Looking for a job is undeniably a stressful and time-consuming process - some seniors got it over with in the fall, others are just now starting to fill out applications, and then there are those who have done their best to avoid it altogether.
According to Kimberly DelGizzo, director of the Career Development Center, at this time of the year, she encounters seniors who are at a wide variety of points in the job-hunting process - including those who do not even want to think about starting to look.
"There are those students who did on-campus recruiting - some who are doing investment banking or consulting and who already have positions - and a lot of other people who have been actively involved in the job search who have some things percolating," DelGizzo said. "And then there's a pool of students who either don't want those fields and so they haven't been looking for anything else yet, or they've been looking but they haven't found what they need and want and are getting a little stressed about it."
In terms of her future employment prospects, Shereen Kassam '05 has been stress-free since December. She has already secured a position as a business analyst at Deloitte Consulting in Boston and will start work in August after taking what she called her "last vacation ever."
Kassam applied to about 10 different firms, all through the CDC's eRecruiting website, and ultimately chose between three different offers.
According to Kassam, the application process for the investment banking and consulting positions included up to three separate rounds of interviews, which, she said, required a good deal of preparation.
For the consulting positions, she read case study books and conducted mock case studies with friends. And for the investment banking positions, "You have to know what's up in the markets, read the Wall Street Journal, remember everything you learned in economics," she said.
According to DelGizzo, many students hold the misconception that the on-campus recruiting program, run by the Employer Relations staff, serves primarily students who are interested in investment banking and consulting because it is those industries that tend to do heavy and visible on-campus recruiting.
Though the CDC tries to bring a broader spectrum of industries to Brown, DelGizzo said, many organizations do not conduct on-campus recruiting because they cannot afford to, their hiring need is not great or that is not typically the way they hire.
Han Wen '05 also used the eRecruiting Web site to submit applications in the fall, but because she had planned to go to graduate school in political science, she said she originally viewed the job search as "a backup plan."
Wen said she did not start putting a great deal of effort into the application process until she heard about a marketing position at L'Oréal in New York - a job she ultimately secured.
"I spent much more time on that application," she said. "I did a lot of preparation for interviews, a lot of research. I read as much as I could on the Internet about the company, the industry and their competitors."
And her work paid off. During the four separate interviews, she said, "I was able to anticipate what the aims of their questions were. I was able to respond with very relevant information. ... I could show them that I had devoted my time to studying this."
Though Wen said she is happy with her decision not to pursue graduate school, she said it has been a source of anxiety. "I feel like the choice I'm making now will have large implications with the way my life will turn out," she said.
It is this thought that causes Clement Lee '05 - who is not sure exactly which career path he wants to pursue - to be nervous about the job hunt.
"We're in a system where you can live 21 years and not make any real decisions about what you want to do," he said. "With a summer job, you know that you only have it for three months. ... This feels really serious; it feels like you're going to lock yourself into something for at least a couple years. That's my nightmare: having no foreseeable end."
Lee plans to move back home to New York after graduation and to work as a paralegal intern during the summer while looking for permanent employment. "It's nice to have something to tide you over so there's not this overwhelming impending sense of doom hanging over your head," he said.
DelGizzo said that ideally, at this point, all seniors would have started their job search months ago. But she added, "It's never too late."
Kassam went to the CDC for the first time during her first year at Brown to figure out how to get an internship for the summer.
"I went to all those workshops and one-on-one meetings, did the assessment testing," she said. "It was helpful for coming up with a game plan."
According to Jeffrey Wyrtzen '05, the CDC's resume and cover letter advice was most helpful. "I think Career Services is all you make of it. If you want them to help you they will, but if you sit back and aren't proactive they're not going to do much for you," he said.
Like Wen, Wyrtzen had wanted to pursue a graduate education - in his case, law school - after Brown, but he reconsidered those plans after spending his junior year abroad in England.
To discover alternative options, Wyrtzen met with a career counselor, spoke with her about his interests, and then took an online personality test to determine which career paths might suit him. From that, he learned that advertising, public relations or marketing would possibly be good fits.
"I didn't really know much about (those industries). ... I never really thought about them until they were suggested to me," he said.
Though he has, thus far, applied to and interviewed with about four different advertising and public relations companies - which he found through family and friend connections rather than from job postings - Wyrtzen said he has not been very aggressive in his job search, due in most part to the time constraints of academic life at Brown. "Despite the fact that you know you have to get a job, it can be hard to find the motivation," he said.
Though he is still without a job for next year, Wyrtzen remains optimistic: "You have to be somewhat hopeful. You need to go into it seeming confident and eager and enthusiastic," he said.
