Professionalism Facilitates Job Search Success
By Jill Randolph
August 11, 2010
The following is an interview transcript with Charlotte Quigley, Manager of Career Services for Middlesex County College. Ms. Quigley received her B.S. in Elementary Education from SUNY Oneonta and her MBA in Management from Adelphi University in Garden City, New York, and has been involved with career services since 2005.
Career Services at Middlesex County College is part of the Department of Counseling and Career Services. This structure facilitates connections with Career Services throughout students' academic career, and therefore they know where and how to seek help with career questions. Career Services also runs the College's co-operative education program.
Middlesex County College, located in New Jersey, is celebrating their 45th year. Many students transfer to four-year universities or enter into the world of work. MCC is the largest sender of transfer students to Rutgers University, NJIT and Kean University, and has a large number of students at Montclair, Seton Hall and most other colleges in the region. MCC's motto is "Success Starts Here". MCC recently had a record enrollment of over 14,600 registered students, and offers over 80 associate degree and certificate programs, at their main campus in Edison and also at their two urban centers located in New Brunswick and Perth Amboy.
Jill Randolph: What are the most common mistakes students make when approaching their job search?
Charlotte Quigley: Students often underestimate how professional they need to be in every aspect of what they do in their job search. They also don't use the resources that are readily available and often free. As students here, they can use our services for the rest of their lives. Many graduates come back to meet with me with resumes that don't convey anything about their skill sets and accomplishments as a professional. A resume that is nothing more than a laundry list of every job they have had since high school won't distinguish them, won't get them called in for an interview.
Jill Randolph: What advice do you give to students to help them outshine the competition? How does someone who is starting out express that they have what it takes to succeed in the position, as opposed to someone who has more experience?
Charlotte Quigley: Students need to play up the advantages they offer: they are freshly out of school, their training and skill sets are current, and they are ready to learn.
More experienced jobseekers may have established a track record, but their skills may not be as current or as expansive as that of a new graduate. New graduates must highlight that they are ready to learn and to adopt the corporate culture, procedures and processes of the employer. More experienced jobseekers can be more stubborn about change. Also, students with volunteer experience and internships under their belt can utilize accomplishments garnered in those opportunities to demonstrate professional preparedness.
Students don't need to be intimidated by their perceived competition. When I was responsible for hiring, overqualified people were not always as attractive as they expected to be because I questioned whether they would stay in the position for long. Like other recruiters, I speculated that the minute they had a more suitable opportunity, they might be out the door. I would never disregard more qualified candidates altogether, but I was leery. The point is that it's not necessarily a negative to be inexperienced. Student and recent graduate jobseekers need to market themselves that way.
Jill Randolph: How has searching for job changed from the past, and how has it stayed the same?
Charlotte Quigley: With fewer opportunities available, jobseekers must do everything they can. Networking is very important and job seekers can't afford to be shy. They must maintain awareness of what is going on in their fields of interest and begin to establish a professional presence by joining professional organizations (online as well, for example LinkedIn) or commenting on blogs, for example. It is also important to have a go-to prepared an elevator speech as an introduction for phone or face-to-face meetings.
Every document, email, and conversation needs to represent the candidate as a viable professional. They can't afford one missed step because that could be the only opportunity they find for the next six weeks. There was more leeway in the past, many more chances to correct midstream and it has been tough to convey to students that they have to conscientiously put their best foot forward immediately with potential employers. Students and jobseekers in general have underestimated the vast importance of professionalism in this market.
Some things haven't changed, such as understanding the requirements of a particular job posting and the company's goals. Researching the company, the position, is necessary in order to appropriately position oneself as the best candidate. It's much easier to make a good impression if a student has done the research and is prepared.
Approaching their job search as a job in and of itself is not a new idea, and strong searching skills are certainly more important today than ever before. Job seekers also need to stay motivated and be organized. Emailing out a ton of resumes, and then going to the beach to wait for offers to come streaming in is not going to cut it.
Unfortunately, because companies are downsizing and reducing expenses, some are reverting to outdated job descriptions for hiring criteria, and worse to assist in downsizing decisions. In the past, if a job technically required an associate's or a bachelor's degree, an effective employee may have been promoted internally for good performance, experience and longevity. Now companies are again mandating that the old requirements be enforced, which has been startling for those who have been demoted or laid off for not having the required level of post-secondary education. Fortunately, demotions are not that common, but I have heard from three students who experienced exactly that recently.
