Question
I am 20 years old and going into my senior year of college shortly. I’ll be facing a tough job market. I am looking to work in the finance and investments industry next year and am trying to get as prepared as I can for one of the biggest decisions in my life.
All of the major financial services companies that I am looking at possibly working for have these large recruitment fairs, and almost none of them are coming to my school. (I go to a small private liberal arts college.) What am I to do?
It seems like all of the new hires out of college go through the same process of getting hired through Human Resources. (I am almost finished reading your book and I understand why you suggest avoiding HR and going instead to hiring managers.) It almost seems like I can’t escape the traditional hiring process as a new kid on the block. Any advice? Thanks.
P.S. I have had a couple of internships with local financial planners who have contacts deep within the big investment firms, and they have written me recommendations, but where do I go with this?
Nick’s Reply
It’s good to have letters of recommendation from the financial planners (FPs) you interned for, but what you really need are introductions. Ask those FPs to make a few calls to get you in the door. Alternately, ask them to get you some so-called “informational interviews” where you can ask some questions and meet the people you might be working for next. (For more about this, see How to Say It: Informational (gag!) Interviews.) Personal referrals like this are the coin of the realm.
In a tough job market, get in the right door
Another way to do this is to check your college’s alumni rolls for help getting in the door without first passing through HR. Find out which alumni work in finance and investments, call them up, and ask for advice and insight about the company they work for. Do not ask for job leads; that may turn them off. People love to give advice, especially to students at their alma maters, but they hate being burdened with requests to “submit my resume for me.”
So, talk shop with them. Explain that you have not started your job search yet and that you want to educate yourself about companies before you make job applications. Ask what they like and don’t like about their work, and how they advise you to prepare yourself in a tough job market. Most important, ask them if they’d be so kind as to refer you to a manager or two at their company, so you can “continue learning about the business.”
Get mentored past the HR department
I find that alumni tend to have a soft spot for students at their former schools. These are the people who can get you in the door ahead of the job fair recruits — and past the HR department. Just as important, when you finally get interviews, these same mentors can coach you on how to handle those meetings.
That’s how to bypass HR and get an insider’s edge on a job.
(Don’t make the mistake of relying on LinkedIn profiles to search for people that went to your school and work in a relevant company. As a rule attempts to use LinkedIn to get help are ignored by LinkedIn members.)
The problem with colleges and careers
Unfortunately, most colleges do a very poor job at helping students and grads with their careers. “Career offices” offer a rote system that’s not much better than handing you job listings and telling you to apply. The “resume help” and “interview advice” they provide is available at virtually any library.
College career offices should be creating a career component to every single course you take during your four years. While I have no beef with the idea that the purpose of college is to educate you broadly — not to deliver vocational training — I think it’s disingenuous of colleges to suggest that they bear little or no responsibility for getting you started on a good career. For the $50,000-$175,000-plus that you and your parents are investing in a degree, your school should be working much harder to ensure you graduate with a job. (See Colleges fail ‘How’.)
The alumni key to getting new grads in the door
The unemployment rate for recent college grads is between 5.8%-6.6%, the worst in a decade. Every school should ensure that every graduate leaves with a job by actively engaging alumni help to get those grads in the door. If the grads can’t get a job, the school and its alumni network have failed.
Alumni are key to the success of the newest alumni. The best donation alumni can make to their alma mater is career mentoring for the newest grads who will in turn become the newest donors! (I’m a big fan of “education for its own sake,” but I’m a bigger fan of return on education investment.) We’d see a quick shift in the relationship between colleges and the business world — but that’s another discussion.
Invest your time in developing personal contacts, and leverage your college to do it through alumni who can help you. I wish you the best.
How could you help a new college grad get their first job in a tough job market? Are there ways around the cattle-call “job fairs” and “recruiting days” where employers do little more than tell students to “apply online”? What more could colleges do to launch their graduates?
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I used to work doing prospect research for the Development Office at a well-known liberal arts college. One thing we did was check through upcoming reunion lists for potential donors to the alumni fund “Class Gift.” We often found recent alums with good jobs at major banks, etc.
It seemed to me that “major course of study” didn’t matter as much as you might think. The college was well-respected, and a degree with Honors in Art History or English Literature or whatever was understood to show that the student had ability. The social connections made at college facilitated introductions.
Recent alums (like 2 years ahead of the writer) are potential excellent resources for information and referrals. Also, fellow classmates, and their parents. (Don’t forget the parents! Many of them are well-connected, and many are themselves responsible for hiring at their companies.)
@JR: I agree course of study has little to do with it especially if its Liberal Arts. LA majors can be found in most areas of work. We’ve discussed this before: https://www.asktheheadhunter.com/16515/liberal-arts-degree-asset-or-albatross
And you make an important point I also agree with but failed to cover: classmates and their parents (and other family members) are excellent doorways to great advice and introductions!
I am a hiring manager. If you contact me about a posted job I am happy to talk to you and if I think there is potential, I will let Talent Acquisition know that I definitely want to consider and they will put you on my list. That said, I am very likely to schedule an interview with you. (In our company HR is what you deal with AFTER you are hired.).
Now as for a job: Go back to those people you interned with – would they want to take you on as an entry level employee?
As a financial person, you might want to start a business – any kind of a business that you are passionate about (for example, a restaurant, retail, a financial services company, or a fishing tackle manufacturer).
Another area: Get a certification. There is the old standby: CPA license. That will open a lot of doors. Want to help people? Baby boomers are retiring and people in my generation, Gen-X are not far behind (although I turn 60 this year and plan to work another 15 to 20 years – if that sounds crazy, look at the ages of the last two US presidents.). To do this you can become a CFP or Certified Financial Planner. There is also the Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) certificate. My sister has both of these and is wildly successful as a business owner. (It took her a long time to establish herself.). One of her businesses is a day spa (she took out a franchise.)
One accountant I talked to told me how she just loves numbers. Furthermore if you really like math you could become an actuary. That takes a long time but involves setting insurance premiums – there is a whole science depends on statistics. For example, if you live on a flood plain in New Orleans then your flood insurance will probably be very expensive. If you live on a mountain in the desert – not so much.
Finally, just keep trying things. Fail at some things. I have degrees in two fields and I tried but failed in a third. I turn 60 this year and am getting a second master’s degree. My company is paying for it.
Nick,
Great advice as always. I am part of the alumni network of my alma mater and am frequently contacted by students and recent grads seeking a mentor. The very first thing I do is tell them to subscribe to your newsletter (and buy a book or two).
Then I advise them on how to contact potential help using online postings and newspaper columns. Whatever those are. Most of all, I stress the importance of building and maintaining a network right now as they will be using it their entire careers. A colleague of mine just posted that he is looking for a new opportunity right now and said, “I have a strong inside lead at another company that looks very promising.”
And that’s how it works.