Good afternoon everyone
this is Vanessa Liu I am dialing and
zooming in from the Catskills
I'm class of '96 from the College and
class of '03 from the law school I'm so
excited to be
joined here today by a couple of
fantastic alumni just to talk about
careers um just wanted to give you a
little bit of background on the HAA,
where i am the First Vice President 
and also just the importance of the
alumni community because i know that so
many of you
are joining from various parts of the
alumni community like
you probably heard about us from either
a SIG or a club
or your class or your different
school
and this is really about being able to
glean upon your alumni community over
the coming years this is like something
that I keep on coming back to
so just as an anecdote last week I
myself had a at a had a coffee chat with
somebody in hong kong
that i got connected to by an HBS
um friend and so this is something that
I keep on coming back over and over and
over again
to help me whenever I'm thinking about
career changes and
exploring and so I really hope that you
see this as the first of many
types of opportunities um just wanted to
have a couple of things of housekeeping
so
at the end of the webinar you're going
to have a link
uh to a short survey in the chat and
we're also going to email it as well
please share your thoughts it's going to
be really helpful for us as we develop
more programming like this
and also you can reach out to you know
any folks that you know
at the HAA and also I'm always available
to be reached out
to as well and also please
use the q&a function to put in your
questions and so that
our awesome panelists can answer these
live
but without further ado I wanted to go
into the meat of the program because
that's what you're all here for
so I'm really excited to introduce to
you Ellen Reeves and John Bowman
so Ellen Reeves is a proud member of the
College class of 1983
and of the Ed School class of 1986
she's a career and workplace consultant
and author of
"Can I Wear My Nose Ring to the Interview?"
Ellen also served as the HAA president
from 2011 to 2012
and so excited to to have her here today
she has so many great great great
advice and tips to share with you. John
Bowman
has the job that Ellen and I wish we had
so he's the member of the class of 1980
HBS class of 1985. he's been a writer
for Saturday Night Live and was the
creator
of the tv series Martin he served
on the HAA executive board um as
the the vice president of clubs and SIGs
from 2016 to 2019
he's joining us here from Los Angeles
and so I am going to turn it over to the
two of them so please Ellen and John
take it away.
thanks hi everybody glad you could make
it
I just want to say first that this
webinar
is for recent grads and people changing
their careers
uh but I want to begin uh specifically
by addressing
the recent class of 2020 and acknowledge
uh what a horrible
ordeal this pandemic has been for you I
you suddenly left Harvard in March just
as you and your friends were about to
celebrate your accomplishments over the
past four years
and COVID 19 robbed you of that moment
and
it is perfectly reasonable for you to
mourn this lack of closure
of course it gets worse than just
leaving, uh
your job offers were rescinded you had
to move back home
in your old bedroom the one you swore
you would never sleep in again after
graduation
you're probably in the basement I think
your little sister is there too
if I painted a bleak enough picture
uh I think I'll stop with that uh
because there's nothing we can say
that'll make this better
uh the only thing I can say about it is
that everybody is going through the same
thing
everybody is suffering from this
incredible degree of uncertainty and
this
pause in your lives so we want to do
here
is uh talk to you about positive things
about using the HAA community
and focusing you on your future um
Ellen you have some suggestions well I do
I do think I have to say as my mom
always told me this too shall pass
and I'm enough of a uh not a spring
chicken to know that we
while this feels already feels like it's
been forever
this is really just a blip uh in in what
we hope will be a long life
um and the Harvard community is here to
help but what we find is that
our own alumni do not know what kind of
resources are available to them so many
of you sent in fantastic questions we'll
try to up
to answer as many as we can um but it
really showed me
that people are not aware of what we
already have so we want to lead
our Harvard horses to the water
we want you to know I always say that
you have to stop looking
for a job and start looking for a person
the right person will lead you to the
right
job or opportunity and we have so many
people
really uh ready to help
um so I'd like to begin uh
oh there's the HAA career resources slide
Ellen do you want to say something about
that
well sure I mean I have to say even in
preparation for this I started flipping
through John and I were part of a career
resources committee um years ago and and
this
whole setup was one of the options there
are amazing
resources and I not only want to give
you permission to use them but I really
want to encourage people
to use them I hear so much that people
are saying
there are no jobs available there are no
jobs nobody's hiring
this is just not true people are getting
hired people
are having interviews people are getting
hired at higher salaries than they had
before
even in this Harvard career resources
there's a message board
where just last night I saw at least a
dozen jobs posted
by other alums so we have great forums
even for concrete job opportunities
you just have to stop listening to the
numbers the only number that matters is
one the one job for you and the one
