Transcript of Podcast #31: Career Fair Information & Division of Career Pathways
In Attendance: Aimee Jiang (she/her) & Lauren Lyon-Gutierrez – Assistant Director Career Education
Aimee: Hello, everyone welcome to another GIC podcast. Today we have Lauren joining us from the Division of Career Pathways and we’re excited to talk about some of the options that their office has and what you can do early on and late into your time here at UCI. I’m gonna pass it over to Lauren and have her introduce herself.
Lauren: Thanks, Aimee. Hi, everyone, I’m Lauren Lyon Gutierrez and, as you mentioned, I work at the Division of Career Pathways. Which is basically your hub, your career center on campus. And my role is really fun because I am specifically the career educator for graduate students. So I get to work with you all throughout your time here at UCI, on anything related to your career development.
Aimee: Perfect. And one of those things, and I think one of the more popular things that students talk about coming out of your office are the career fairs. And those are coming up pretty quickly here. Can you tell us a little bit about the upcoming career fairs?
Lauren: Yeah, the career fairs are are a big event for us. And we actually do them every academic term. So every fall, winter, spring, you’ll see career fairs that come out of our office. And so for this fall we actually have 4 of them, and 3 of them will be in person, and one of them will be virtual. And so our first one is in person it’s the fall fair. It’s general. It’s open for everybody, including graduate students. And then we also have a STEM specific fair. And one note with that. So sometimes people see the STEM career fair, and they think it’s only for STEM majors. But it’s also just STEM employers, right? And so some employers hire from a range of different positions. They all, they all still need accountants, or HR or other people that that work for them in the STEM Organization, right? So even if you’re not a STEM major, that STEM career fair could still be valuable for you. And then our fourth fair is an in person graduate school fair. So maybe less important for our graduate students, currently, unless you’re looking to continue on and potentially looking at, going on for grad school elsewhere. But otherwise the first 3, the fall fair in person, the fall fair virtual, and then our STEM fair will be great opportunities for our graduate students.
Aimee: Yeah, I’ve had a couple of master students go to the the graduate one, as they’re maybe starting their masters now, and they’re like, well, do I want to do my Ph.D.. And do I want to do it someplace else?
Lauren: Yeah definitely
Aimee: And that could be a great opportunity depending on. Yeah, what what your interest is.
Lauren: Yes
Aimee: And a lot of our students are incoming and you know, for master students the timeframe of your program is generally a little bit shorter. But Ph.D. students are going to be here at UCI for a while. Is it too early? Is it ever too early for either student, master or Ph.D. student to go to a career fair? Especially for those that are like just starting courses tomorrow.
Lauren: Yeah. Not at all. Not at all, in my opinion. So I mean our first career fair and for this fall and 2023 is, is next week. So week one right October 5th it’s a Thursday. And so you might be thinking like, I’m in my first week of classes like is this feasible? If it works with your schedule just to pop in and and check it out, I say it’s absolutely worth the time. Career fairs are great yes, if you’re actively job searching. And so for some of those masters programs that are 9 months, 12 months, like you’re already gonna be starting to actively job search before you know it, and so absolutely do that. But they’re also great just to explore, see what companies are out there that are connected to UCI, and that we have that partnership with. You can just learn about hiring timelines for different types of companies or different roles. People are often surprised that fall is the biggest hiring time for next summer’s internship. Right? So if you’re like, oh, maybe I want to do an internship, you know my first summer or my second summer you would have to be looking for that now, right, in fall. And that’s. So go into these things and understanding that wow they’re already hiring for interns for next summer, really important information to know. And just learning how recruitment events work in general. Walking into like our STEM career fair is usually huge, right? We have over 100 plus employers that come. And so walking into Pacific Ballroom and seeing the liveliness that is a career fair, can be a little intimidating. So just be in there so you can visualize what to expect when you are actively searching for a position, and you’re going to be one in that space. Give yourself a challenge. Introduce yourself to one employer. Now, where there’s no pressure of actually, you know, making a good first impression and see what that feels like to wait in line to talk to an employer. And so I think there’s lots of really good benefits to attending before you maybe even think you you need to.
Aimee: Yeah, I think that was always helpful for me when I started my master’s program. The first career fair I went to I wasn’t actively looking yet, but it was just kind of normalizing what it was like to be there for me. I was so nervous about making a good impression, or like, how do I talk to people, or what does this even look like? So just popping in and chatting with one person. Seeing what kind of questions they are asking of people. You can listen in as they’re talking to other people, too, and kind of start thinking. And that was always really helpful. And I think my first career fair that I ever attended as a student, I didn’t bring my resume. I didn’t, I was not prepared at all. What would you say would be a really helpful, maybe thing to bring with you to the career fair to to be prepared?
