Career Exploration
One student's journey through the process of discovering a career.
Now that the Career Expo is out of the way, I can write more about different kinds of career exploration, like assessments. At the beginning of the semester, I was asked to decide whether I fit into any of these six categories: helper, thinker, organizer, creator, doer, and persuader. I assessed myself as fitting into the former three. Last week, I took the Focus 2 assessments, a series of five questionnaires that use a ranking system to determine what my personality is like and what my career interests might be. The Work Interest Assessment results are put into a three letter code, called the Holland Code, which determines what three characteristics fit the test taker best. My Holland Code was ASI, which stands for artistic, social, and investigative. In terms of my initial assessment, this corresponds to the creators, helpers, and thinkers. These three categories were not unique to my Work Interest Assessment; in fact, they showed up at the top of my results across all of the assessments, although not always in the same order. While I do not usually label myself as artistic, I can understand why it is there. I have played the violin for nine years, I love to sing (although not usually very well), I am constantly daydreaming, and I used to love drawing and painting in middle school and early high school. However, the reason I did not classify myself as creative is because I have a hard time actually coming up with ideas. If someone throws an idea out there, I can elaborate, expand, or create upon that, but it is difficult for me to come up with that original idea. So while I can be creative, it is usually only after I have found an origin from someone else. I also feel mixed on the social aspect of the code. In my own self-assessment, I did put down that I would be a helper, as I want to do something in life that actually means something and will benefit other people. However, I am very introverted and have a hard time facilitating conversations, so I would not expect to be labeled as “social.” I definitely agree with the investigative aspect of the code, though. As I have mentioned before, I am very math/science minded; I love problem-solving, and I feel great when I can find the answer to a challenging puzzle. What surprised me was how low down in the rankings that was, as I am often told that is my strongest trait. I was also shocked to find that the organizer label that I believed myself to be in my self-assessment was ranked fifth out of six. While it obviously clashes with the artistic component, I am very systematic and tend to follow a strict routine, so it was odd to see that so low. The careers associated with my Holland Code were quite honestly disappointing to me. Many dealt with radio and TV announcing, hosting, and analyzing, all of which seem to come from the social part of my code rather than the other aspects that made more sense to me. The only one I might be interested in is a foreign language interpreter, since I love to travel and learn about other cultures. Even then, though, I am not fluent in any other languages, and I would most likely need to learn many. Some of the other assessments listed jobs I may enjoy, but I had no matches across all five or even four of the five assessments. My results seemed to clash too much with each other to provide any good careers that involve all of them. I want to help others, but I am not very social. I like systematic, organized problem-solving, but I need some room to be creative and have fun. This conflict of interests may be what is making it so difficult for me to decide on a career. More than anything else, this assessment has forced me to see that I may not find something that balances all aspects of my personality; I may just have to decide which ones are the most important to me and stick with those.
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After two weeks of preparation and research, the Career Expo finally happened last Thursday. For as much preparation as I had done, I was surprised to find that it really was not as high stakes as I had thought it would be, although this might have been a much different story if I had actually been looking for a job. Nonetheless, I still learned a lot from both the companies I talked to and the process itself.