opportunity
and we have uh all of these resources if
you log
in to harvard.edu you'll find under
alumni under career resources
incredible things that you you just may
not have known were there
and um and we hope you'll start using
them
and here's another great number 350 000
that's how many Harvard alums there are
around the world
uh and this is a world people
are dying to get into this world of
Harvard alone
and it's crazy for you not to make use
of it that's one of the reasons you came
to Harvard
was to be a part of this group here's
another good number five my first five
jobs were all given to me by Harvard
graduates
and it was through extensive
networking really that
while I was at Harvard but then
afterwards because they all came at
different stages of my career
but I spent a lot of time networking uh
I spent a lot of time making friends I
spent a lot of time
maintaining those friendships and we'll
talk about a little bit about that uh
later on too uh I'll
say too several of my jobs came from
Harvard alums or Harvard friends
classmates
when I wasn't looking to I reached out
for advice
or one saw the title of my book and it
started me on
another whole career path um in the
computational finance uh job advising
sector something I
would never have known I could be
interested in but
but really you do have to reach out you
have to know how to reach out
in the right way and i find that people
sometimes feel awkward about reaching
out
even to other alums and especially if
they're not employed or seeking
employment or seeking to change careers
or they feel they're older and
um this is the time to reach out we have
all of these names in the database we
have
people who are who really want to hear
from you and you do have something to
offer
I hear a lot people say well I just
graduated or I don't have a job
how could I add myself to the database
and
we really need all of you to feel that
by virtue of your degree
you you really should be you are a
member of this community and we we want
to be able to help you
to connect to others um a Harvard degree
won't give you immunity from COVID but
it does again
offer you uh entrance into this
incredible network
and um so that's why again we're here to
to help you figure out how to use it
um we have the OCS slide
should we talk about the OCS oh yes
maybe we have this but
I can talk about it briefly uh
OCS OCL I used this when I was an
undergraduate it's
uh and then it's it's available to
undergraduates and people their first
five years out
now it's a group of people who have
of grads you know divided by careers or
divided by geography
who have agreed uh to talk to anybody's
looking for a new job
it's incredibly useful uh first of all
these are people who actually want to
talk to you
they've signed up for this they've
volunteered to talk to you
i so be sure to uh to use it but another
thing
I'd like to talk about is how do you use
this database only
I track down people whom you are truly
interested in talking to
I make sure that you don't go fishing
for information
uh once you're talking to them you have
to have a very specific agenda
of information that you want uh and now
is actually a good time to do this
because a lot of us have three times on
our hand
thanks to uh thanks to kosa we're happy
to talk to you
uh and we want to hear from you so
remember these
not every OCS OCL thing is a job
interview though what you're doing
uh and I can't emphasize this enough you
have to build
your resource network of Harvard alums
uh
and just by getting to know people
talking to them
uh you're building industry knowledge
and you're building uh alumni contacts
uh which in the future hopefully will
lead to jobs
now one of the things I do want to
remind people is the OCS
resources are some are specifically
geared to recent grads and
grads the first five years out but some
of their web resources are available to
all
alums and we're seeing a lot of
questions about can you post links all
of this will be available to you
after the webinar and als it's also on
the
harvard.edu site under alumni
all kinds of school resources resources
that
um are some are available to everybody
some are more limited to the specific
school
but you should you should check them out
um and
uh we
I wanted to talk a little bit about
how to structure your time I think when
we've had this vast amount of time and
this is not to say some people are
working full-time people are
uh taking care of families some people
are dealing unfortunately
with the with COVID itself but you can't
job hunt
24 hours a day and so I like to tell
people
try to use the rule of three break
everything into threes
and start reaching out perhaps to three
people a day if that's
too many three people a week if that's
what you can handle beginning
middle and end and divide things into
manageable tiny
bites so start thinking about three jobs
you might like to have
three industries three companies and
start pursuing those
sometimes I find that people get
paralyzed because they're afraid of
committing when they don't know what
they
want or they think they don't know they
freeze
I remember Matino Horner the president
of Radcliffe saying at our freshman
orientation
remember what it says on the jar of
hellman's mayonnaise keep cool but do
not freeze
you've got to start somewhere so the
tangents of
that that occur when you start moving
yourself along a path are we usually
yield
some kind of information some data point
but if you don't reach out
we guarantee nothing will happen and if
you're worried about reaching out one of
my friends vicky said look
people are nervous to reach out people
are busy they're dealing with all these
things why would they
be likely to answer and if someone
