Job search got you down? Does the process seem too vague? Yale’s Office of Career Strategy is here to help! Our team and featured guests tackle an array of topics relevant to any job/internship search process. Gain helpful insight through these low key, relaxed conversations where we acknowledge common frustrations but also provide thoughtful advice on how to rise above it all. These conversations can be helpful to those seeking their first internship/job, seeking a job with an advanced degree, or making a career change at any point in your career!
The group, joined by Yale CIPE Director Calvin Yu, discusses the tapestry of factors that go into determining what they “want to do when they grow up”. Placing such importance on how one answers that question can weigh heavily on an individual. While identifying interests and passions is important, placing unneeded stress on ourselves and implementing unrealistic deadlines of when decisions must be made can take us off track. Additionally, discovering new interests and passions can happen at any point in our lives! Calvin walks us through his interesting series of professions as we identify the ways by which others can keep their finger on the pulse of their own interests and passions as they develop.
The group is joined by two colleagues, Derek Webster (Office of Career Strategy, Common Good & Creative Careers) and Maggie Katz (Center for International and Professional Experience) to discuss the trials and tribulations of the salary/benefits negotiation process. Yes, after all the stress and tumult of getting the actual job, your work is not quite done yet! The group goes through the very important aspects of this process, where efforts can yield benefits years down the line!
In this episode we hear of the professional narratives from two individuals who have engaged in various career paths in public service. Through these experiences, learn about the jobs themselves, how they differ, and also how they allow for a fulfilling professional and versatile professional life.
We are all familiar with concepts like “constructive criticism” and “progressive development” and yet we are, at the same time, understandably sensitive when it comes time for personal critique. In this episode, we touch on the ways in which we can use constructive feedback to our professional benefit and identify ways to seek it out in a responsible and confident manner.
The group discusses the fickle nature of the cover letter, a document that many deem voluntary, but in actuality is an important means by which to present yourself and reiterate your skillset. We discuss the breakdown of the letter itself, how it can be efficiently constructed, and most impactful.
In in this episode, we are joined by 2 Yale PhD students to discuss the trials and tribulations of networking. This often misunderstood, yet essential, component of the job search need not require you to be socially outgoing, nor does it involve you asking others for steep favors! We discuss the subtle benefits that come from reaching out to others and, most importantly, listening to what they have to say.
Searching for jobs can seem daunting and stressful. A lack of clarity in what this process fully entails keeps many from being able to see their actual progress and identify other aspects that could use support. In this episode, we begin to break down the process itself, and investigate how routinizing various aspects of the process can help us not only when we are actively searching for a job, but also as we grow and develop professionally.
We all know that resumes are important to a job search, but why? What is our goal as we construct it and what expectations should we assume on behalf of the reader? The group tackles a number of the classic, and not-so-classic, frustrations regarding this all-important document.
In this inaugural episode, the gang mulls over what makes experience “professional”. They also discuss how we have more agency over the ways in which we frame past experiences than we might initially believe! Listen as the group touches on a number of ways you can reminder yourself that experience is in the eye of the beholder (no, really!)