Great Recession-Era Alums Share Career Advice for Today's Grads

Today鈥檚 graduating seniors are facing one of the toughest markets since the financial crisis more than a decade ago. Who better to offer encouragement and practical advice than Recession-era grads?

With that in mind, the Career & Civic Engagement Center organized two panels featuring alums now working in finance, nonprofit, marketing, and tech share advice for launching ones career in uncertain times.

The panels, titled Creativity and Resilience in Todays Job Search, are available for viewing.


The wide-ranging advice included ideas that serve well in the best of times. Piyali Bhattacharya 07 recommended, 鈥淚f you can, find a mentor.鈥 Janet Lee 鈥07 cautioned against rushing off to grad school. And Sumaya Abdurrezak 05 offered, 鈥淏e prepared to be unprepared.鈥

Josephine Karianjahi '09 said, 鈥淪tay connected to people,鈥 and the importance of networking鈥攖hrough the 魅影直播 community, the Tri-Co, and beyond鈥攚as a theme echoed by virtually all the participants. Rachel Townsend 09 gave first-hand testimony in her account of landing her current job through a fellow alum she met at a 魅影直播-sponsored event.

Along those lines, Cate Megley 08 gave props to the resources available through the College. 鈥淢awrter Connect is a really good resource,鈥 she said. 鈥淭alk to people. That鈥檚 how I got all my jobs because I talked to people.鈥

Likewise, many emphasized the need for perspective鈥攁nd flexibility. 鈥淵our career is long and you will make mistakes,鈥 Sara Koff 08 said. 鈥淏eing flexible is really important. You鈥檙e going to be working for the next 40 years so what you do in the next 18 months doesn鈥檛 define you.鈥

Other perennial job-hunting tips also got offered: do your research, follow up, and proofread your emails and resume.

Some advice, though, was calibrated very much to the moment. Nydia Palacios 鈥09 said, 鈥淵ou have to have faith that things are going to work out in the end. But at the same time, you have to recognize your current reality, which, for you guys and for me when I graduated, is that you鈥檙e going to hit a pretty tough job market. So the way that reality worked out for me was that I wasn鈥檛 going to get my first job as my dream job.鈥

Likewise, Lily Chen 08 advised taking the long view: 鈥淣one of us is saying this is going to be an easy ride,鈥 she said. 鈥淵ou are going to have a lot of people say no to you before you get yesses. Take this time as a learning opportunity and when you reflect back, you鈥檙e going to be, like, I learned so much about myself, I learned about the people who are going to be there for me鈥攂ecause that is huge鈥攁nd you鈥檙e going to grow as a person as well.鈥

Erica Seaborne 09 talked up the value of a 鈥渇or-now鈥 job鈥攕omething she did in her first years out of college. 鈥淚n the beginning,鈥 she said, 鈥渋t felt bad: I鈥檓 not being successful. But in the time that I was there, I learned so much鈥攚hat I liked, what I didn鈥檛 like. Keep learning while you鈥檙e there and keep talking to people about what you want your next step to be.鈥

Published on: 05/20/2020