doesn't want to answer you
they just won't you can reach out don't
take it personally if they don't respond
back
you could try one more time in a week or
so but if not
move on pick some more names try again
and really use the opportunity to
connect with other
Harvard alums as a chance to to explore
especially if you're thinking about
career changes or pivots if you're
thinking about new things
it just doesn't cost anything and it's
fun it should be as much fun as it was
to be sitting in dining halls
meeting other alums and just talking to
them we know it's not the same
when it's not in person but um but there
are still wonderful
connections to be made and um and
so you know we want to we do want to
talk about some again other tips about
how to reach out
yeah I just like to add to to
inoculate yourself against rejection
because it's going to happen
you have to go into this uh a little bit
coldly uh
and you can't take anything personally
it used to take me 100 letters to get
three responses
uh but those three then would talk to me
and they were
decent and kind and gave me good advice
uh
and one of them led to a job so it's a
numbers game you're playing in a contact
game you're trying to get the largest
amount
of uh of people to read your resumes and
the only way you can do that is by
sending your tongue the demos you're
gonna do is set a resume out and then
wait for a week
you send out a hundred and then you call
them
and maybe three of them will get back to
you that's still three more than you
have before
so just just you know don't take it
personally just do it
well i'm gonna i take a slightly
different approach john so i'm just
gonna push back there because
for me the numbers game is really
targeting
people you absolutely want to hear back
from i think what happens is people send
100 resumes out
and they they send them hurdling into
what i call the black void of cyberspace
and then they get depressed because they
don't hear back or the people they hear
back from are recruiters
with jobs that they don't want and i
think that that i think it's easier
for people to it's easier to get a job
than to figure out what you want to do
and i think most people get jobs because
they can get them
not necessarily because they want them
and my feeling about harvard alums
is if anyone in the world can write his
or her own ticket
it's you we have the network we you have
the background
you have uh literally a world of people
and resources who want to help
and so um i advocate again a different
approach of just
really targeting specific people you
want to talk to
and and trying to do it that way not
just sending resumes blindly but but
using the network
for example let's say you found a job
somewhere on a message board or
or um through linkedin or just or
anywhere
i would immediately return to the
harvard network to try to find someone
who had worked
at that place and especially someone
asked a question about oh
with covid people haven't updated their
linkedin profiles and they don't know
i don't know if they still work there
for me one of the best people to connect
with is someone who used to work at a
place
because they're not they have no threat
you're not asking them directly for a
job which is still
okay anyway but um they they're still
there i mean i worked at places i'm
still in contact with many of my
colleagues i'm happy to connect people
to the places where i worked so i think
it's um i i just want to say
it's you know look different approaches
and and everybody takes a different
approach and
whatever works for you yeah i said when
i when i say 700 set out 100 and a
highly targeted group of people
you know my industry it's writers and
producers
and you just say hey i'd like to learn
how you became what you became
and most people love talking to
themselves uh oh chris do we have the
resource slide should we take a look at
that
i don't know if we've seen it we have
had every slide coming out to be
dominantly maybe of course we're a
little
out of order we
and we just want to make sure you can
see all this on recording and want to
make sure that you can see these
uh these sources uh these resources that
we have for you
and so you can run this back because
i'll be out of recording we don't want
to get too deeply into it right now
but we do want to make sure this is a
part of the package right resumes making
connections job and interns
uh searching again things that
anyone can access and then there's the
database we do want to
talk a little bit about that the alumni
database i'm
community.alumni.harvard.edu
and this is a place where you can
update your profile add one if you don't
have one
uh and and um make sure that you
you can stipulate how you want to be
contacted so one thing you so
here's one i updated it in advance
because i looked in
in anticipation of this webinar and i
saw that i hadn't really looked at it
for a while
but you can choose do you want to be
contacted do you want to be contacted by
email by phone you put in the
information that you want
and i you it says career network willing
to network with and i said
all alumni additional notes and i said
something that i feel very strongly
about
please be extremely specific in your
request and see my website which i have
then i'll get back to you as soon as i
can i think that one
i've had particularly young people get
in touch with me
and i agree to speak with them and then
the question is
do you have any advice for me just that
general do you have any advice for me
and i think well
my advice is maybe do a little homework
before you reach out
and connect with someone so if you see
that i was in non-profit publishing
ask a specific question so i see that
you were in
