward other attention-grabbing booths, but (if possible!), try to visit your priority companies before you wander towards others that catch your eye.

3. Once you’ve pinpointed and prioritized, take some time to carefully research the company and employer representatives you’ve chosen to explore---including typical candidate qualifications, demands of the position, and job locations. Along with the job position, familiarize yourself with the values and broader mission of the company itself, along with any newsworthy affair taking the industry by storm---a sure way to guarantee smart, stimulating conversation with each company representative.

4. Now that you’ve gotten the inside scoop, make sure that your own resume, fresh, fully updated, and ready for hiring-eyes. On September 19^th-21^st , Career Services commences its annual Resume Critique Days, a chance to pick apart your resume alongside an expert career professional. Consider tailoring your resume to each attending company you select, especially if you plan to visit a diverse range of employers. Be sure to have a number of copies on-hand, fresh and ready to pass on to each employer of interest. It can’t hurt to have access to plenty of extras too, in case you strike conversation with someone outside your original list.

5. To avoid conversation stumblers and messy resume wrinkles, we recommend that you carry a sleek, organized folder, a handy place to store your list of employers, company information, and resume copies. It’s also a convenient way to swiftly stow away all the pocket-size business cards, company information (and trinkets!) you collect.

** For an even more in-depth look at how to master the fair---networking advice, helpful hints, and more career-fair do-and-don’ts---be sure to attend our Prepare for the Fair event on Monday, September 19^th, 5-6 p.m. in Dowling 745A. And, check back tomorrow for the second part of our Prepare for the Fair series!

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Ask the Career Counselor: Salary Expectations

Okay, so you're filling out an application and you see a question asking about your salary expectations. Yikes! What now? Well, as you can imagine, you wouldn't want to address this question without doing some research. Your goal in providing an answer will be to give a reasonable range that allows for future discussion and negotiation with the employer.

Ideally, the employer will be the first to propose a salary range, usually toward the end of the intereview process. You'll then be able to use your research to determine how the employer's range compares with your estimate.

What about an online submission that requires a salary range as part of the application process? In this case, you may need to be prepared with your answer a little earlier. When given a blank text box, some candidates refrain from providing a specific number and instead say "competitive salary range." Still others provide a general statement such as "If selected for an interview, I would be glad to discuss my salary expections in person and would be eager to hear more about [name of organization]'s compensation package." Dodging the question may be a risky approach, however, so it's best to discuss your approach with a career advisor first.

Regardless of when salary enters the conversation, you'll need to be ready! What do you need to know to get started? You'll definitely want to be on the lookout for commonly used job titles for the positions that interest you. Whether it's "paralegal" and "legal assistant" or "account coordinator" and "assistant account manager," keep track of different titles when you're looking at employer websites or search engines. Check out this page - Where are Tufts graduates working? - to see survey data from recent Tufts grads, including employer name, location, position title, and more.

You can also take advantage of our subscription to The Vault Online Library for information about typical career paths and employers in the fields that interest you. For example, I might download the Vault Guide to Book Publishing to understand how career paths and job titles differ between the editorial, marketing, sales, and production areas within publishing. To access the Vault Guides, create an account with your Tufts email address, log in, and click "Guides" at the top of the page.

In addition to job titles commonly used by employers in your field of interest, know your geographic preferences and how those locations will impact salaries. You may not make as much as an entry-level consultant in Madison, WI as you would in NYC, but the cost of living is also much lower! Check out this post for resources that will help you create a budget that factors in your expected salary and cost of living.

Once you have a list of job titles and geographic locations, you can use the following websites to gather sample salary data:
Glassdoor.com
Conduct searches on Glassdoor using position titles (or organization names) and locations. To access all the info on Glassdoor, you'll need to join their community, which is pretty easy. If you've had a job or volunteer position, just provide salary information or a review of the organization or its interview process (all anonymous) and you're in!

Here are a few other sites to consider:
NACE Salary Caluculator
Salary.com

Estimating a reasonable salary range involves collecting multiple pieces of data, which could involve experimenting with different job titles, organizations, and locations. The goal of all your research is to come up with a 5K range that you'll keep in mind throughout the application process.
Remember: Career Services advisors are here to help you navigate the salary and negotiation process! Call 617.627.3299 to make an appointment (in-person, phone or email) with a career advisor.

