Career Exploration
One student's journey through the process of discovering a career.
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.
2 Comments
Verna Eberhardt
9/22/2016 12:06:02 pm
Hello Tricia,
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Tamara
9/23/2016 08:08:16 am
Good job, Tricia! It sounds like you learned a lot about yourself.
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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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