nonprofit publishing how does that
differ from commercial publishing
um or would you you know be willing to
connect to me i
i looked on linkedin i looked in the dit
well linkedin really not this database
but the harvard
group of linkedin and i saw that you're
connected to xyz person
do you know them well enough to make an
introduction for me
um and i can say no make it easy for me
to say no you know would you be
comfortable do you know that person well
enough would you be willing to
uh connect me those are i think know why
you're contacting someone
and um i want to talk about one other
resource too which are the harvard clubs
and six
uh they're 195 plus harvard clubs
uh all over the world in 70 different
countries i
and there are 58 cities now the clubs
tend to be more geography oriented but
uh which is great if you're moving to
los angeles that don't know anybody
contacting the harvard club of southern
california is a good way to start they
have a ton of events a lot of them are
social
uh when i was young i moved to san
francisco without knowing anybody i
would join the harvard club there
uh went to a social and met three people
who are still really good friends of
mine to this day so it is a great way
to when you move to a new city to
actually uh form connections with people
and form connections with other harvard
people
now cigs are great for networking uh
because it tends to be people interested
in the same
uh trade or business here in southern
california
harvard wood is an incredibly important
and
influential city uh and it's great
because it's really devoted to
networking
it has actors writers producers uh
people
uh cameramen all involved in one club
and in something like entertainment
which is very giggery you need a wide
group
of uh you need a wide network to go from
job to job and howard wood supplies
so there are a lot of other ones there's
a retailing sig uh financing
they're in every profession and i really
recommend joining one in the field that
you're that you're interested in
i'll say too john as i looked at the
list of the hundreds of questions we got
so many of them were answerable by
connecting to a
to a specific sig or to a region we got
a lot of questions about international
work and international clubs and there
are so many international clubs
there are shared interest groups that
are focused on specific regions of the
world
so if you haven't joined those that's
something to look at
people were a few people ask very
specific questions about
say medicine or the arts and again there
are shared interest groups where there
are
whole groups of alumni only in this
field who would be happy
to have that have your specific question
posted in that network where you are
focused on an audience who can really
help answer those questions
now i'd like to transition a little bit
there's one question that i get all the
time
which and i do a lot of interviewing
with people uh for jobs for all the tv
for the tv shows that i've done and
people always ask well what
what do you look for in an interview uh
and how should i present myself and
there's always
i can just break it down to i think it's
a universal not just entertainment i
mean the first thing i want is a skill
set that i can verify
i want to make sure that what you claim
to have done you've done
all right and i look for personality too
i look for a serious sense of purpose
communicated through an engaging
personality i mean i want somebody
who's upbeat and alive uh and
interesting it makes for a better work
day
i'd like to see success in the past
because that usually indicates success
in the future
i and i also like people who ask me
actual questions about my career not
because
i need to be flattered because you're
interested in joining the same
industry that i work in and uh i want to
see
you actually uh uh are interested in how
you advance in it because
that is something that you don't know
unless you ask other people
uh and it's always easy to get somebody
to talk to themselves about themselves
and that's a good way to do it
when you're reaching out i also like to
say
again a lot of our questions were about
how do i connect how should i connect
what's the etiquette we'll certainly
talk about
zoom etiquette after but um i say use
yourself as a litmus test and use the
golden rule
of outreach which is reach out to others
the way you'd like
others to reach out to you so if you're
respectful of their time if you've done
their homework
your homework if you know why you're
reaching out and exactly what you
want to ask i i think it helps
i know there can be awkward pauses
awkward connections but
one of the tips that i use is to send a
resume is to create a resume exactly for
that specific job or informational or
exploratory interview
and ask the person to review it with you
and i think this does three things first
of all it
gives an agenda item for what could be a
more amorphous call it focuses the
reader on your unique talents and
experiences so hopefully they'll look
and say oh my gosh you did this
you should really talk to so-and-so or
wow i would love to talk to you more
about this
but it really focuses them on your
capabilities
and um and it you also get free insider
advice
from someone in the field so you may be
able to ask them while i wasn't sure
whether i should put this on my resume
or leave it off
this gives them a chance to review it
and say well i would add that back on
or i would cut this or even more
importantly
teach you the language of the employer
of the prospective employer so that
you know i would tell people if you if
you sold girl scout cookies
you're a fundraiser and you know
marketing and you've done cold calling
but you may not speak about it that way