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The Art of Follow Up, Continued - After You Apply

In my last post, I offered some hopefully useful guidelines for tackling the job hunt’s hazy waiting stages. But say you haven’t yet been conferred an interview date. Say in fact you haven’t even heard from your employer since anxiously sending off your application into the nebulous zones of human resources. What now?

1. Follow-up with a Call

Between their laborious work agendas, chances are employers aren’t going to alert us to the tricky application-parsing process before need be. For a sense of what’s going on, it’s often up to the candidate to reach out and unravel the murky behind-the-hiring-scenes. We recommend waiting at least a week to assure your application has been processed and filtered. Chances of eliciting concrete answers (and leaving an effective impact) are probably heightened via phone, offering the perks and potentials of a long, free-flowing conversation. (Plus email too often goes unanswered, especially if it’s a vague firm-wide address).

Once linked to the voice of an employer (or who knows—your potential hirer?), it’s important to phrase your questions smartly. You might consider retiring the classic, “Where does my application stand?” for inquiries just as information-eliciting but not quite as upfront. You might try asking something like, “What does your hiring timeline look like?”- a gentle probe into the hiring agenda not quite as embedded with “me-specific” implications.

But as in the jittery post-interview phone call, your motives are two-fold. Along with untangling the hiring agenda and reckoning your oh-so-hopeful chances, the first call-back is an opportunity to reinforce your interest. It’s a time to buttress your electronic application with an animated human voice and express your job compatibility in ways your paperwork can’t. Employers don’t want to hear you tick off your resume or gurgle out clichéd strings of excitement; instead, in this tricky-but-totally-doable manner, our goal is to articulate our capabilities and obvious match-up without having to blab it outright. As opposed to uttering the self-proclaimed, “I think I am the best person for this position,” let them infer this hollow statement by shrewdly proving it rings true. Ask intelligent questions that speak to your company knowledge or remark on something news-worthy that grabbed you; essentially, fortify your application by offering your employer a quick glimpse into your intelligent, in-the-know, totally-job-worthy persona.

2. Subsequent Follow-up

As I touched on in my last post, this follow-up—the potentially second or third over-the-phone encounters with your dream firm—highly depends on the quality and effectiveness of the first. If your hirer seems rushed or not overly inclined to chat with candidates (and no worries—it’s not personal!), then following up with another phone call might be more harmful than it’s worth. In this case, as hard as this is for our exponentially wired Tufts’ brains, waiting it out might be our only option. But let’s say your first call is progressing in a promising direction, that you’re employer seems more-or-less willing to expound on the hiring process and engage in some job banter. Asking something along the lines of, “Would you mind if I follow up in a week or two if I have any additional questions?” is an astute way to pave the way for another friendly chat session. Rather than awkwardly stuttering a reason for calling the next go-around, how great to confidently say, “You told me it would be alright to follow up with you the last time we spoke.” And here’s the best part: not only do you elicit employer-candidate bonding part-two, but you make it appear like (as the responsible student you are) you were dutifully staying true to your word.

Sure, the tricky hiring and candidate weed-out process is different at every firm. But, taking that one extra step—pitching yourself not just as a solid batch of paperwork but an invested voice—is sometimes just what it takes to highlight your name from your swarms of qualified competitors. If you materialize as more than a strong resume but a likeable person, it’s much more likely you’ll be requested at the office face-to-face--at which point you’ll know the applicant pool is down to its best slim pickings. In the face of today’s ultra-competitive, applicant-surging job market, it often comes down to that assertive extra step.

Whether it's follow-up after an application submission or follow-up after an interview, we know the process can be tricky! Let an advisor from Career Services help you navigate the process and showcase your professionalism to employers. Call to make an appointment or stop by our drop-in hours to chat!

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The Art of Post-Interview Follow Up

Walking out of the interview inspires the most cooling relief. Sure, we’ll start to analyze and nitpick, weigh our best answers against the hour’s few imperfections. But it’s over. Now for some celebratory food at the café next door.

And yet, the reliving-the-interview stage isn’t all a waiting-game. There are plenty of steps we can take to start deciphering the firm’s hiring agenda and, in the process, keep our names fresh, memorable and in-the-hiring-loop.

