Suggest some schools for jobs!

[mystikchick]

Hi everyone,

I'm posting this on behalf of my brother to get some suggestions from you wise folks out there, because I want to tap into your geographical knowledge. My brother graduated in spring 2009, and has been looking for a job, and has recently begun to think seriously about applying for jobs at colleges/universities because he has great people skills - things like student activities/leadership, Greek Life office, fundraising, alumni relations, etc.

The thing is though, we're both fairly certain that at most of the schools we're personally familiar with (small, liberal arts schools in the northeast), the skills he gained through being Greek are either not going to be appreciated or they're going to not be taken seriously. Maybe this is an unfair assumption on our parts, but I don't see someone at say, Wesleyan (where I graduated from) knowing what to do with his profile.

His Greek leadership and campus leadership are both stellar. As a freshman he joined his chapter of Phi Psi with two other pledges. Chapter size was 15, six graduated, and two went inactive. The future of the chapter looked uncertain. He worked his tail off to personally recruit quality men to join the chapter, and today chapter is about 36-38, with ten prospective members for the spring. Along the way, he held different leadership positions within the chapter, including rush chair, and pledge master, eventually becoming President. The chapter will be celebrating its 150th anniversary on campus this March.

Outside of Greek life, he held positions on student council, served as an RA, worked as an orientation intern, worked on the events planning committee (the group that brings bands to campus and that kind of thing), helped found and lead a group for men against sexual violence, and generally became highly respected and well-known across campus. He also worked for the phonathon, and was very good at that.

So now he's looking for jobs in the university arena, and is trying to generate a list of places to look at, which is where your help is needed, lovely Greekchatters.

Geographically, he's flexible: northeast, south, midwest - he's open to all of them. He'd prefer a school with a semi-urban (or close proximity to an urban center) or urban location, small to midsize. In theory, the school or the region should be one where his Greek background will be looked upon favorably, or at the very least, appreciated and understood for the skills it gave him.

Also, if anyone has any suggestions as to how to find these jobs (other than my helpful suggestions of troll the websites and if you're really interested, just send your resume and a good cover letter), that would also be highly appreciated. Even suggestions for other jobs that would use these skills would be great.

Thank you!

[ree-Xi]

Originally Posted by mystikchick

Suggest some schools for jobs!

Hi everyone,

I'm posting this on behalf of my brother to get some suggestions from you wise folks out there, because I want to tap into your geographical knowledge. My brother graduated in spring 2009, and has been looking for a job, and has recently begun to think seriously about applying for jobs at colleges/universities because he has great people skills - things like student activities/leadership, Greek Life office, fundraising, alumni relations, etc.

The thing is though, we're both fairly certain that at most of the schools we're personally familiar with (small, liberal arts schools in the northeast), the skills he gained through being Greek are either not going to be appreciated or they're going to not be taken seriously. Maybe this is an unfair assumption on our parts, but I don't see someone at say, Wesleyan (where I graduated from) knowing what to do with his profile.

His Greek leadership and campus leadership are both stellar. As a freshman he joined his chapter of Phi Psi with two other pledges. Chapter size was 15, six graduated, and two went inactive. The future of the chapter looked uncertain. He worked his tail off to personally recruit quality men to join the chapter, and today chapter is about 36-38, with ten prospective members for the spring. Along the way, he held different leadership positions within the chapter, including rush chair, and pledge master, eventually becoming President. The chapter will be celebrating its 150th anniversary on campus this March.

Outside of Greek life, he held positions on student council, served as an RA, worked as an orientation intern, worked on the events planning committee (the group that brings bands to campus and that kind of thing), helped found and lead a group for men against sexual violence, and generally became highly respected and well-known across campus. He also worked for the phonathon, and was very good at that.

So now he's looking for jobs in the university arena, and is trying to generate a list of places to look at, which is where your help is needed, lovely Greekchatters.

Geographically, he's flexible: northeast, south, midwest - he's open to all of them. He'd prefer a school with a semi-urban (or close proximity to an urban center) or urban location, small to midsize. In theory, the school or the region should be one where his Greek background will be looked upon favorably, or at the very least, appreciated and understood for the skills it gave him.

