RESUMES
Facing
Job Facts
Penn teaches realities
There are things about life on the job
that they just don’t teach you in
school—ordinarily. But at the Univer
sity of Pennsylvania, career counselors are
trying to make sure that students prepare
for some harsh new realities. After an un
dergraduate was denied employment last
year when corporate recruiters gave his
handwriting sample a negative evaluation,
the Penn placement office began asking
interviewers to fill out an information
form, stating which pre-employment tests
they would require of students. IBM, Inter
national Paper and General Electric have
already informed the school that they will
be testing for drugs.
Penn won’t allow recruiters to test on
campus. But counselors are warning all
students who attend placement seminars
to expect drug testing at off-campus inter
views with large companies. A positive test
result could cost them a job. "The risks are
too great to waste on an evening of fun,”
says one senior.
At the graduate level, Penn’s Wharton
School of Business now offers a noncredit,
yearlong course called Career Planning.
About 85 percent of the first-year M B A.
students voluntarily attend the biweekly
sessions. For the most part, the course tries
to show students that they are not just
looking for a job, they’re planning their
lives. "We try to teach them that a career is
over a lifetime,” says Suzanna Miller, asso
ciate director of career development and
placement. "Even if they had jobs they
could leave at 5 p.m., these* are people who
wouldn’t.”
Spurred in part by the insider trading
scandals that have engulfed several young
investment bankers, the classes start with
an effort to help students assess and un
cover their own value systems. In one
technique, instructors conduct a hypo
thetical values auction Each student gets
an imaginary $1,000 to spend in the auc
tion of 50 values—which range from "a
world without prejudice" to "a chance to
exert power.” The results have been sur
prising: money and power have not fared
as well as self-respect.
No matter what the goals are, however,
the important thing is that students under
stand what they want. Once they have es
tablished that, the course moves on to the
more practical tasks of preparing a resume
and getting interviews
Connik Lesl ie u i(A Robkkt Mamlowiti
in Philadelphia
Grad Shills
In a job market where there are no golden
passports to success, the liberal-arts de
gree has taken on new luster. "Life After
Liberal Arts,” a career survey recently
published by the University of Virginia,
demonstrates why. UVa queried more
than 2,000 of its liberal-arts alumni who
graduated between 1971 and 1981 to assess
how well their courses of study had pre
pared them for the working world. The
results are encouraging—and edifying.
From the '80 mathematics major who is
now a veterinary pathologist for the Na
tional Zoo to the '73 Russiun-studies major
who is now a special assistant to President
Reagan, UVa’s liberal-arts alums are
thriving. Most now work in the fields of law
(20 percent!, medicine(9 percent), financial
services (9 percent) and education (7 per
oractica makas narfcatabta: Video gives instant replay of mock interviews at Penn
- ° _|)AVmil WK1J.S
NAM: Benjamin J.
Castle
Ml: 31
OCCUf ATWi: Mer
chandising man
ager, Stereo Vil
lage in Atlanta, a
retail audio outlet
with 25 locations in
the Southeast.
EMKATMfc B.A.,
Brooklyn College,
economics and fi
nancial-analysis major.
0. tost bsst prapsni yas far yaar
A. Learning about accounting
methods really didn’t help in the
position I am in now. I started
selling stereo equipment to
friends in junior high school.
Rather than buying blind, they
would come to me for advice. I
established sources and sold at a
lower markup than the stores,
and they got a better product.
9. What panaaaRty trail fealps yaa
tbs asst?
A. Organization. That’s impor
tant when you’re juggling
numbers for 2,000 to 6,000 mod
els—from about 13 manufactur
ers. You have to make instant
price comparisons and be able to
tell what is competitive.
|. Haw is yaa iadia wfcat ts bar?
A. I spend a lot of time on the
sales floor to maintain contact
with the customers. I also read a
lot of trade journals—but they’re
sometimes biased. Sometimes I
have to go by instinct.
9. Mat is yss aafay asst start
yawl*?
A. There are a lot of challenges
involved in working for a grow
ing company. Also, the audio
business is a fairly small indus
try. It’s possible to establish
some long-term friendships.
cent). Alumni reported a median salary of
$30,(XX), with 21 percent earning $50,OOOor
more. And fully one-third said thut their
degree gave them a leg upon others in their
career area. "A liberal-arts background
provided me with an overall understand
ing of people, politics and society, which is
most important to the understanding of
marketing,”said a 71 biology major who is
now a vice president for marketing at a
bank The message from UVa ulums is
clear: there is a good life after liberal arts.