Career Transitions

The Top Five Mistakes in Law School Personal Statements

Katharine Brooks, Ed.D. — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 17:27:56 +0000

It's law school application time and my office is located next to the office of our pre-law advisor for Liberal Arts Career Serivces, Tatem Oldham. I see a steady stream of students meeting with Tatem trying to decide everything from whether they should go to law school in the first place to determining which law school is the best choice. As she is every year at this time, Tatem is immersed in personal statements: good, bad, and ugly.

Law schools base their admission decisions on several factors: your grade point average, your LSAT scores, your background and experiences, and your personal statement or essay.

The personal statement is valuable to an admissions officer for several reasons-- it provides a sample of your writing style (and skill), it takes the place of an interview, and it provides a more personal introduction to a candidate. Since you only have about 500 words to work with, it's imperative that you create a statement that has impact, interest, and intelligence. Here's a link to a great resource for writing law school essays from Boston College.

Given that the personal statement can be a key factor in your admission to law school what should you avoid? I asked Tatem to give me the top five mistakes she sees in essays-and it only took her about two minutes to name them.

Top five mistakes on law school personal statements:

1. Failure to follow the directions. Each law school has its own requirements for the personal essay. Some will leave the topic open to you, but others will ask you to write about a specific subject. READ THE INSTRUCTIONS BEFORE YOU START WRITING YOUR ESSAY.

2. Grammatical and spelling errors. Remember, law schools are judging your writing skills. If you can't write a grammatically correct essay, you probably won't write a grammatically correct brief. Proofread. Proofread again. Ask someone else to proofread it. Do not rely on spell-check.

3. Leading with a famous quote and/or using trite phrases. Do not start your essay with "It was the best of times. It was the worst of times." Lead with your own words--not someone else's. Avoid using trite phrases like "I want to change the world", "I love the law", or "I want to be an international lawyer because I love to travel." They are meaningless and don't project a professional demeanor. (This is the law school equivalent of telling an employer you "want to work with people.") Dig deeper for your reasons for pursuing a legal career.

4. Emphatically stating your plan to specialize in an area of the law when nothing in your background backs that up. If you say you are destined to become a criminal lawyer, what have you done so far? Can you demonstrate concrete knowledge of the subject? Have you completed an internship with the local police force? Have you taken courses in criminology or criminal justice? If not, well then, criminal law is just a nice idea. You don't have the gravitas to back it up yet, so don't bring it up.

5. Focusing on a mentor or significant person in your life without bringing the topic back to you. If someone has influenced you to pursue a law career, that can be a great topic for an essay, but be sure you spend as much time discussing how you will use what you've learned from them, rather than spending the whole essay extolling their virtues.

You can find more helpful tips on the pre-law process through the Pre-law Advising Guide written by Tatem and the staff of Liberal Arts Career Services at The University of Texas at Austin. Please note: this is for personal use only; the guide is copyrighted by The University of Texas; all rights are reserved.

You can also find assistance through the Law School Admissions Council (LSAC).

One final comment: Write your statement yourself. Get help if you need it (it's always a good idea to get feedback), but write your own essay. Don't pay someone to write it for you- not only will the essay not be yours, you run the risk that a law school may discover you didn't write it and ruin any chance of acceptance. Writing a personal essay can help you clarify your intentions for going to law school and bolster your commitment to the field. Ideally, you will inspire yourself as you're writing. That, in and of itself, is a reason to write the essay.

You Majored in What? And You're Going to Med School?

Katharine Brooks, Ed.D. — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 21:34:04 +0000

In the world of linear career thinking we often take comfort in what we know to be "true." Pre-med students should major in biology, of course. Pre-law students should major in political science or economics. The problem is that the truth isn't nearly as obvious as it might seem. Or even true.

While waiting to do a television interview about my book yesterday, I had an interesting conversation with a dentist, Dr. Shane Matt, who was waiting to do an interview about good and bad Halloween candy. (By the way did you know that pretzels and raisins can be worse for your teeth than candy? But I digress...) When he learned that my book was about chaos theory and the lack of connection between a college major and the subsequent career, he laughed. He told me that although he was a science major in college, he now believed that the best pre-dental major would be art. He said that the fine motor skills a student would develop through art classes - not to mention the aesthetic eye needed for cosmetic dentistry-- would serve the student well in dental school and in the profession. He also said he wished he had taken more business courses-and that most pre-professional students would benefit from at least a minor in business.

This got me thinking about the most common question I get from parents of students who are thinking about going on to professional schools after college: what is the "best" major for medical school or law school? And they anticipate the linear answer: biology for medical school; political science for law.

Well, here comes the non-linear response: What would you like to major in? What courses interest you the most? Which faculty members do you enjoy learning from? What subjects do you like to read about? What books would you read even if they weren't required for a course?