Jill Randolph: How has the job market changed over the past year? Have you seen any signs of improvement, and if so in which areas?
Charlotte Quigley: Green technology is a promising area, but standardization needs to occur in the industry for the promised career growth to be realized. By standardization, I mean that the credentials and certifications are emerging but they need to be more widely endorsed. LEED is one guiding and certifying organization, but there are other competing credentials and certifications, and no one knows yet exactly which one will be the most marketable for employment (the same thing happened in the computer industry in the 1990s, such as token ring versus Ethernet, Lotus 1-2-3 versus MS-Excel).
As these green companies grow, they are going to need more than just green-savvy engineers; they will need accountants, HR people, and IT people. Engineering and construction employment will benefit from the green movement, but so will the support and corporate careers as well.
Overall though, the job market has continued to worsen. The numbers cited are misleading because of the unemployed not counted in the statistics because they have stopped actively job searching. Once they stop searching or stop receiving unemployment benefits, they are no longer included in the numbers, making the true unemployment rate much worse than we think.
MCC has an urban center in Perth Amboy, which has one of the highest unemployment rates in the country, and is the highest in New Jersey. Many of our students are affected by the recession in ways we often fail to realize, for example some families have canceled internet/cable since they cannot afford that monthly expense. Clearly this impacts their access to job seeking resources. Fortunately, at MCC have continued to see a slow stream of jobs coming in, even if those jobs tend to be more short-term opportunities, not the type of job graduates expected to find.
Jill Randolph: Do you have any suggestions on how to get a foot in the door with companies that are only hiring temporary workers? Should students start with part-time opportunities, internships or temporary jobs in order to gain experience and potential opportunities with companies?
Charlotte Quigley: Yes, I recommend all of those tactics, and community service or volunteer work also, if students can afford to do it. As a community college, many of our students are working and the majority continues to work in some capacity while in school. We find students who are going to school full-time while working 20 or more hours a week. It is much harder for them to find time to volunteer, do community service or internships because they need to maintain the income. But, for anyone who can afford to volunteer, we encourage it because it helps build one's resume and network.
Students who can afford to do community service are exposed to great opportunities. For example, graphic design students can design for not-for-profits and event-planning students organize events, experiences not available to most traditional entry-level employees. Internships also provide great opportunities. Internships and volunteering can develop attractive skill sets that bolster students' resumes as well as help refine which fields the student wants to pursue.
Democracy House, MCC's very active civic engagement organization, has won national awards for engaging students in community work while providing experience related to their majors. A psychology student, for example, can engage in work related to their field early in their academic career via volunteering in a field that requires an advanced graduate degree for most positions. Community work is another avenue for students to be able to build skill sets that will get them noticed by future employers.
Additionally, internships are proof for an employer that though a person may be new to a field, he or she can be trusted to perform at a certain level. Being hired as temporary help and then proving oneself to be a good permanent candidate is another viable route to employment. Savvy job seekers should consider all of these opportunities as long-term job interviews as they pursue tasks that will round out their marketable skills.
Students also need to be able to demonstrate their accomplishments in communication, responsibility, integrity, teamwork and customer service. If they can convey these skills, it almost doesn't matter what degree they have. Every employer is looking for these traits and it is critical that candidates are able to demonstrate accomplishments to verify their mastery of these abilities. For most jobs, these soft skills are highly sought after.
Jill Randolph: What advice do you give students regarding traditional networking and social networking? Do you put more weight on one or the other, or do they supplement each other?
Charlotte Quigley: They supplement each other. First, we tell students to be sure that they are aware of the information available online about them. They need to control the information as much as possible, because employers are looking. This includes deleting inappropriate social media comments or pictures.
Jobseekers have to creatively look for employment potential through any avenue possible these days, so using both social and traditional networking is appropriate.
Jill Randolph: What do you recommend regarding the percentage of networking that should be done online versus in-person?
Charlotte Quigley: I don't believe in living life online, but students still need to have a presence. LinkedIn is a great resource that has helped me assist our students, but nothing beats talking to someone in person.
I work a great deal with my students online. They can email or text me, however, I inevitably get a better sense for who I am representing when they meet with me in person, as I can ascertain more than the bare bones information that they think I need to know. When I meet in person with graduates or students, we invariably uncover experience and accomplishments. That is helpful to them in their job search, factors they disregarded or failed to consider important.
