Alexandra Levit's Water Cooler Wisdom

Management Consulting and Finance: Still Desirable for College Grads?

My friend and 30/20 Vision radio show co-host Lindsey Pollak and I had the opportunity to contribute to Marci Alboher’s New York Times career coach roundtable on management consulting and investment banking as careers for soon-to-be college grads.  Here was the question, as well as highlights from our responses:

“I will be graduating from an Ivy League college this year, and had planned to apply for jobs in investment banking and finance this fall. However, in light of the recent market/economy downturn and massive layoffs, I am becoming disillusioned with the industry. Since my academics are average and I have slimmer chances of being hired at top banks, I am considering seeking an entry-level position in consulting firms instead (which I am also interested in). Do you believe that would be a good idea? Would you advise new graduates to ride out the downturn? How easy would it be to switch fields later on in my career?”

Lindsey: You are smart to consider current economic conditions in your job search, but there is no need to set up an either/or situation. If you really want to build a career in investment banking, then keep those opportunities on your list while also looking elsewhere. Finance is a super-competitive field. So you’ll need to work hard to network within the field and build connections with people who can serve as your advocate. This is especially important when you’re competing against people with better grades. Passion and experience count — sometimes even more than grades — so make up for your average G.P.A. by taking additional finance classes, attending networking events, researching companies online and reading as much as you can about the field and all the companies in it. Be on the lookout for firms that you may not have heard of. You don’t have to work at a top-tier firm to get great experience and connections.  

Alex: I like entry-level management consulting gigs for new college graduates, because although stressful, you’ll learn basic business skills like project management, budgeting, client relations and public speaking. As a soon-to-be Ivy League graduate, you will probably have the opportunity to interview on campus with top management consulting firms. Ask your career center if you can talk to some recent graduates currently employed in these firms. Not only will they be able to give you the inside scoop on life as a new management consultant, but they will also offer critical advice for nailing the case interview (your analysis of a real-world business scenario).  In general, it’s a good idea to be a bit flexible when seeking a job during periods of economic uncertainty. You can prepare yourself for a possible switch to banking down the line by using your new position to explore the financial aspects of management consulting. Get to know the individuals in the financial divisions, take company-sponsored course work and volunteer for projects with a financial component.

Look for the full text of the article in the Sunday Business section of the Times on August 17^th!

New Issue of Personal Branding Magazine Featuring Yours Truly

If you haven't yet checked out Dan Schawbel's Personal Branding Magazine, this is a great time to do so, because Dan, a twenty-something wonder-kid himself, has chosen to focus the latest edition on other ambitious young professionals.

Says Dan:  "The brand new issue explores a new generation of hip and cool young professionals, known simply as Gen-Y, but also referred to as the Millennials. The legacy workplace will cease to exist as this generation enters and recruiters must be prepared to change their ways or self-destruct. Some Millennials have even started changing our world as we speak. These new-age entrepreneurs are tech-savvy and ready to make a difference."

With my article on managing Millennials, I'm proud to be featured among the impressive roster of columnists, which includes J.D. Roth, Eve Tahmincioglu, and Jim Stroud.  Get your free sample here, and if you like what you read, sign up for an annual subscription!

Hiring Managers Slow to Accept Online Degrees

Well now, this is kind of scary…

While employers and hiring managers are seeing more job applicants with online degrees these days, they’re not exactly clamoring to hire them. According to Vault.com’s 2008 Online Degrees Survey, while 49% of those who make hiring decisions have encountered applicants with online degrees, a 15 percentage point increase from this same survey three years ago, only 19% have actually hired a candidate who only possessed an online degree.

“A candidate with an online degree would have to be truly extraordinary otherwise to merit serious consideration,” said one hiring manager. “I don't think online degrees reflect a serious commitment to education on the part of the degree-holder.”   

When asked if they would give equal consideration to job candidates with online degrees and those with degrees from traditional colleges and universities, 63% of survey respondents said they would favor job candidates with traditional degrees while 35% said they would give them equal consideration.

Vault CEO Erik Sorenson said, “Everything has moved online, including education.  Though more and more Americans are getting educated online, there is still a bias toward traditional classroom education, especially for high-end careers and top-ranked companies.”