Those questions will help you select a major that is likely to enhance your professional school application. First, it will show that you're not one of the herd. You have unique interests and ideas and will bring a different mindset and perspective to the profession. Law school admissions officers, for example, enjoy applications from dramatic arts and music majors- what a way to build "performance" skills for the courtroom. They are looking for intelligence and achievement-- a nontraditional major adds a layer of personality.

All right- a quick caveat: If you're excited about majoring in a traditional pre-professional major, that's fine. Lots of biology majors get into med school-- and lots of political science majors get into law school.

The keys to professional school admission are grades, scores on standardized tests (like the LSAT and the MCAT), well-rounded experiences and excellent recommendations. Your choice of major? Not so much. In fact, if you take courses you enjoy and want to study, your grades will likely be better thus bettering your chances of admission.

Keep in mind that regardless of your major if you're going into a health profession you will have to take a basic core of science courses-- - usually organic and inorganic chemistry, biology, physics and biochemistry. You can either take these courses throughout your regular college career, after graduation, or in the summers.

Philosophy, anthropology, and economics majors do pretty well in medical school admissions. While non-science majors generally make up less than 5% of the applicants to medical school, their admission percentage rate can be higher than traditional sciences-- in some cases over 50%. One student I worked with was a Latin/Classics major who was accepted to Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.

So if you're considering professional school, consider veering off the tried-and-true path. Research the schools you'd like to attend, make note of their admission requirements and make sure you take the necessary courses.

What should you major in? Follow your passion and make the connections between your major and your future career in your admissions essay. And, if you want to take the very insightful Dr. Matt's advice, add some business courses.

Illustration from MIT's Premed site.

Branding Part 2: Avoid the Kitchen Sink Resume

Katharine Brooks, Ed.D. — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 19:25:33 +0000

I recently conducted a branding exercise to prepare for a local television interview. I looked at how the job-seekers were presenting themselves to employers: what was their "brand" so to speak. (To learn the basics of branding see my previous post. And check out Dan Schawbel's Personal Branding Blog.)

The people I reviewed were all mid-career professionals who had been laid-off. One person was in marketing, one in consulting, and another in journalism. Three careers where one would assume the job seekers possessed a lot of marketing savvy. And they did.

Their online presence was generally good. Each had a Linked-in page that was up-to-date and they didn't have any embarrassing photos or public Facebook profiles. One was surprised to learn that his race times from several local biking competitions had been posted online, but that's not a bad thing-- in fact, that could be appealing to employers seeking someone with a competitive spirit. Another didn't realize that a speech she gave had been turned into a podcast. (That's why you want to "Google" yourself- you might be surprised at what's out there.)

All of them were networking well: they had told everyone they knew that they were job-seeking, they attended professional association meetings and kept up with the latest information in their fields, they were registered with various job search engines to get the latest job postings in their field, etc.

But they all fell down in a key area: their resumes. There's something about a resume that throws off even the most talented folks. Whether it's fear that we'll leave out the very item an employer wants to see, a desire to show our tremendous record of accomplishment, or we're just a little too caught up in our egos and not the employer's, the "everything but the kitchen sink" resume virtually guarantees your job search will go no further.

A kitchen sink resume is the antithesis of what employers are seeking. Employers don't have hours to ponder the nuances of your resume to find that gem of an experience you had three years ago. They are faced with large stacks of resumes and are looking for ways to eliminate you, not keep you, unfortunately. And the kitchen sink resume is the first to go.

Here are the characteristics of a kitchen sink resume and tips for fixing it:

1. More than 1 page for a new professional; more than 2 pages for a mid-career person. (There are certain exceptions: vitas for college faculty and research positions require lists of publications or research studies which can take several pages.) But unless you're applying to Harvard or its corporate equivalent in research and development, cut it down to two pages max. If you must have a multi-page resume, consider putting it on a website or including it in your Linked-In page as backup information, not your primary marketing piece.

2. Margins set at 1/2 inch; fonts smaller than 10 points; no spaces between categories and entries. In an effort to keep a resume down to 1 or 2 pages, people start playing with the layout. Don't. Keep the margins at 3/4 inch at least and allow spaces between the sections of your resumes and your jobs. This means you'll need to go over your text carefully and keep only the most relevant and appropriate entries.

3. Bullet point lists of 6 or more items per job. Bullet points are meant to highlight. When you have more than 5 bullet points, you're no longer highlighting, you're writing a strange form of poetry. It's better to have a few sentences or two that describe your key responsibilities and then use the bullet points to highlight key accomplishments. Not every accomplishment-- the most important ones.