1. Send a Thank You Email!

While thank-yous were likely exchanged post-interview , it’s important to formalize your appreciation in a tangible email after the fact (within a span of 24 hours). Remember to send a well-crafted email to every employer you conversed with. It’s polite, conscientious, and--an interviewee perk—often stores your name in more than one employee mailbox. But rather than copy and paste, try to differentiate your emails according to each individual conversation. This shows you were tuned into the current of each encounter, personalizes your exchange, and of course avoids the humiliation of the revealed “mirror email.”

2. Follow up with an Email or Phone Call

Along with clarification of the hiring timeline, the interview follow-up is a way to reinforce your eagerness and curiosity. Use this brief contact, whether through email or via phone, not to gurgle out standard clichés, but to relate specific tidbits that attest to your fortified excitement (not just, well, uh, everyone needs a job…?). Reference an enlightening fact about the field, a conversation fragment from your interview---specific evidence why your one-hour introduction to the firm only heightened your interest.

Depending on your contact’s receptivity, the follow-up might also be a good opportunity to add any information you “missed” in the actual interview. Important: this isn’t ‘market yourself part two,’ an assertive “reminder” of what you related last week. That’s what your resume is for. Instead, phrase your additions as relevant and pertinent to them, particularly in light of information you gained about the firm’s values and ideals during your interview. If you briefly chatted about the blogging phenomenon, for instance, you might pass along any additional blogging stories inadvertently buried in the question-exchange.

3. Subsequent Follow Up

Contact after your initial follow-up is certainly case-dependent, relying on your past interactions and what you gauged from the first exchange. If you know the hiring deadline, for instance, it might be a bit pushy to contact your busy-at-work hirers with additional questions and assertions. Follow-up in this case is most successful if you are still in the dark a week or so after the proposed deadline, as opposed to any time before.

Say you aren’t as clued in to the hiring agenda, though, and you felt a warm, quasi-inviting vibe from your employer. You can plan for subsequent follow-up by alluding to the possibility in your first exchange. Asking something like “Would you mind if I contact you with any additional questions?” is a good way to leave the door open for future contact by getting permission from the employer in advance. If you do take advantage of an employer’s willingness to chat again, have a specific set of questions and/or conversation headers to assure the follow-up is productive and worthy of the employer’s time, as well as yours.

And then of course there’s the chance you can’t get in contact---the all-too-common unanswered emails and voicemails. It can be a tenuous line, but there are subtle ways to convey persistency and interest without coming across as too abrasive. One approach is to switch-up how you’ve been attempting contact. If an email goes unanswered, wait 5-7 days and follow-up with a friendly phone call, and vice versa. If you encountered an answering machine upon your first initiation attempts, why not see if email elicits better luck? Every firm is different, and the one way to see what mode of communication works best is to dabble in a few of them. And trust me, this totally beats 15 or so missed calls flashing up with your number.

Oh the job process. Just when it feels over, there’s always more to be navigated and done, especially during that scary in-between. Reinforcing your interest with sustained contact, when done well, can be the very thing that distinguishes your application and results in a more careful look. Of course, walking across that needle-thin tightrope of a fine line is tough. Every field, firm, and individual employer is a specific entity all its own, making it impossible to pin down a uniform method for tackling the post-interview battleground. Instead, regard this information as a guideline, a smattering of useful hints and strategies to parse through when you feel the timing is right.

As always, contact Career Services to talk with someone about the particulars of your follow-up strategy.

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Make the Most of your Spring Break

It’s just about spring break--finally. We’ve survived below-freezing temperatures, clobbering workloads, and near-death midterm weeks. Now here’s the chance bask in some glorious time off from grinding academia and the stresses of being the first-class students we are. But between sleep catch-ups and non-stop fiestas, it never hurts to allot some time off toward your career-finding agenda--whether it means solidifying summer plans or tackling the fateful job hunt. Here’s some ways to mesh your relaxing spring break with some helpful steps forward. They’re not too brain-jarring…I promise!

1.Update your resume: As we all know, internship and job application opportunities pop up “anytime anywhere.” So dedicate brief spans of time toward plumping up your resume and tweaking content, organization, and presentation. You never know when the next spontaneous job opening or resume request might be.