as a girl scout so you have to learn to
speak about the intent your intended
field
in the language of the prospective
employer and that's what someone in a
field can do for you
they can tell you what kind of other
certifications or skills you may need
so there's a lot of um a lot of help
that
that uh they can give if you do if you
offer a resume
i did want to show there is a there's a
harvard disease for the resume so
we have a few samples um that i wanted
to share
and um the first one um
if we can see from uh john harvard
let's see if we can have him on the
screen
um uh the in well in the meantime i'll
tell you i
i had created two uh resumes fake
resumes that we could look at
one of the harvard resume problems is
that it's three pages long
it lists every single thing you've ever
done in eight point
font um with no headers that are visible
so i can't really tell
what your um what you're you're
looking for um and there may be typos
because spell check doesn't catch typos
and capital letters that kind of thing
uh i was a french and american history
and lit major uh
resume means summary and summarizing is
actually a higher order thinking skill
so the ability to create a one-page
resume where you have selected the
relevant information you don't have to
say
relevant information relevant to what
relevant to whatever it is that you're
pursuing
that's a skill that you can show the
employer you have
with this function and and if you need a
longer resume that's what linkedin is
for you can add as many entries as you
want
uh to linkedin so again i don't know if
we're able to show the resumes or
maybe not um oh we're waiting for it
another let's see okay so we'll just
scroll
quickly through a recent grad one what
you see
are big headers that don't tell me what
you're applying for right
so we could just keep going let's go
through relevant relevant to what
professional why would you put
unprofessional it goes on and on
it's three pages there are typos i can't
read the font
um so and leadership not a category i
love
show don't tell um other and then blah
blah you know they go on and on but
again
i'm really not going to look at more
than the first page of a resume
um this was john harvards and john
harvard also gave me two addresses
his parents house and his with two
different phone numbers don't make me
choose
give me one otherwise i'll just move on
to the next
but jane harvard and so we'll see
whether we can
look at jane's is one page
has um uses uh the visual hierarchy of
fonts
to show what kinds of places
she's worked so we're still wait we're
still on john
we're going to get to jane eventually
thank you all for bearing with us this
is one of the things about zoom that i'm
not
comfortable with is all of the screen
sharing and
moving things around but if we do get
janet harvard's anyway i would recommend
that you focus your resume your name
should be in big
bold letters it should be visually
accessible
and your resume should be the resume for
the things you want to do
not just the things you've done um so
uh i have a quick question do you
do you uh actually devote uh or write
different resumes for different jobs or
do you sum the same one up
oh absolutely no no the in fact the
three page one
is a great one to have for what i call
the modular resume and then you select
for that for i tailor a resume to every
single person
um with whom i'll be speaking so you can
see what stands out if you just scroll
through um
quickly uh mitch what you just see is
headers publishing teaching columbia
publishing course american school of
paris
you see the brand names you see proper
names you see specificity
and this this would be a resume that
jane harvard well
surprised i took some things from my
life um that
if i were applying in the fields in
which i've worked in teaching
and consulting in education and um
in career uh advising these are the
names of the brands
so um that but this is it's
it's just one page but but john
absolutely i would tailor i have a
theater resume i have a culinary resume
i have a volunteer resume so you really
should there's no excuse you know when
we were in college
we didn't have necessarily computers i
had my thesis i went to someone they
typed my thesis
uh in the 80s but now with the computer
there's no excuse not to be able to
tailor your resume
and your request to every single person
so that's a great question
right um well i'd like to talk a little
bit now
uh since i work in entertainment about
how you present yourself visually
uh to a zoom camera and uh
zoom people can look terrible on zoom i
don't know if you've noticed it yourself
uh it's not a very flattering medium but
there's steps that you can take to make
to make yourself look just a little bit
mildly better
i'm gonna use tom ford's advance the
film director and fashion designer if
it's good enough for tom ford it's good
enough for me
uh and his first recommendation is
elevate the computer so that it's just a
little bit
uh higher than your head uh and he
recommends that the camera be
situated on books and then it the top
down a little bit
so that you don't have that up the
nostril look now i use
for my uh
elevator the oxford american writers of
silence
but any reference book that you bought
for show and not real for really useful
will will be adequate i also use a
refresh size shakespeare for my life
uh so get it up high and then place a
tall lamp next to the computer now i
have two sources of light here
it makes gives me a nice uh it's like a
reddish glow
uh but it's it's important that you have
the light
pretty far behind you if you have it
right above you you'll get what i call
hot spots
uh which which can be blinding and
suddenly a little
core of yellow coming out of you uh