4. Too much emphasis on responsibilities, not outcomes. Some resumes contain entries that essentially read like "put key in lock, turned key, opened door, entered room" telling us way too much about the process than the outcome. Here's an example: "Provided constructive feedback to the team, and met with team leaders to provide additional feedback on a weekly and as-needed basis." OK, you supplied feedback. For what purpose? With what outcome? Do we care that it was weekly? Or as-needed? The employer is more interested in your ability to complete the project in record time or make the team function more cohesively because of your feedback. This is an entry that either needs to disappear or be re-worked to demonstrate the value of all that feedback.

5. More than one job objective. "Seeking position in marketing, management, public relations, or human resources that will benefit from my extensive corporate background and strong work ethic." The employer is not a career counselor and sending a resume with too many career options highlights your lack of knowledge about either the employer or the positions available. If your skills really do apply to all those fields, create separate resumes for each field and use them when there is an opening. Also, don't talk about your strong work ethic in your resume. Demonstrate it through your experiences.

6. Not targeted. This is the fatal error. A kitchen sink resume basically says, "let me show you everything I've ever done with the hope that you'll like something." It screams amateur, and it says that you've probably sent the same resume to 100 other employers, maybe more. Employers want to know that you think their job is special: that you are truly interested in making a good impression. And a resume that isn't targeted to the position doesn't do that.

By the way-- want to know the one clue that reveals you likely have a kitchen sink resume? In describing how hard they're working on the job search, a job-seeker will say something like "I've sent out 200 resumes and I haven't gotten any responses." Sending out 20 carefully written and targeted resumes (combined with networking) will result in a much better outcome than sending 200 kitchen-sink resumes.

Need help with your resume? Here's one of my favorite resume guides. About.com has some pretty good resume advice also.

Have a good time examining your brand, and please share your resume questions, suggestions, or topics for future postings.

Photo credit

We're All Branded. What's Yours?

Katharine Brooks, Ed.D. — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 15:36:36 +0000

A local television station recently asked me to do an interview about "branding" yourself for the job search. The producer sent me the resume and job search history for someone in the consulting field who has been seeking a job for several months with little success despite several years of experience. She asked me if I would speak about how this individual could better brand herself.

I'm not always comfortable with this notion of branding. I don't like thinking of people as commodities like toothpaste, and I wonder about our increasingly narcissistic culture with its emphasis on style over substance. But I've seen the success job-seekers have had when they apply the techniques of branding, and I realize that it's just the current term for what we've always tried to do in the job search: create a good impression.

Branding started as a marketing term referring to the image, look, and reputation of a product or a company. Think Starbucks, Nike, or Google. Their logos and "look" are instantly recognized because they've branded their products and services well. Most people are aware that any business needs to develop its brand. But branding applies to individuals as well. Consider Lance Armstrong-- his yellow LIVESTRONG wristband helped create a powerful brand.

Branding isn't limited to celebrities or media figures either. Branding applies to anyone who wants to present a particular identity and image, and can be particularly powerful when applied to the job search. And it's just as important for the first-time job seeker just out of college to the executive with many year's experience.

One of the leaders in the personal branding field is Dan Schawbel, a social media specialist who, not surprisingly, manages a popular personal branding website (with blog, Twitter, and Facebook links) and has written a successful personal branding book, Me 2.0. Dan is an expert at helping other people develop their brands. He regularly interviews key professionals from a variety of fields sharing their advice with his many followers. Dan interviewed me last spring when my book was published. His information can be extremely helpful to job seekers whether just starting out or further along in a career.

A particular value of branding comes from the mindset you develop when you're branding successfully. Branding means focus. Branding makes you focus in on your key strengths: talents, education, experience, personality, etc. Branding can promote self-esteem, give you confidence, and help you feel in charge of a situation-- particularly helpful in the job market when it's easy to feel out-of-control. You analyze yourself in terms of the marketplace, identify what will be most effective, and promote that. And what's good about this is that everyone can stand out. Everyone has skills and strengths to present.

In the job-search world, first impressions are everything. Your resume will only be reviewed for a few seconds before a decision is made to keep it or toss it. You only have about a minute at the interview or job fair to shake the interviewer's hand, look them in the eye, and say something that will make or break that important first impression. Branding your job search materials (resume, cover letter, writing samples, portfolio, etc.) are a great starting point for developing the confidence to face the employer.

So how do you start creating your brand? Here are three basic steps to get you started:

1. Analyze yourself.

What are your strengths?
What career field are you interested in?
What would you bring to that field?
If you had to identify the three things you want an employer to know about you, what would they be?
What is your brand?

My favorite strategy for analyzing yourself is to create mindmaps that examine your life from the beginning until now-- looking for threads and themes of interests, talents, and experiences you've enjoyed, and skills you've developed. I call my maps "Wandering Maps" and you can read more about them in my book, "You Majored in What? Mapping Your Path From Chaos to Career."