2. Discover a favorite job and/or internship site: While curled up in bed engaged in the art of the Facebook stalk, why not turn your mouse toward some career searching? This time off is a great chance to both scour the resources you know and locate fresh sites that haven’t crossed your screen. But before plunging into the realms of Google, try your bets with the office’s handcrafted career resources, especially catered to Tufts students. Accessible through the Career Services homepage, Tufts Career Connect is helpful because it connects you with field-specific opportunities and employers connected to the Tufts name. A common Tufts alma-mater gives some employers an added incentive to hear you out, explore your interests, and take you under their professional wing.

Next to the catchy Tufts Career Connect logo await other resources. Both the Liberal Arts Career NetWORK (LACN) and engIN (for engineering students) list positions (primarily internships) shared among groups of schools.

While you’re at it, try perusing some field-specific career sites; while not particular to Tufts, they offer tons of opportunities targeted to different career fields. When it comes to general search sites, job aggregators like SimplyHired.com that draw from multiple places are worth a visit.

3. Check out our Career Resources on WebCenter-- a useful compilation of all Tufts’ career search and networking resources designed to focus our chaotic search lens. Simply sign into WebCenter, select Career Services Web Resources from the drop-down menu, and ta-dah! You’re face-to-face with a splattering of career tools. The site includes an employer search database called CareerSearch, Spotlight on Careers, a liberal arts career research tool, and the Vault Online Library, featuring downloadable guides on various career arenas--just to name a few. Connecting you to job openings, internship listings, and employers in mere clicks, the Career Services Resources menu on WebCenter is a fantastic place to catalyze the search process.

* Especially for SENIORS: Along with the above online resources, try your bets at job sites like www.onedayonejob.com, which lists a slew of entry-level jobs, and Current Jobs for Graduates, one of the subscription resources in WebCenter. Checking sites like these regularly will alert you to what’s out there job-wise and help direct you on your post-grad path.

* Especially for JUNIORS AND SENIORS: Reach out to Employers. Now that class agendas are cleared, take the time to exchange smart dialogue with that admirable someone in your profession-to-be. It might be someone from around town, a friend-recommended contact, or even someone you hit it off with at our recent Internship Fair. We all love word-spitting about ourselves, so chances are you’ll be eagerly invited into the office or some sleek coffee shop nestled nearby. Networking, as it's professionally known, doesn’t have to be so formal or dryly official. Consider these phone calls or meet-ups not so much a way to robotically push out the resume, but to garner applicable advice, timely suggestions, and insight into what the job entails.
* FRESHMEN AND SOPHOMORES: Though you may not be thinking about your post-grad plans quite yet, you can still use the above tips and think about chatting with family friends and others who have interesting jobs while you're home for break.

5. Schedule an Appointment with a Career Services Staff Member: Whether to plump the resume, prep the interview, or jump-start the search process, schedule an appointment with someone who can expertly guide you at all stages of the career-hunt. Simply call our front desk at 617 627 3299 to snatch a half-hour slot.

Practice planning in advance - you may not think you need an appointment right now, but odds are you'll think of questions in the days or week leading up to the appointment!

For last-minute questions, Career Services offers a M/W/F drop-in hour from 12-1pm as well as daily 20-minute Quick Question appointments (booked by calling day-of in the morning). In any case, a friendly catch-up chat is a perfect way to move this process along. And, added bonus: staff (most-often) come equipped with candy.

6. Become our Fan on Facebook!: Not just because we’re techy and totally fan-worthy, but for the range of extra career tools and tidbits designed for student eyes. Brimming with internship listings, cool links, and upcoming career events, the page is a forum for our amassing resources we want to pass, or in Facebook lingo, post along.

The above advice applies to all ambitious undergrads pining their way through the career search. Of course, the specific steps and advice you may choose vary across the board-- depending (among other things) on your class year, self-set goals, and specific stage in the job hunt. But we thought we might as well lay it all out on the table--leave it up to you to see what best complements your personal career motives and snazzy spring break agendas. Most importantly of all, though, relax! Between depleting my kitchen of snack food and deafening my parents' ears with my favorite HBO shows, I certainly will be. So make some dents in the career search, but first and foremost, take advantage of this much-needed break from it all. We all deserve it.

Have a great spring break!