Jill Randolph: Do you recommend a social media service or website to students who are searching for jobs?
Charlotte Quigley: For job sites, I love Craigslist, which tends to have local, valid opportunities for students. The Wall Street Journal also has a new site for finance and accounting majors. The Pongo Blog is also one of my favorites for job search tips. CollegeGrad.com is full of useful resources, as is our Career Services site: www.middlesexcc.edu/career.
Jill Randoloph: How do you convey to students that in order to be competitive in today's market, they need to continue with school, even if they hear success stories of people who don't have additional education?
Charlotte Quigley: Students are becoming savvier, but the truth is that our students are here because they already believe education is important to help them reach their goals. But everyone's path is different. Many students are shocked when I tell them that my former employer paid for my MBA through tuition reimbursement as I worked fulltime and went to school in the evening. Many students aren't aware such benefits exist, and may provide an avenue to education they otherwise could not afford. When researching companies, job seekers should be looking for these benefits.
Jill Randolph: What advice to you give to a mother of young children so that she will be considered for a less demanding job, even if she is overqualified?
Charlotte Quigley: That's tricky because it is a borderline illegal topic to discuss in interviews. She shouldn't volunteer too much information. The resume is a marketing document, not an autobiography. It's key to represent the skills and experiences candidates want the employer to see by appropriately focusing the resume for the job and leave off extraneous information that opens the door to inappropriate discussion.
Preparation is key. Interviewees should carefully practice how to respond to questions in an interview. Responses can be successfully crafted to represent the jobseeker's intended message, especially in response to difficult questions. By practicing and anticipating those questions, interviewees are less likely to say something that they will wish they hadn't.
It isn't necessary to disclose family information, but if the job seeker decides this really is part of their message, then it should be disclosed carefully and deliberately.
Jill Randolph: For students who aren't sure what they want to do after graduation, what do you do to help them put a plan in place?
Charlotte Quigley: Our career services department operates MCC's co-operative education program. These courses, which are part of nearly all of our majors, offer an opportunity for students to work in their field of interest. Students co-op for 180 hours a semester and attend a seminar class every other week to discuss the issues they are having on the job. This helps them to start developing professional and workplace management skills. The Co-operative Education Program is also a great way for students to discern which fields they like and the ones they don't. It's beneficial because it's not too late at that point to make a change in their major or career path, if necessary.
We also talk to students about the different avenues within each career path. If they are looking to become a nurse and learn that they don't like the stress and hours of being a nurse in a hospital, they should not necessarily give up on their nursing degree. Another hospital or a doctor's office might offer a more suitable setting for their liking. They could also use their degree in a different type of work such as public health, for example.
The site CollegeGrad.com offers helpful videos, showing what people do in the course of a day in different fields. I showed students a video from a DJ, which showed that the employee went to work at 2:00 a.m. The video touched on other downsides when trying to break into the field, such as working on Christmas and working at 2:00 a.m. on a Saturday, when everyone else is out having fun. It made it quite clear that if those conditions were not suitable to someone's personality, that it was not the right career path for that student.
These resources can be valuable when students are researching and exploring. They provide an easy way to develop an understanding of important skill sets as well as other pivotal considerations such as salary expectations. We are also fortunate to be part of the Counseling & Career Services department, and we encourage career-confused students to meet with a career counselor for assessment and in-depth career exploration.
Students often ask me how they should respond to the salary question and I recommend that they do their homework: what does the position pay at that company? What is the norm in this area? What do they need financially to live on? All of this becomes much more difficult when a person is changing jobs and embarking on a completely different career. For example, if the job changer made $60,000 at the former job, despite the fact that their skills are still valuable, the employee is now entering a new field with a new role at or near entry-level. The new hire will not be paid for the number of years they worked in another field, but rather for what they bring to this particular job. It's a difficult realization.
Jill Randolph: What does the career services office offer for those who have been out in the workforce for a number of years?
Charlotte Quigley: Whenever we talk to students and families, I emphasize that our services are here for the rest of their lives. We often have alumni return, including students who have transferred to larger universities where the career service department is huge or too far away. One of my busiest times is during spring break, because of the graduates returning for assistance in making their personal brand more effective and professional.
We don't charge a fee, and we don't cut transferred students or graduates off from our services. We can't afford to open our services to members of the general public, but we work with our students, both past and present, forever.