2. Create job search collateral.

Dan Schawbel calls this your "personal branding toolkit." Once you know your greatest strengths, you're ready to create your resume and other materials to demonstrate those strengths in a clear, succinct manner that will appeal to the employer.

Is the "look" of your material professional and designed for the field you're seeking?
Do you have a good writing sample if needed for your field? For more information, see my blog on writing samples.
Consider your wardrobe: is your interview outfit congruent with the job you're seeking?
Is your online presence good? Do you have a linked-in account and is it up-to-date? Many of us (I'm guilty too) create online profiles and then let them gather dust. Set a schedule for regularly checking your online presence.
Have you "Google'd" yourself recently? Even if you're not in the job market it's a good idea to check on your online profiles regularly. Google yourself and see what shows up. (If you have a common name, google your name, adding the city and state.)

3. Develop and continue to market your brand.

As you go through the search process, study what works about your brand and what doesn't. Have you focused well toward one career field-- and has that been successful? Or are you too focused to the point where employers can't see your general skills? Have you developed a brand that is consistent with the industry in which you work? A well-received brand for the advertising field is probably not going to be as well-received by a financial institution.

In my next blog, I'll walk you through my branding process with the "client" from the television interview. Meanwhile, check out these blog postings on branding: Personal PR, Branding for executives, and BizzyWomen.

Photo Credit

Great Job Resource- No Dogs Need Apply

Katharine Brooks, Ed.D. — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 19:16:16 +0000

MacGregor, my Scottish terrier, is excited today about an excellent opportunity to earn his MBA online thanks to a diploma mill operating outside the USA. Check out this dog's story about his degree. I learned about this from a posting in the Chronicle of Higher Education about a group called GetEducated.com which rates online education programs and helps consumers identify the scam schools, presumably to avoid wasting their money. Fake degrees are a major headache for employers, and are part of the bigger issue of lying on a resume. In the future, I'll post more about this topic, but I think it's safe to say that if a dog can get your degree, you probably shouldn't put it on your resume.

For the moment, I'm more interested in pointing you to a great job search resource: the Chronicle of Higher Education

Don't let the publication's name fool you: in addition to faculty and administrative postings for colleges and universities, they list job opportunities in other educational organizations, research institutes and think-tanks, nonprofit and government agencies, and even some for-profit groups such as consulting firms.

Not surprisingly, the majority of positions require at least a master's degree. But even if you don't qualify for the positions,they post thoughtful articles about the search which can be applicable to a variety of professional settings. Some articles are limited to subscribers, but most of their information is free. They offer columns on managing your career , improving your performance at work, and general advice columns.

A particularly helpful aspect is they provide information from the employer's perspective as well as the job seeker's. It's imperative that job seekers get into the mind of the employer before they write their resume or go to the interview. For example, a recent posting is called "The Aggressive Online Search." Usually a title like that leads to an article warning job seekers about their Facebook pages or other potential digital dirt. This one warns employers about the hazards of their online presence.

Search the archives for valuable articles: I discovered one today about the perils of blogging for job seekers. Hmm....I'm not even job-seeking and it still makes me pause.

Oh, about MacGregor. He's not going to get his MBA. He flunked puppy kindergarten at PetSmart.

Depression, Perspective and the Job Search

Katharine Brooks, Ed.D. — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 19:26:18 +0000

My training in graduate school centered on Adlerian psychology and cognitive-behaviorism. I always liked Alfred Adler's positive approach to problems and his "act as if" philosophy-- the notion that you might not be where you want to be, but that it was OK to pretend while you worked on overcoming challenges.

Some look at this positive approach and cry Pollyanna. Who are we to be positive when so much is wrong?

The truth needs to be faced. Reality can't be ignored. But as Adler and other great minds have found, the truth is a moving target and subject to interpretation. Anais Nin said, "We don't see things as they are-- we see things as WE are." So when we look at the economy and employment we use our personal prism. For some it is business as usual, quite frankly. Their jobs are safe and their income is secure. For others it has been nothing short of devastating.

And that is the bottom line. We can only start from where we are and move forward.

As a career counselor with many years experience I can tell you that change is the one thing you can count on in the job search process. Today's situation may not be tomorrow's situation. I have seen people go from devastated to elated in one afternoon thanks to answering a question the right way in an interview, having a chance conversation with a stranger which leads to a job, or getting an interview after anxiously uploading a resume.

I started my counseling career working at a state vocational rehabilitation office. Some of my clients had suffered traumatic brain injuries in motorcycle or sports-related accidents and had to learn to walk and read and write all over again-- for them, employment was a distant dream. They were in a role they neither chose nor wanted. Some clients were deaf or blind and lived on country roads far away from gainful employment-- regardless of the economy.