Vault says that while 83% of employers and hiring managers say that online degrees are more acceptable than they were five years ago, it seems there is still a ways to go before employers fully embrace them.  I’d like to hear from people who have recently obtained online degrees.  Have you noticed this bias as you’ve entered the job market, and have you ever regretted your choice to get an online degree instead of a traditional one?

Would You Work With Your Spouse?

I’ve encountered a lot of couples where one person has left his or her job to support the career of the other.  Typically, one spouse is an accomplished entrepreneur, so the other pitches in to help grow the business – often in a subordinate role.

I’m wondering how many of you would do this if you had the chance.  It would never work for my husband and me.  We are both equally driven to succeed in our respective careers (he’s a tenure-track psychology professor at the University of Illinois and I’m well, you know), and in fact this mutual ambition was what initially attracted us to one another eleven years ago. Since we graduated from college, we’ve been perfectly happy to keep our personal and professional lives separate.  Stew didn’t fully understand what I did in my PR job until I was a VP, and I was lucky if I could rattle off a thirty-second elevator pitch describing his research.

Even if god forbid one of us felt unfulfilled, I think we would probably kill each other spending all day every day together, and having 100 percent of our lives intertwined.  I feel like I am able to appreciate him more because of the independence our dual careers allow, and I admire him because of the success he’s achieved in his own right.  Although, I do have to admit we’re a good team, just recently collaborating on one major project – the birth and care of our four month-old!

Recruitment Spotlight: Don’t You Wish You Had a Summer Intern?

Around this time of the summer, a lot of people start grumbling that they should have hired a summer intern.  If you’re one of them, maybe it’s time to think ahead.

The current generation of college students (aka Millennials) are eager to learn and supremely motivated to increase their skill sets.  You don’t necessarily have to pay them a lot, but you do have to show them respect and offer them challenging and engaging work.  For instance, IBM's Extreme Blue internship program makes sure that interns don't end up making photocopies, instead pairing them with computer developers, doing real company work in global research labs.  A strong internship program is a critical part of a sound recruiting strategy because it allows you to attract and train the best talent before it is snapped up by competitors, and also to observe individuals in action before making a substantial commitment to them.

You can get an internship program off the ground by partnering with local campus career planning and placement offices.  Work with the staff to ensure that they have an adequate understanding of your internships, and promise a personal phone or face-to-face interview for every qualified student applicant they introduce to you.  Reach out to key faculty, staff, and student leadership on campus, ask them what student or third-party organizations you might contact, and see if there are opportunities for you or your colleagues to present seminars or guest lectures.

You can certainly coordinate with the HR department if you have one, but it’s often not necessary.  By making a few calls and having a few meetings on your own or on behalf of your department, you can create a thriving internship program on a much smaller scale. 

New Episode: 30/20 Vision

Please join my co-hosts Lindsey Pollak (Getting from College to Career) and Christine Hassler (20 Something Manifesto), as we tape the July episode of our radio show and podcast, 30/20 Vision, tomorrow, July 23rd at 5PM ET.  We'll be discussing how to establish and communicate your personal brand.  Hope you can make it live, but if not, feel free to catch the recording that will be available immediately afterwards!

Your Brave New Career as a Nurse Consultant

I just received an e-mail from Pat Viro, a reader who has a job in an interesting new field known as “nurse consulting.”

You’ve probably heard of the growing need for health professionals to care for a quickly expanding number of senior citizens.  This demographic shift has been well documented.  For example, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, every eight seconds an American baby boomer (those born between 1946 and 1964) turns fifty.  By 2030, one in every five Americans will be a senior citizen, and Americans 85 and older are the faster growing segment of the national population and are the heaviest users of long-term health services.

One emerging career is nurse consultant. At a time when baby boomers are caring for their aging parents and staying in the job market longer than any other generation in our country’s history, along comes the nurse consultant.  The Support Nurse, provided by organizations such as Care Support of America, was developed from the realization that time and distance often come between caregivers and their aging or ailing parents, and that a nurse consultant can ease this by coordinating parent care.

Nurses provide emotional support, guidance and education to adult children and their elderly parents. S/he assists in developing a plan that reduces stress and enables caregivers to keep loved ones home longer. This results in a higher quality of life for both the caregivers and older relatives. The field encourages creativity, efficient problem solving, and thinking outside the box.   It’s an ideal position for the professional nurse who enjoys being on the cutting edge of new trends.  Think this career could be for you?  Check out Care Support for America.  You certainly wouldn’t have a problem finding work!