Lauren: Yeah, really. Great question. I did the same thing. When I went to a first career I just showed up. I didn’t even, I didn’t know what employers were going to be there. I didn’t bring anything with me. And so we do offer prepare for the fair workshops. Which can be found in handshake or in our events tab, so definitely, especially if you’re going to be actively searching. So if you are in the shorter master programs, try and see if you can attend one of those. But then also doing the research ahead of time, knowing what employers are going to be there and not just who’s going to be there but what they’re hiring for. So one of my, I guess favorite slash, not favorite memories, is one of our career fairs, we had Google who came, which was super exciting right? Everyone’s excited for Google. But if you looked at the details that Google posted for the fair, they were there to hire, they’re HR team, right? And the fair had probably, I’m not even joking, probably a 3 hour wait to talk to Google. Like the line was wrapped around the building, and we would go through and it was all you know ICS majors. And so they wait in this line but the recruiters for Google there were not looking for any, any tech or any STEM right? And so we want you to make use of your time wisely when you’re there, and know who you want to talk to when you go, but then yes, bring a resume. Dress professionally, whatever that means for you. So just don’t show up in like a hoodie, and ripped jeans and things like that. You don’t have to show up in a suit per se but and it definitely depends on the type of work you’re looking for but just trust nicely. Whatever is authentic for you. And then, yeah, bring a couple of copies of your resume. And if you there’s job openings that are posted now at companies that are going to be there, you can even bring out, bring the the job description, so that you can read it before you go to the to the table, and you know what questions to specifically ask. But in the in the bare minimum kind of like you said, just bring a resume, bring yourself and bring excitement, and energy to those conversations.
Aimee: Yeah, cause people at career affairs they talk to people all day long,
Lauren: All day!
Aimee: And you want to make sure you stand out, and that you are good at expressing yourself. So I think those workshops that you all do for preparing for the fair, very helpful and you guys do provide a lot of different services, workshops, events. So could you tell us about some of the other services that your office provides?
Lauren: Yeah. So our office is is pretty cool, because we have 2 different sides. So we have our employer relations which they solely work on bringing employers to you. So they develop partnerships, and they have work with them to put on fun events, info sessions, tabling with employers to give out fun free swag, right? That’s another reason to come to a career fair, just just walk around and collect all the swag. That, that they give out. And then our career education side the other side we do like you said, all the workshops. And we have one on one appointments, we do drop in advising, so you can just stop by our office and meet with the counselor to ask any questions. Even if it’s just, I don’t even know what I should be thinking about. Can you help me know what to think about when thinking about a career? And then we also do really cool things like new this year in our office is free professional headshot. So we have a super cool photo boost setup. You can walk in anytime. First come first serve and get an awesome headshot for yourself that you could put on your Linkedin, you could have it for any type of kind of professional or I mean you can use it for anything, I guess, but it’ll be a really cool photo for, for you to be able to start off your time here at UCI and your professional career going forward.
Aimee: Yeah, and head shots can be very expensive. So having this free option, I think will be a really great opportunity for students. You mentioned dropping in. Do you have to have an appointment to talk to someone? Or could you schedule an appointment ahead of time, if you have a like a short period of time that you’re available?
Lauren: Yeah, great question. So our drop-ins are Monday through Wednesday from 12 to 2pm. So if you’re on Campus Monday through Wednesday, 12 to 2, you can stop by any time, and it’s just first come first serve, no appointment needed and someone will be available to chat with you. And so those are typically 10-15 min time slots and our office, by the way, is located in student services, one on Ring Road. So right across from the Starbucks, by the student center, and and we’ll put the link to our to our office website in the transcripts, so you all can have that as well. But if you do feel like you need longer than just a quick 10 min chat, then you can schedule an actual one on one appointment with a career educator, and you would do that on handshake. And those range from 30 to 45 min, depending on the type of appointment that you would, that you want to select. And those are typically released one week in advance, right? So we would be posting, releasing next week’s appointments like yesterday or today. And so they are, especially at the beginning of the year, a little difficult to to get but keep checking back. And and if, if you can’t find an appointment, you can always email me to and I can help get you scheduled.
Aimee: And what would those appointments look like? So say, you’ve got someone who’s maybe a third year. Ph.D. student they’re, you know, progressing in their degree. And they’re just trying to think about. Do I want to go into industry or academia? And I don’t know how to tailor maybe my cover letter or my resume to the things I’m looking for. Could they come in to talk about that? Or what kind of things should someone expect in those appointments?
Lauren: Yeah, good question. So so, appointments can be virtual or in person. So we could do them either on Zoom or in our office here. And really they’re open ended. So we tailor them to each student’s needs. And so like, for your example there. If you just want to explore, I can show you, and kind of some tools that are available and resources for you to use like Beyond the Professoriate is a fantastic tool. If you’re kind of, you know, do you want to go towards industry? Do I want to be towards academia? How do I prep for both? In case I don’t decide until the last minute. What does that look like? So resources like Beyond the Professoriate, will be huge, and I can kind of point you to that direction and how to make sense of them and make them meaningful. And so you’re to not just kind of clicking around. But then we can also chat on on what, what that pulls up for you. So if you take like a skills or an interest assessment or a values assessment. We can make meaning of that together. And how do you actually make that actionable and what are some of those next steps that you should be taking. But I mean it could also just be, I have all this academic experience as a graduate student and doing research. But maybe I don’t have “experience”, right? I hear that a lot “I don’t have any experience”. And so being able to learn that what you do in grad school truly does count as experience and it’s really just how you translate that to an employer that’s the important piece. And so that’s often a lot of the time my conversations with people is, how do you, how do you make sense of what you’re doing as a grad student to an employer, right? And how do you tell that story to them. And so we can talk about that. Not just in your own narrative, when you’re talking about your career narrative, but in your resume and on your interviews. How to translate that language for them.