One of my favorite clients was an 18-year-old who had been in special education her whole life. Her IQ was almost two standard deviations below the mean. She wanted a career helping others. In school, she told me, she liked helping the children who weren't as smart as she was. She wanted the same kind of job in the "real world." And she and I found one: she thrived in her job at an information kiosk in a local department store where she was able to answer the basic questions most visitors had. She was needed and helpful and pleasant to every customer.

Later, as a school psychologist I worked with adolescents with developmental disabilities and helped them formulate career plans, however limited other individuals might have found them.

I think about those clients when I work with people who are struggling in today's economy. We all have barriers to success. Some barriers are easy to see-- some are not. Being positive in the face of the daily barrage of negativity doesn't mean you choose not to see it: it means you choose to accept it and move on. Because you really have no other choice.

But there are times when it's hard to see anything but the bleak present. When you have lost a job, or are fearful that you will lose a job, it is hard to do that "glass half-full" thing. In fact, not only does the glass appear half-empty, the water seems to be running out rapidly.

If this is how you're feeling, I want to give you one invaluable gift: perspective. And to acquire perspective, I will recommend just one resource-- a book I have given to my clients for over twenty years:

Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy by Dr. David Burns.

The link will take you to the Amazon listing for it, but it is likely available at any book store or public library.

There are many books I've found helpful for job-seekers and I will continue to bring them up in future postings, but for now I want to clear away the clutter. You probably have enough stuff rattling around in your head without a list of fifty helpful resources. Dr. Burns' book is invaluable for anyone who is struggling with issues related to depression, anger, poor self-esteem, anxiety, guilt, etc. Even though this is not a traditional job-search book, his homework assignments and exercises can all be applied to your job search.

Sometimes one small step is all it takes to change your perspective and your life.

Working Worried and White Collar Hollers

Katharine Brooks, Ed.D. — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 19:25:52 +0000

I've been out of the blogosphere since July partly due to a vacation, but mostly due to work commitments, and it's time to catch up. Seven weeks doesn't seem like a lot of time, but when I ponder what's come up since I last posted, it seems much longer. Here are some observations from the past seven weeks, in no particular order...

The Working Worried. While much media focus is on unemployed individuals, an article by Caitlin Williams in Career Convergence magazine published by the National Career Development Association discusses a growing discomfort of the "survivors" in the workplace-- those who still have jobs but wonder for how long.

You're Majoring in What? As students return to college or start their first year, that "Major Question" begins to haunt them: "What are you going to major in? And what are you going to do with that?" See my posting for more info on this decision-- which is as unimportant or important as you choose to make it.

Unemployment Continues to Rise. Despite small bursts of optimism in the media, the job market has not improved, and in fact the unemployment rate continues to rise. It will take the creation of millions of new jobs before the unemployment figures improve significantly. A recent AP article in the Austin American Statesman article titled "Meltdown 101" pretty much describes it all.

Insecure Secure Fields. Finding secure employment fields is getting harder. When the recession first started, higher education was considered a "safe bet" for employment. Colleges and universities were viewed as relatively stable: no matter how bad the economy was, students would still go to school. But, as the recession dragged on, shrinking college endowments, student loan money, family incomes and savings, and state allocations all converged to squeeze tight budgets tighter. The California system was one of the first to falter, followed by small colleges and state funded institutions. And so educators at all levels are hearing a lot about hiring freezes and layoffs along with the "do more with less" mantra.

When Panic Attacks. I read an excellent book by Dr. David Burns, one of my favorite writers in the field of psychology, "When Panic Attacks." Dr. Burns offers a variety of creative techniques for conquering anxiety, and I plan to blog about applying those techniques to the job search process in future posts.

White Collar Holler. A musician friend died during this period. Nigel Russell was a very talented member of the South Austin Bakery Jam (our motto: "We're all good at something else"). Born in Scotland, raised in Canada, and transplanted to Austin, Nigel performed with a variety of musicians and groups. In his high school days he played music with his friend, the brilliant Canadian folksinger Stan Rogers, and later composed "The White Collar Holler" (hear Stan Rogers perform it on this YouTube of a radio broadcast),a clever modern-day adaptation of a work song for those who toil at computers all day. When I teach my "Liberal Arts in Management" class, I always play that song for my students. Like many artists, Nigel didn't support himself exclusively by performing; he had side businesses in boat and house building, which brings up another trend that seems to be growing, both in recent college graduates and mid-career workers:

Career Cobbling. I'm hearing more and more stories from recent college graduates working two and sometimes three part-time jobs, as well as freelancing or using their talents to start a small business on the side. Most career centers are structured around a more traditional single-employer model-- I predict more of us will be offering workshops on career cobbling this year as our students face what may be the most difficult job market since World War II.

There's a lot to blog about in the coming months. We're all well aware of the bad news-- so how do we continue to move forward in our careers despite the recession? I'll be back with more Career Transitions postings: your questions and suggestions for topics are always welcome.