Career Lessons from a Hollywood Producer

There are a lot of books out there on how to achieve job satisfaction and get ahead in the business world, but few are from the viewpoint of someone with a front row seat in the always-elusive entertainment industry.  That’s what I found interesting about Danielle Weinstock’s Can This Elephant Curtsy on Cue?.

A Hollywood producer, Danielle has worked on thirty television shows or feature films such as Weeds, 24, The Agency, White Fang, Crossing Jordan, and Fantasy Island. She also wrote the documentary A Song's Best Friend: John Denver Remembered, which aired on PBS, and is a member of the Producer's Guild of America (PGA) and the Director's Guild of America (DGA).

Can This Elephant Curtsy on Cue? is a fascinating look at life on a film set, where producers must daily contend with temperamental wildlife, unattainable demands, and stringent budgets.  Weinstock provides an insider’s view on how movies and television shows are made, and uses her hilarious and sometimes cringe-worthy anecdotes to extend the entertainment world’s lessons to other fields.  The book offers guidance for working with difficult people, coping with sexual harassment, managing complicated scenarios, and making appropriate financial decisions.  

Given that Weinstock survived the Hollywood jungle and was able to claim a successful, two-decade career in it, her perspective is intriguing and invaluable. 

8 Ways to Save Money Today

I’ve been getting a lot of e-mails from desperate folks who are short on cash and are hoping against hope that they can get a raise at work.  But just in case they can’t, over at Brazen Careerist, Alex Fisher has some great ideas for saving money during the current economic downturn.  Among my favorites:

Replace your light bulbs with CFLs: For the time when you legitimately need the lights on, you should be using light bulbs that don’t waste the majority of their energy on heat instead of light. Compact Fluorescent Lights, or CFLs, use an electrical charge and gas to produce light instead of a heating element like incandescent lights.

Use Linux: Chances are you don’t need to spend money on a Microsoft or Macintosh operating system if you find yourself doing simple things like web browsing, word processing, and listening to music. Check-\ out Ubuntu Linux. It’s helped bring Linux closer to the average computer user in its ease of use and clean looking user interface.

Buy rechargeable batteries: These are great for things like digital cameras, Xbox controllers, and mp3 players especially.

Check your tires for correct inflation: You’ll use more gas if your tires are improperly inflated. The extra friction and heat caused by low tires require greater work from your engine and will require you to buy more tires more frequently.

Drop subscription TV altogether: Replace it with an HDTV antenna or watch online at ABC, Fox, ESPN360, and other sites that offer the same and even extra content online.

Dine at home on your next date: Hit the store, bond while making pasta, get a bottle of wine, and put on some great music.

Drink office coffee: If you load it up with cream and sugar anyway, it might not make any difference at all what kind of coffee you’re drinking.

Revise your insurance policies: Things like keeping a fire extinguisher in your home, a blinking light on your car dash, and a safe driving record can save you money on your insurance policies, but only if you let your insurer know!

4 Day Work Week is a Reality in Utah

According to USA Today, this summer Utah will become what experts say is the first state to institute a mandatory four-day work week for most state employees.  Gov. Jon Huntsman, a first-term Republican, says he's making the change to reduce the state's carbon footprint, increase energy efficiency, improve customer service and provide workers more flexibility.

The change will apply to about 17,000 employees, roughly 80% of the state workforce, Huntsman says. Public universities, the state court system, prisons and other critical services will be exempt. Residents still will have sufficient access to state offices, many staying open from 7 a.m.- 6 p.m., and more than 800 state services are available online, he says.

The four-day work week is surprisingly common among city and county governments. Rex Facer, an assistant professor at Brigham Young University whose research team is studying the four-day work week concept, estimates that about one-sixth of U.S. cities with populations above 25,000 offer employees a four-day work week. His projection is based on the team's continuing survey of 150 city human resource directors.  Facer expects more cities to begin shuttering offices on Fridays. "The increasing pressures the American is facing around gas prices is certainly a significant factor, and the overall fiscal pressures governments are facing in general," he says.

An interesting development, though I don’t see the private sector following suit anytime soon.  Companies are just now getting their arms around flextime.  Cutting out an entire day out of the business week seems rather drastic.  Good for Utah, though.  State and local governments generally aren’t known for being revolutionary, and this certainly demonstrates otherwise.