Also, if anyone has any suggestions as to how to find these jobs (other than my helpful suggestions of troll the websites and if you're really interested, just send your resume and a good cover letter), that would also be highly appreciated. Even suggestions for other jobs that would use these skills would be great.

Thank you!

Regarding the types of jobs you listed:

• Why does he want to work in a university setting? Honestly, the people I know who went on to work in such roles in Student Activities or Alumni Relations were going to grad school and interning as grad assistants in those areas.
• In terms of fund raising, etc., those jobs (especially in a competitive market and slow economy) will go to people with solid skills and proof of successful fund raising - not only in dollars, but in growth over time.
• Being an RA, events planning committees, etc., in college is great experience, but does have have any way of showing what or how he contributed?

"People" skills are great - but whether he developed them during Greek experiences or not is not the issue. I think that it's less the excuse of "he was Greek" , than that the accomplishments (such as growing the number of members of a fraternity) are not relatable experience to a business because the groups' purpose of growing numbers is uniquely social, versus a business entity in which the economy of people, time, money and energy is key. As for the other clubs and groups he worked on, he needs to be able to demosntrate solid accomplishments (which is hard when you are talking college settings).

"Great people skills" are important to most jobs. You are more likely to move ahead and be hired when you have these skills IN ADDITION TO the tangible and intangible skills and experience required to do the job itself.

Some thoughts:
- Jobs that you mentioned currently do not have a high demand for new employees, so therefore, find out what types of jobs need people NOW
- Set up informational interviews with people in different industries to find how "great people skills" can be applied to different types of jobs and environments
- If he hasn't done it before, do an internship or co-op, or volunteer experince in something similar to what you said he is interested in - ie., fund raising
- If he isn't working anywhere, he needs to find something. If he is, he needs to find new opportunities to streamline, economize, or make whatever he does work on, run better, faster, smoother or improve the quality of whatever he can get his hands on.

And lastly, why isn't HE the one looking for this info? If he went to Wesleyan CT (you didn't specify) or any college at all, then there is NO REASON why he isn't out there looking for jobs and answers himself?

It's nice to "help" your brother, but how much of this work is HE actually doing?


ETA: Your advice to troll websites is not the best way to approach this. Networking is.

[Xylochick216]

He should look into getting a masters in student affairs or higher education. As someone who just went through the job search in higher ed, I can tell you it's very competitive to get a job with a masters, and extremely difficult without one. Most schools want people with a masters for nearly all of their jobs, and the pay is terrible. The only jobs I've seen people get at a college without a masters in the past year are admissions counselors at their own undergrad institute and some bottom-rung campus rec or student union jobs.

[ta kala]

Originally Posted by ree-Xi

Regarding the types of jobs you listed:
[LIST][*]Why does he want to work in a university setting? Honestly, the people I know who went on to work in such roles in Student Activities or Alumni Relations were going to grad school and interning as grad assistants in those areas.

While many graduate students do work in Student Activities or Alumni Relations, many more have earned a masters degree to work in a university setting.

I completely agree with Xylochick216: if the OP's brother is interested in working at a university, he should look into earning a master's degree in higher ed/student affairs/student personnel/etc.

[mystikchick]

Thanks for your replies - ree, you make some good points - I'll pass them along to him. I'm helping because I volunteered to put out a post since I'm already a member here and thought it might be a good way to get some names. He's putting in his own effort (looking for jobs in general), I just figured this might be a way to get some direction.

Regarding the networking thing - he's currently living overseas, which is why I suggested he look at websites to start building contacts and getting in touch with people so that when he goes back to the US in the spring, the groundwork is already in place.

I did know that most of these jobs require a masters, but since I do know people at my alma mater (Wesleyan) who were hired straight away to work in various branches of the university, even if they had never worked in that area before, so I figured there was at least a small possibility. Perhaps they were just luckier than most, which could well be the case based on the information given here.

Thanks again, everyone.