Photo credit

Colleges, Careers and Salaries: Should We All Become Engineers?

Katharine Brooks, Ed.D. — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 20:38:06 +0000

They're probably the two questions most often asked of college and university career centers:

1. What are your graduates earning? and

2. What do your ______ majors earn?

An article making the rounds today based on college/career data released by Paycale.com attempts to answer those questions. It's an admirable effort, and potentially can provide helpful information, but it is also fraught with misunderstandings and faulty logic.

From an outsider's point of view the questions are quite logical and understandable. Won't surveys like this help us predict the best major to pursue to ensure a financially-secure future?

Usually asked by a parent who's getting ready to spend a lot of money on an education, you want to know if Jimmy majors in Spanish, let's say, will he earn less after he graduates than if he majors in engineering? Let's go out on a limb on this one: probably. Or another version, if Jimmy goes to Important Ivy League School will he have a better starting salary than if he goes to Big State School? Perhaps. Perhaps not.

And herein lies the problem with the questions: they reduce a complex situation (the "value" of a particular college or major) to a simple variable (income). And the income associated with the college or major may not even be accurate. Because salaries are tied to career fields, career titles, and geographic locations much more than they are tied to a college, university, or major. So while the questions are logical and simple, the answer is not.

Not surprisingly, Payscale.com found that, overall, engineering majors earn the most money. OK. Now what do we DO with that information? Does this mean we should all drop what we're doing and enroll in engineering programs? Should Jimmy major in engineering to ensure a good job in four years? After all, if a major is shown to pay well, why not pursue it?

I don't know-- ask the students who chose a finance major four years ago (at the time a "hot" profession) and are now struggling to find a job. Or ask the aerospace engineers who saw the bottom drop out of their field when the government reduced the space program. Because, ultimately while all of these statistics provide interesting water cooler talk, and I guess, an opportunity for engineering majors to pat themselves on the back, their usefulness drops rapidly.

Career services personnel across the nation struggle with the best way to collect this data, and I can tell you that Payscale has taken on a daunting statistical task. Here are just some of the challenges to quantifying salary info related to colleges and majors:

Salaries are squidgy-sometimes they include bonuses or fringe benefits.There's no way to know if such factors were included.
The salaries are generally self-reported: I get to tell the surveyor how much I earn. Quite frankly, I can make it up and no one will know.
The response rate to most post-graduate surveys is very low (often under 20%) particularly if the institution can't afford to conduct follow-up surveys.
The data can be influenced by people who either want to brag about their great salary/title or those who are angry that they are underemployed or unemployed. Now in theory, sheer numbers of respondents will level that playing field, but if only a few respond the data can be meaningless.
Payscale based their information on data collected by the schools themselves and can't guarantee how it was collected.

One year I compiled salary data for a small liberal arts college, and only two philosophy majors responded to the survey: one worked for the Peace Corps and was earning about $2,000; the other was part of a tech-based start-up business and earned $80,000. This makes for a mean starting salary for philosophy majors of $41,000. And a totally meaningless figure. But nonetheless when included as part of a larger report, where individual differences can‘t be identified, that year the "mean" salary for philosophy majors was $41,000. You better hope you're not making any decisions based on that figure.

Low reporting numbers are an inherent problem with this type of research. The National Association for Colleges and Employers reports salary survey results quarterly based on findings from colleges and universities across the country, which are as accurate as they can be, but even then some of the salary findings, particularly for less-popular majors are based on only a few respondents.

And the data get even murkier when we look at the median salary for mid-career graduates. According to Payscale.com, the data they collected for mid-career salaries only take into account the graduates who did not pursue professional/graduate degrees. At many liberal arts schools, that knocks out around 40% of the population, and arbitrarily lowers median salaries by excluding most high-paying professions (like lawyer and doctor) which require graduate degrees.

Individual stories and situations are lost. The "underemployed" graduate working as a waitress often writes on the survey "I'm just waiting to start law school in the fall." But that won't be reported. The salary and job title will and subsequently pull down the ranking of that school.

So kudos to Payscale for trying to herd these cats. I hope that someday we'll have a better system for collecting the data.

But as a career counselor I advise you to read the statistics for general interest, enjoyment, or maybe even to see where your school ranks. Better yet, use them as the start of a more thoughtful conversation about what school to attend or what major to select based on other factors beside a starting salary.

What school or a major will help you shine?
What will you learn by pursuing your major?
What do you want to think about over the next four years?
What world do you want to immerse yourself in?
What type of problems do you want to solve and what major will teach you to solve them?

The answers to these questions can't be found in aggregate statistics; they are very much about you, the individual student.