and practice you know before you get on
a zoom call you can
just play with height play with lighting
see what happens if you move one light
to some other place how
how you look uh see what happens if you
turn it over light
uh headlight on you can get yourself set
before the interview begins
uh make yourself be sure you're
presenting the best self also use a
white
tablecloth or piece of paper in front of
you that's for what is called
fill or bounce and that's light that
comes in will bounce off of it
and hopefully uh remove uh
uh dark shadows from underneath you so
you don't look like you've just got that
i and also tom ford recommends using a
lot of power
so i'll leave that right there uh of
course
and i want to talk a little bit about
backgrounds uh
you know there are a ton of backgrounds
you can use right now
and i'm not really crazy about it you
see for me in my background
i've revealed as little as i possibly
can about myself
because i want the focus to be on what
i'm saying and not on a book
or uh a cat or something that's that's
sitting behind me that that would cause
a distraction
and also i want but i want the
information i want to present the
information myself
uh not have it be a background thing
that i later find out about so i'm
pretty
i assiduous about clearing out things
behind me when i'm when i'm interviewing
when i'm teaching
i but alan you have a back do you have
can we get that background for you
yeah i definitely i agree about that as
you can see i cleared out
even more um i am not a fan of those
backgrounds
um actually i couldn't even figure out
how to download them but i want to show
you what happens if you haven't played
around with virtual zoom backgrounds
you can choose a background now here's
one why would i put myself in outer
space so now i look like a space case
unless that's the industry i'm applying
and that could be cool
um i could be in san francisco right now
but you know what if i had this view
i don't know why am i looking for a job
i can just sit and look at the view all
day
or i could be on the beach um which i
love to be but first look how it cuts
your head off i find it very distracting
and also this kind of look makes it look
like okay now i just want to hang out
and be on vacation all the time which i
might
but um in in any case i really urge you
to explore that but i
i am a fan of the plainest possible
background with the fewest possible
distractions
um that goes for virtual interviewing
too can't have people walking back and
forth
um the dogs barking and i was very
worried that the
mowing outside was going to be happening
and you know if if something like that
happens
on the call really don't worry about it
all you have to do is recover
as quickly as possible apologize and say
i'm so sorry about that
uh in the meantime let's talk about this
and um
so we go back to uh our
our you know regular scheduled
programming i just hang out with grace
don't freak out when something bad
happens
right because i have to say you might be
a little bit more volatile than you like
to present yourself
so should we talk a little bit about
skill sets alan about
how to build skill sets over this
pandemic right and well zoom is one
thing that i had to start learning
um which i clearly haven't mastered at
all but um
and i was probably one of the last
people to know that those private chats
aren't private so just be careful there
uh the hosts can read them if they
choose to
um but uh you know you will be asked
during an interview or even even an
informational interview so what have you
been doing with yourself lately
and binging on netflix is not going to
be the answer that you want to share
although certainly engage with a great
title of something you've seen you've
loved you want to share but
you know olympic athletes don't wait
four years for the next set of games
they're training
all the time so you want to show that
you've been using
this down time and you don't have to be
down but you may have time
to be learning something new to show
yourself as a learner
to show that you're taking advantage of
resources i've been going back to
duolingo italian brushing up on that
but whether it's even if it's something
like baking that a lot of people are
doing
anything that you can talk about with
conviction and passion and show that you
can pick up a new skill
you're interested in lifelong learning
and you're eager to share it
is important but john you had a lot of
concrete some great skills
that you've been i think really useful
to cover holes in your knowledge base
i mean this is something where you've
got free time on your hands
and and we're harvard people and we need
to stay stimulated
and i i think if you're an english major
for instance you should be taking
accounting classes you should be able to
read a balance sheet
uh you have no idea what's going to
happen later on in your career
i mean i'm a writer but i got a business
degree and
mostly i was successful as a producer
because i was never afraid about balance
sheets that i could make financial
tradeoffs and it's because of my
business background
i so cover holes in your knowledge you
have no idea what's going to happen
and you're young and there's no bad
education that you can get
when you're starting out i also think if
you're an economics major start reading
books that aren't
about economics i you know read the
odyssey modifier the vanities read the
poem azimandi's
uh uh things that
make you human i i think it make you a
little bit more interesting i think are
things that you can focus on too
and i agree i love learning foreign
languages i think they keep your mind
sharp and there's a
a coveted torpor that sort of takes over
and i think anything you can do
