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Reed's Career Services
looking toward the future
Reed students who walk across campus to the career services office in the Dorothy Johansen House are about to make an important discovery: how to convert their liberal arts education, as well as their skills, values, and interests, into a paying job, maybe even a lifetime career.
Through workshops, internships, mock job interviews, job shadowing, interest and personality surveys, and information sessions with alumni, parent, and trustee speakers, students learn how to market their abilities so an employer will say, “You’re hired.”
“Unless you realize and appreciate your skills, it’s hard to sell them to an employer,” says Julie Kern Smith, career services director.
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While nearly 65 percent of Reed students go on to further education, many students enter the job market when they leave Reed. A few—not nearly enough, says Kern Smith—start thinking about careers as freshmen. Most wait until they are seniors in the last semester, or even until they are alumni who knock on her door three months after graduation.
“The reality is that Reedies always land on their feet,”
Kern Smith says. “My goal is to have them do that sooner, so that the flailing years
can be eliminated or shortened.”
They may not fully realize it yet, but Reed students are developing vital skills in the classroom that can be used in any career, notes Regina Mooney, vice president and dean of student services. They learn how to ask questions, how to look critically at material, how to argue with their peers, and how to negotiate.
“They also learn how to modify, compromise, and rework their hypotheses,” Mooney
says. “They acquire some virtues, such as humility. There is such a thing as intellectual
courage.”
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The program moved last year to roomier surroundings in the Johansen House, the former home of a history professor that now houses a staff of four. Administrative assistant Mary Keyes greets students and recommends services and resources to help them get started. Michelle LaRock, resident adviser and special projects coordinator, advises students on summer jobs and internships and critiques résumés. Natalie Marsh helps students with career-focused internships and coordinates SEEDS, the community service program.
Activities at the Johansen House include career workshops and alumni presentations. Students
write résumés there, devise strategies for internships and job searches
and find out how to search for summer and part-time jobs or research graduate schools.
A video recorder shows would-be applicants how they can improve their job interviewing
skills.
Students can get a cup of tea on the way to the computer or the backyard picnic table where, on a warm day, students catch some sun while reading resource materials.
Those materials range from a listing of current jobs in advertising and public relations, to a discussion about finding jobs in socially responsible companies and seeking positions abroad. One particularly thick packet is called “What Will Happen to Me After I Graduate From Reed?” It is a survey of Reed alumni who are experienced job searchers.
“We’re here to help students bridge their academic education with life after Reed, whether it is graduate work, a professional position, or travel,” says Kern Smith. “We’re ready to provide resources, advising, and employer contacts.”
Intelligence is not enough for students to automatically land a job, Kern Smith notes. “The first thing employers say is, ‘OK, you’re smart, what else can you do?’ That’s where students need to demonstrate experience or technical skills gained through internships or summer jobs. Employers want to know what kind of exposure students have had in that field,” she says.
Kern Smith helps students identify fulfilling careers by asking questions and having them fill out interest and personality surveys. Assessment tools include a computer software program called Pinpoint, which matches students’ interests, values, and skills with several occupations; it also provides information that includes labor market outlook, educational requirements, and salaries for those occupations.
The assessments may indicate that students need to acquire a few technical skills elsewhere, such as accounting and finance, reading a spreadsheet, or computer programming, Kern Smith says. It’s better to know that as a freshman or sophomore than as a senior faced with a thesis deadline, she adds.
Students can also develop skills through on-campus jobs or volunteer activities. In essence, Kern Smith says, job-related experience can come from almost anywhere and can bolster a young student’s résumé.
“A liberal arts education, plus internships, volunteer work, campus involvement, and an effective job search: that’s the formula for finding employment,” she says.