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Learning to Dine with Confidence

Let’s face it: we love to eat. We love it so much that when we engage in this scrumptious, feel-good hobby of ours, we rarely pause and think: how do I look right now? When it comes to food, we transform from poised, study-hard students into graceless, animalistic cavemen. We gobble, slurp, and swallow until every last morsel of food is down our throats or on our faces.

I’m the last to judge. Of all my friends, I’m always the one with leftover food smudged on my face. Rather than waiting for my food to come to me, I hunch over and graciously meet it halfway. Oh, and I’ll almost always steal off your plate.

But how we conduct ourselves over a meal is more important than we might think. It’s common for prospective employers to take a job candidate out for lunch--not explicitly to analyze fork and knife positions, but to get a feel for the person over what’s “supposed” to be a relaxed, out-of-the-work-zone environment. For quasi-animalistic eaters like me, this screams help. The gargly slurping, loud sipping, cow chewing of our natural habitats transferred to the critical eyes of our next boss? I think not.

That’s where Dining with Confidence comes in, a Career-Services sponsored program dedicated to reforming, and yes humanizing, our dining behavior. The vision of refined, lady-like eating herself, etiquette expert (and Career Services Director) Jean Papalia headed the event. She imparted her wise, worldly words of advice over a delicious four-course meal: butternut squash soup, salad, chicken, and a heavenly chocolate cake.

Jean started the program with true and false quiz, complete with clickers and fancy graphs detailing the room’s results. Then we applied our newly acquired etiquette techniques to the food itself. Here are some dining tidbits I learned throughout the afternoon:

1. Buttering the bread: oh, such a thorny one. When I see fresh, hot rolls plopped on a table, my first instinct is to grab one, slab on mounds of butter, and devour it in three bites. Tempting? Yes. Attractive to an employer? Not quite. To master the messy realms of the bread roll, break it apart in small pieces, butter ONLY one piece at a time, and eat slowly and in small bites. Also--a tidbit I didn’t know. When you pick up the bread-basket, the polite thing to do is offer it to your dining companion before you lunge for it yourself.

2. Never tell a host you’re not a fan of the food, even if you consider it borderline inedible. The purpose of the meal isn’t to soothe your taste palette, but to exchange conversation and impress with your words. So, if possible, try to hide your squeamish face and make a dent in the icky muck. Hey, from an etiquette patrol’s point of view, at least not-so-good food means not-so-big bites.

3. Don’t accept cocktail offers, however tempting it might be to join your prospective boss in a loopy daze. Rather than loose, impressive answers, the more likely scenario is silly blunders and awkward post-dinner stumbles. So save the champagne for the celebratory toast after you get the job. It’ll taste even better then.

4. Eat in small pieces! This may seem like an obvious one, but come that to-die-for steak and before long we’re engaged in a self-competition to the finish line. Approach your food slowly, and stick to the small, easy-to-swallow pieces. You’ll achieve fluid conversation without having to awkwardly motion “one-second” with your fingers.

5. Order a meal that is easy to eat--no matter how tempting other menu descriptions may be. We all love sauce-soaked chicken wings and stuffed-to-the-brim turkey clubs, but even the most ladylike of the pack can’t approach these savory wonders without a whole lotta mess. So unless you’ve mastered the art of the messy food, it’s probably best to save all that greasy, sloppy stuff for later.

6. Probably Jean’s most important piece of advice, underlying everything else she so expertly passed along: It’s not about the food! The point of elegantly dining with your prospective boss isn’t to restaurant hop and food explore, but to communicate and genuinely connect in conversation. Dining, and the oh-so-yummy food that comes with it, is the mere backdrop in which the employer-employee interaction transpires. No matter your locale, the aim is always the same: to position yourself as an impressive and likeable candidate for the job. It’s an opportunity to give your employer a feel for you: how you’ll contribute to the field, yes, but also what you’re like---how your persona will mesh into the job’s social and professional dynamics.

After two hours of etiquette training, I can’t exactly say I’m the world’s most delicate eater. But the dining tidbits I gathered will certainly help when the not-so-far-off time comes to start job hunting and impressing employers. And maybe after enough professional dining, we’ll come to apply some newfound grace and charm to our own everyday eating. That might take more time though…

Missed this semester's Dining with Confidence program? Be on the lookout for future opportunities to master the art of professional dining, small talk and more!

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