that will keep your brain active and and
working
is is useful uh but also the reason that
resources are useful for webinars and
extension school courses those are
things that you can do here are some
right now
i
in their extension school courses and
there's those
uh harvardx classes very useful to keep
yourself sharp
uh and they're in you know they're
they're a little more
academic as opposed to being utilitarian
but they're again a great way to keep
yourself sharp
i did want to say i noticed the board
there were several questions that came
in about what resources
could we have if we're interested in
joining a board now it happens that we
have a video specifically on joining
boards
it says it's for women but i wouldn't
let that stop me from watching it
if i were not a woman um we have
resources for everyone
and um you know there's so many things
that that you can explore um i did want
to say one more thing i forgot to say
when we were looking at resumes people
are often very concerned about a gap
kovid is a complete reset the world
stopped it is starting to start again
but really the people who position
themselves will be the ones ready
uh when things really open up so um
there i really encourage people not to
worry
about a gap i tell people mine the gap
don't mind
the gap the day that you were if you
were laid off which happens to many
people or furloughed
the day that you were laid off and the
day that you offered advice to a friend
or family member
is the day that you became a consultant
and it wasn't a favor
you did it as pro bono work and it
became the first entry
on your resume so this is really
important to know i say to people all
the time i'll say
john okay say someone was an accountant
and they were laid off
and then i said well did anyone ask you
for help with taxes maybe
oh yeah i helped my brother-in-law oh
okay so you were
you're a pro bono consultant yes you are
this is true
make it true you only need one client
to have a business and it can be pro
bono or i can give you a dollar
and make an honest person of you so um
but you really have to think about
um not worrying about this that they're
like 2008 again
no stigma unless you raise the red flag
and say oh my gosh i'm unemployed i'll
never get a job and
um i i can't remember if i said when i
do hear people
saying things like oh you know someone's
did i say that she's graduating and
she'll never get a job
then you won't i mean this is you have
to really have a positive mindset be
willing to reach out and use
all of these kinds of resources yeah i
can just add to that i mean i think
you have to remember that life is long
and life is not a race
i and careers evolve over a long period
of time and i'd like to talk a little
bit about changing mid careers to the
people who are
thinking of using covet for that uh talk
a little bit about my own experience
uh when i graduated from harvard i
wanted to be a tv rider
but i had no idea how to go about doing
it i had friends from harvard though
who didn't know what they were doing and
i maintained their friendships over a
long period of time
i'd send them you know sample stuff
that i'd written for saturday night live
and david letterman uh
and they would write back and say this
isn't good this is not good at all and
here's
here's where you're going wrong and i
would take that in and i would make some
changes and i would send it in again
back to them
and they would say boy this still isn't
very good but it's so here's one joke
that i think i could use if i were
writing a show
and i did that really over seven years i
took the
price they 50 advice they gave me i
improved because it takes time to get
better at anything
and to build your knowledge base to
build your skills
uh but finally by my 30th birthday i got
my dream job which was right for
saturday night live and not surprisingly
uh it was a harvard graduate who who
gave it to me it was somebody whose
relationship i've cultivated over the
previous seven years so that
uh we grew close over that time uh
and that was really just networking
that's long-term networking and i think
long-term networking is is important
it's not you're not just doing it in a
utilitarian or a transactional way
you're doing it because
harvard people are great to hang out
with uh and it's it's social
and the people that i knew as an
undergrad and in business school are
still my friends to this day
uh and uh i don't know if i value more
for their career
stuff they've given me with their
friendship but it only happens if you
cultivate them
so start now stay with stay with your
friends the people that you graduated
with you find you all rise together and
some of you go up and down at different
rates
uh but at the end of the day uh if you
do it right you'll all have each other's
backs
so i'd like to just conclude with that
cultivate your network of harvard france
makes sense um i am seeing a couple of
questions for
older workers um and older career
switchers and
in in the question section we can talk
more a little bit about that but
um there i can't say there aren't
challenges but the reality is for older
people you have the maturity
you have the experience you come with a
vast network of a lifetime of contacts
you are only of risk to an employer if
you present yourself that way
so if you think about addressing the
concerns that an older worker may have
you know are you in good health can you
devote the time
you just have to present yourself as
vigorous
ready to do the work willing to be
adaptable
um and uh and willing if necessary to
start by doing things
um that that may be beneath your level
um if you were a ceo and now you're not
but um but these are some of the things
i mean i think people tend to wear their