By the way, according to the research, my institution, The University of Texas at Austin, is in the "Top 50 Colleges for Getting Rich." New graduates have a median starting salary of $50,000. Considering we have over 100 majors at UT, I'm still figuring out how to best use that information.

Wandering Into the Innovation Economy

Katharine Brooks, Ed.D. — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 16:50:12 +0000

The news about the job market isn't getting any better as unemployment rates continue to rise. The latest catch-phrase is "jobless recovery" based on the notion that the economy will improve but many jobs will be lost forever.

News like this can make us all feel helpless and at the mercy of uncontrollable external forces. If you're unemployed this has to be particularly scary news, and even if you're working we all know the feeling that a paycheck today doesn't necessarily guarantee one tomorrow. And there is no doubt that reality is setting in for certain industries. It is the nature of jobs to change and evolve over time. (Imagine a help-wanted ad for a "webmaster" in 1980 or for a "blacksmith" today.)

There was much talk about the new "knowledge economy" in the late 20th century, and now we're hearing about the "innovation economy" as the latest source for jobs. The innovation economy rests on the ability to create new ideas and turn them quickly into new products or technology.

We have been moving away from a manufacturing-based economy for decades now, and yet reporters regularly interview people who react like this is new information which they didn't see coming.

I'm reminded of a saying in Alcoholics Anonymous, "Your best thinking got you here." It's a double-edged saying: on the one hand, you could argue that your best thinking got you to a meeting that's going to change your life for the better; on the other hand, your best thinking caused you to drink too much to begin with. But what is clear in that message is that you need to change your thinking if you're going to change your life.

The same message applies to your work life. Your best thinking got you into whatever job you held. Will the same "best thinking" help you find a new job? If your best thinking was to choose one career and stick to it regardless of economic trends then it's probably time to re-think your plans. How did you select your career path? Did you choose it or did it choose you? Were you influenced by where you lived, what your parents did, or what looked "good" to others?

So take a moment and keep thinking about this. Do the choices you made then make sense now? Knowing what you know now, would you choose this path again? If not, what would you do instead?

When you survey the present economic landscape, what career now sounds best?

Better yet, instead of racking your brain for new career ideas, why not relax and let your mind wander.

An interesting article in the Wall Street Journal written by Robert Lee Hotz discusses the value of a wandering mind, particularly in this new innovation economy where ideas are key to our futures. Sometimes the best ideas occur when we are wandering, or as the author of the article says, "our brain may be most actively engaged when our mind is wandering." It turns out that "wandering is a much more complex state" than previously thought.

As one who advocates "wise wandering" (my career coaching system), I concur. In a blog posting awhile back, I discussed my theory of career "wandering": the notion that some of the best careers are discovered by wandering, by trying things out and seeing what happens.

We tend to put down the person who doesn't have a clear career goal, who jumps from one job to another, assuming that they are dilettantes of sorts, incapable of committing or making a decision. And, perhaps some are; but that doesn't invalidate the concept of wandering. Some of our best discoveries come from wandering.

So what ideas do you have for your future? What skills do you have and what skills would you like to develop? This is not the time for excuses: it is the time to wander. Ideas aren't limited to the young or the well-educated. Colonel Sanders had a 7th grade education and started his first KFC franchise at age 65 with his first social security check.

Not sure you're an "idea" person? Have you ever solved a problem? Have you fixed something? Did you ever come up with a creative solution? You might have more ideas than you realize-- or perhaps your best idea might be to partner up with an "idea" person who isn't as good at carrying out the necessary tasks as you are. There's always a need for support people behind the idea person.

Crisis spurs innovation, and virtually every economic downturn results in new industries dominating the scene. So if this economy has tossed you off the merry-go-round, how to you plan to get back on in the new economy?

Start reading. Start talking to people about new ideas. Wander-- get out of your comfort zone. If you hang out with the same people, maybe it's time to join some new groups. Check meetup.com which sponsors about 65,000 groups across the country. Many are focused on business start-ups or innovation. If you can't find a group you're interested in, start your own. You never know whom you'll meet.

Check your Chamber of Commerce for monthly meetings or networking sessions. The life of an entrepreneur can be tiring and lonely-- maybe you'll meet an entrepreneur with a great idea who could use your help. There may not be much money in it at first, but if the business takes off, you're there from the beginning.

With some new training, new ideas, or new energy you just might find a whole new life. The classic business maxim is "find a need and fill it." Here's a great blog on innovation from Dave Pollard with lots of ideas. What are the needs in your community? What ideas do you have based on working in whatever industry you were in? What would improve the field?

Start wandering. Your best thinking is yet to come.

Photo credit

In A Bad Economy Is Any Employment Good?

Katharine Brooks, Ed.D. — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 14:38:13 +0000

A popular BBC article this week about a job posting for a witch reminded me of a paper I wrote in college many years ago on what sociologists call "marginally deviant occupations." So named because they are on the margin between legal and illegal, they skirt the edge of societal boundaries for acceptance.