As I expected, The Hershey Company was only offering jobs in retail and management. Since I know that is not my thing, I did not stay to talk to the recruiter for very long, but I did sign up for emails regarding internship opportunities in case something interesting shows up. Royal Caribbean Cruise Ltd. was very similar in that regard, as most of the positions they were looking to fill were retail and marketing. However, the recruiter did say that there were medical positions and internships available that I may be interested in if I choose to pursue physical therapy. Perhaps the most interesting employer I talked to was the Peace Corps. The recruiter at that station was the most amiable and enthusiastic recruiter I spoke to, and since I have a lot of experience volunteering, I felt much more comfortable speaking to him than to recruiters in areas with which I was less familiar. Some of their more popular opportunities involve teaching, environmental awareness, and medical assistance, none of which are exactly my thing but might be fun to try. Plus, it is only a 1-3 year commitment, so while this may not be a full-time job for me, it might provide me with a good gap year between undergraduate and graduate studies should I choose to endure more education. The New England Center for Children was also pretty interesting. Once again, most of their jobs involve teaching, which is not my forte, but the research aspect of the center seemed very intriguing. They observe the children’s behavior and determine what they believe to be the cause in problematic behavior and provide solutions to fix it. This seemed like something I might enjoy doing; however, they do not offer internships to anyone who is not an education or psychology major until after graduation, so I would not be able to work with them for a long time. Unfortunately, I did not get the chance to look at Residential Services, Inc. because every time I passed by that stand, the recruiter was busy speaking to someone else. Many of the recruiters I spoke to were happy to speak to a small group all at once, but this one seemed to be more interested in one-on-one conversations. Instead, I spoke to SAS, a software company that works with statistical data. I am a little interested in creating software and how that works, but I have no experience in it, so I was attempting to avoid large technology companies for that reason. However, this company also has career opportunities involving data collection and statistical analysis, which would be good jobs for a person like me who has a math/science mindset. On the subject of Career Expos in general, I learned it is good to have a resume prepared, even though I was not looking for a job. Almost every recruiter I talked to asked for a resume, which made me feel quite unprepared and disorganized. I also learned that formal elevator pitches aren’t always as important as I made them out to be. I was able to join several group conversations without a formal speech and still get my talents out there and my questions answered. Now that I have had some practice, I am sure I will have a much better experience in a couple of years when I am trying to get a job for real. At Career Expos, representatives of many companies show up to try to recruit new potential employees, and the variety and number can be overwhelming. For example, at UNC’s Job and Internship Expo, there are 148 companies registered. In order to determine which employers are the ones I would be most interested in talking to, some research is needed beforehand. After looking at the roster and what each employer does, I was able to narrow my choices down enough to research and pick the top 5 employers I plan to target:
Out of this whole process, I hope to find out what majors and skills are the most valuable to most employers. I have chosen a pretty diverse array of companies, so I should get a variety of answers. While all of them are important, the skills I need to focus the most on are the ones that are consistent with all of the companies I talk to – these will be skills that nearly all employers will be looking for, so I will need them whether or not I decide to stick with any of these jobs or employers. Most of all, though, I would like to get a better sense of what jobs are out there. Sometimes I wonder if the reason I cannot decide on a major or career path is because I haven’t heard about it or focused on it yet. Hopefully, with all of these options visible at the Career Expo, I can find an idea of what I may want to pursue. The Fall Job and Internship Expo at UNC is coming up pretty quickly. This event is a great opportunity to both get exposure to different jobs or specific positions in those jobs and to ask representatives of real companies what they are looking for in potential employees to see if you measure up to their standards. One of the biggest challenges at a huge event like this is making a good first impression with an elevator pitch. In the span of about 30 seconds, I will have to introduce myself, name some of my strong points and ask the recruiter about what their company looks for – without sounding rehearsed. I am a very introverted person, so going up to random strangers and engaging in natural conversation is way out of my comfort zone. I am a little afraid that without a rehearsed speech, I will walk up to a recruiter and then completely forget what I am supposed to say or do. I also have a difficult time coming up with questions on the spot; they usually come after I have fully processed what has been said about 20 minutes to an hour after the event has ended. Appearing cool and confident will be yet another challenge for me, as I have many nervous tendencies like biting my nails or playing with jewelry that involuntarily occur when I am conversing with a stranger. However, this isn’t the real deal; I am just asking questions for a class, not actually getting interviewed. Facing these challenges now is great practice at low stakes for when all of these things really matter in a few years.
As far as questions go, there are 3 things I know for certain I need to ask: 1.“What majors does your company typically hire?” – As someone who still hasn’t settled on a major, this is crucial information. If I am really interested in the work a company does, this could help me decide one so I can potentially have an advantage getting a job when I graduate. 2.“What are the most important skills or traits you look for in potential employees?” – Knowing what a company is looking for in an employee is very helpful early on in the game. I may not have a specific trait a company wants at this time, such as being personable, but if I start working on it now, I can improve that ability by the time senior year rolls around and I am actually looking for a job. 3.“Why did you choose this company?” – Asking recruiter why they chose the company allows them to talk and let their opinions be known, making the conversation center around them and not me and allowing me to hear the best parts of the company from a current employee. Bonus Question: “Are internships available?” or “What kinds of internships are available?” – Sophomore and junior years are about when to start looking for summer internships and getting experience, and this is a great opportunity to do so, especially if I see a company I like. Of course, I will have to research the specific companies I am interested in before asking any of these questions to see if they have already been answered online. Asking questions that have easily accessible answers on the company’s webpage will make it sound like I don’t actually care about the company, which is not an impression I want to give. |
AuthorHello! I'm Tricia Bacon, a sophomore at UNC Chapel Hill and a current explorer of potential careers. Archives
November 2016
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