Aimee: I hear that a lot with my GIC mentors. They’re like, oh, this isn’t something I need to put on my resume because it wasn’t really beneficial to me in my my field, and I’m like it doesn’t really matter what field you go into that mentoring experience. Being a leader in a student organization. It might sound like something that wouldn’t really be helpful, especially if you’re like, I’m not really getting paid for it in some cases. Those things do have soft skills, at least that are transferable. So those are always really great appointments to have. Cause I think we all have hidden hidden things in our lives that we do, that we don’t think, translate they do.
Lauren: Yeah
Aimee: Do you have any advice for a first year graduate student when it comes to planning for internships and careers in the future?
Lauren: Yeah, my number one tip is informational interviewing. To me that is the best way to job search. It’s the best way to network. It’s just the best way to learn about what you want in general, and so if you haven’t heard the term informational interviewing, it’s just having a conversation with somebody who maybe is any type of position you might be interested in or works at a company you might be interested in. And you would just reach out to them. And and this is normal, it might be if I feel uncomfortable or awkward to just like reach out to somebody but reach out to them and ask if they’re willing to chat for 10-15 min about their career journey. So these people are in positions or at companies that you’re aspiring to be in. And how did they get there? What did they do in their grad career that was helpful for them? Did they have to close certain skills gaps? Did they have internships while they were grad students? And how did they translate their TAships to being, you know, something that highlights, their leadership and their organizational skills and all of those transferable skills we were just talking about. And so doing that is not only a good way to learn what you need to do during your grad program to hopefully make it easier once you’re ready to transition out. But it will also help you learn the language of a particular company, of a particular field. As I’m sure you’re learning as a grad student like, there’s a very specific academic, academic language that people use. And so sometimes different companies have different ways to explain things or what’s really important to them and so by hearing them talk about it you’re picking up on those those subtle things as well, and you’ll already kind of “speak the language” of that that that industry or that organization that you’re looking towards. And so I think that is incredibly helpful. And then you’re also building your network and networking is still the best way to get a job. Knowing, you know, someone that could potentially refer you down the road or let you know when there’s openings, inform you about the timeline so that you’re prepared. Those are all things that can be really invaluable in a job search. And so just going into those conversations, just wanting to learn, not asking questions of them. You’re not asking for an internship, or you’re not asking for a job or anything but just going in with curiosity. And having them share their story, can be really powerful.
Aimee: Yeah, I know for me, and maybe for you, since we went to the same grad school. It was a requirement for me to do an informational interview, and I was terrified. I was like, I do not want to bother these people in their career. But I was able to meet with someone in a career I was interested in and realized it wasn’t the best fit for me. And that was it would have been a bad path had I gone down that kind of part of higher education and so I’m really thankful for informational interviews. In that way I was able to then talk to some other people that were more on the programming side of things and be like, oh, that’s what I really like doing. I was really excited to talk to them. And so I think those kind of conversations can be helpful in guiding you in that way, too. Like am I interested in a career just because of money but then I hear what this person says about their work life balance and I have different priorities. Like those conversations can be really beneficial for people in those spaces. And some people don’t respond when you reach out. And that’s fine. I know I get people that reach out to me on Linkedin or through email and ask for informational interviews, and now I’m always excited to give them, because I know how beneficial it was for me.
Lauren: Right? Mmhmm
Aimee: And so it’s always really fun to be able to kind of pass that on, and that might be something that you find to. You do an informational interview with a couple of people now and then maybe 10 years down the line someone’s reaching out to you and so always kind of thinking about passing that forward is is fun, too. Thank you, Lauren, for joining us. I didn’t have any other questions. Was there anything else that you wanted to add? I think we covered it all?
Lauren: Yeah, no. We covered covered a lot. Feel free just to reach out. And you know, if you have any questions or you just, I know it’s overwhelming, especially if you’ve never applied to a job in the U.S.. I mean it. It’s overwhelming in general. So I’m always happy just to help guide you through the process, no matter what that looks like. So don’t hesitate reaching out. And yeah, I look forward to hopefully meeting with some of the folks who are listening in on the podcast right now.
Aimee: Perfect. And we’ll have another podcast coming up on A2i and what grad division is doing to help students get connected with industry partners as well, and Lauren is a part of that. I’ve seen her in a lot of those meetings, so I’m sure if you choose to be a part of A2i anytime in the future, you would get to meet Lauren there as well. But thank you again for coming, and we look forward to having you all join us again in the future.
Lauren: Thanks.