At the time I wrote the paper, they included such vocations as stripper, fortune-teller, and carnival worker.

But as society and ethics have evolved, and the job market continues to look gloomy, have formerly marginally deviant occupations moved into the mainstream? Or are certain careers always going to carry stigma and shame, and subject their practitioners to ridicule?

At the time I wrote my paper, "fortune-telling" was essentially a con game preying upon poor and ill-educated clients. But since then, the "New Age" movement has legitimized many career paths and it is not unusual to find psychic fairs, new age bookstores and, yes, even practicing witches, in many communities. But the field hasn't become totally legitimate yet--ads for "Psychic Phone Readers" for 900 numbers can be found online and it's not clear how the employer will determine the true "psychic" skills of the candidates.

Strippers have become "exotic dancers" and the small-town carnivals which once attracted drifters and individuals with criminal backgrounds have been replaced by major business operations of state fairs and amusement parks. Even Las Vegas has gone legit: sports bookmaking is flirting with legitimacy as more states permit the practice.

Ironically, legitimate professions can have their marginal edge: ask a New York Times reporter if s/he would be willing to work for a supermarket tabloid. Even a career in writing puts one at risk for being labeled marginally deviant. The behavior of doctors is under intense scrutiny due to several highly public celebrity deaths possibly linked to doctor malpractice. Doctors and pharmacists are themselves at high risk for drug abuse. Nonprofit leaders have been caught mismanaging donations. Teachers get caught in sexual affairs with their underage students. Every week a new scandal seems to erupt from corporate, education, nonprofit and governmental sectors. This type of behavior teeters on the edge of marginal deviance and often falls into illegal behavior.

Around tax time this year, Business Week online described the boom in opportunities for tax preparers, as well as the lack of regulation in the field and the potential for incompetence and fraud among tax preparers, noting that most states have more stringent licensing of beauticians than tax preparers.

The acting profession offers high unemployment rates even in good times, and its practitioners are used to taking jobs that will pay bills-- whether a film will go straight to DVD isn't always the main concern when money is needed. The rationalization is that actors want to act, so they don't worry about the venue. The truth is, though, that there is a career ladder in the film industry and reality TV is considered one of the lower rungs.

Reality TV opens up a whole new world of marginal careers. When does being a train wreck become a job? What is it like to live your life for other people's amusement and entertainment? Are the people who do this really laughing all the way to the bank, as some have said-- or is the internal psychological toll ultimately more damaging? How do you cope with exposing your life for the world's examination and potential ridicule?

Nadya Suleman, aka the Octomom, received much scorn for reportedly considering reality TV options. But, really, what are the money-making and career options for Ms. Suleman, given the choices that she has made in her life so far? At one time she waxed rhapsodic about finishing her master's in counseling (Nadya, have you checked the average salaries for counselors recently? You can't support 14 children on that.) A typical career with a typical work schedule and a typical salary simply won't work for someone in her situation.

Exploiting one's personal life for money is not new. During hard economic times, entertainment serves as a valued distraction from the day-to day reality of our lives. The Octomom obsession isn't really a surprise and runs an interesting parallel with the Dionne Quintuplets during the Depression.

And, interestingly enough, that's where marginally deviant occupations function in many individual's lives. In some cases, they are the last refuge for individual who cannot find employment elsewhere due to criminal records, dire economic straits, high unemployment or a lack of marketable skills. In the midst of this is the need to put food on the table and in an economic crisis, people will do what they need to do even if it means taking a less-than-perfect career path.

Ironically, it's not unusual for those engaged in marginally deviant, even criminal, behavior to transition into a job that exploits their powers for good, so to speak. Hackers are regularly hired by traditional computer companies to develop powerful safeguards from other hackers. Safe-crackers have been hired by security firms and mediums are used by police departments. In some cases, laws have been enacted to keep criminals from profiting from their crimes by writing books, etc.

So this economy may lead some people, regardless of their profession, down that slippery slope to marginal deviance, although hopefully not into true deviance or criminal behavior. What is going to be more interesting is, as the economy improves, what will be the psychological consequences for those who worked in the marginally deviant occupations?

Psychological studies reveal that practitioners in marginally deviant fields use rationalization and neutralization ("oh it's not so bad") to calm the cognitive dissonance that comes from behaving in a manner which is contrary to their true nature. Many use denial and role-taking as a way to cope, which will get them through the crisis period, but what about the aftermath? Will there be a psychological hangover, or even a new type of PTSD response, when people are able to return to more legitimate professions?

Quite frankly, I look forward to a time when I have to answer questions about transitioning from a marginally deviant occupation to a legitimate one.

That will be a sign of true economic recovery.