fear on their sleeve and again point the
finger at all
the deficits and that's that's not
really it it has to be all can do
now for the young people i say look i
talk out of both sides of my mouth if
you're young i say
here's the thing you're malleable you're
an inexpensive hire
you know don't don't tell your parents
but you know you're cheap but if you're
older then i say look
you have the experience you have you
have a different you have a different
set of things that you bring to the
table
and um i have worked with people who
um even recently in their 60s and
and older are switching careers are
getting jobs
but they're doing it by reaching out by
connecting by
making sure that people know who they
are these are not just
sending again a cold resume and hoping
that someone will pick up their
experience now it's done through this
kind of intentional
figuring out what you want to do create
also creating an opportunity
um another thing that i'll say is that
besides the teaching jobs that i had
when i graduated
most of the things that i do now were
jobs that didn't exist
i i created them um i saw a niche i saw
a problem or other people saw a niche
and identified it
you need to identify you'll hear this
from other people problems to solve
and that takes a lot of research in a
lot of these conversations where you're
figuring out what needs to get done
and showing people that you have the
skills and the talents and the desire
to help them do it so
um i think we're ready for some
questions now
i think we are uh this is chris soreki
from the harvard alumni association
john and ellen thank you so much for
um your insight in providing some great
framework uh for those who are listening
we will be sharing out
these fly deck that we showed earlier um
and some follow-up emails so you will
have all of those links in slides
so i'm going to now invite um some
people who have asked some questions for
you to unmute themselves
uh mel peffers is going to be our first
person and we've unmuted to you
mel could you please ask your question
to john and ellen
i just had to fight can you hear me i
had to find the unmute button yeah we
can we have your mouth
i think uh ellen was leading into this i
am
the older mature person
and um yeah i won't go in with the
the concerns and fears i do have and
play the positive parts but
i know that you might have some tips or
suggestions with things like even the
resume
and interview techniques when
we have a lot of career work and you can
see how long it's been since we
graduated
and what is your advice on those two
specific parts
resumes and interview skills for the uh
mature older employee so
sure i mean again the first thing is to
actually
figure out what you want to do and then
figure out what you can do for a
specific employer and know what you have
to offer
so then the selection on the resume
becomes very simple
because you're only adding things that
you know he or she is interested in
and you know that because you've talked
to so many people up and down the
organization
before you've ever submitted a resume so
you're doing this kind of you're using
the harvard network you're using other
networks you're talking to people all
the time
to find out what are the issues what
needs to be done and how does your
specific experience address that
um with your resume you what i try to
have clients do is follow what i call
problem process solution orientation or
algorithm a word i used by working with
the quants
so what every run your resume through
this filter
what problem was i asked to solve uh
what process and skills and talents did
i use and what solution did i arrive at
with numbers with data metrics measure
your success it's all
show don't tell so you'll know you'll be
able to put together
a one-page resume when you know who
you're going to be speaking with and
why you're talking to that person and
then it becomes it's just really
just some talking points um and you
shouldn't if you've done something you
know i don't care
whether you've done something 30 years
ago if you can still do it for me as an
employer
i mean i'm now as i said it's a little
bit weird for me i'm not a recent grad i
have to accept that
but i look back and i say wow look at
all these things i did i can still do
them
um it doesn't matter whether i did it in
1983 i still put my years on my resume
you don't have to you can also use a bio
instead of a resume if you want because
really again
employers are looking for what you can
do for them
and they're looking for two things they
want to make money or save money
in this digital age i will say one of
the big
kinds of questions we got for someone
either going back to the workforce or
trying to hang on to a job
is that you have to be able to think
about the skills you have
and say how could i turn that into
helping in this covered era when there
are so many people who need help
they either need to turn in-person
interactions into digital interactions
or they need to figure out how to have
safe personal interactions
there's just there's so much to be done
and and if the harvard community can't
help address it i don't know who can
so you know you i would um let's see i
hope that addresses
some of your questions mel and um and
and
now i'm going to give al a more
superficial tip
uh just about presenting himself and one
thing
that i uh like i have my students do
when they're going on interviews is
practice looking at the green spot the
camera the zoom camera
when you're talking what you're trying
to do is establish some degree of
intimacy
with the interviewer and it's hard to do
it if you're looking off to the side
or you know you look somewhat different
or not interested
i zoom is it's tough to establish
intimacy and you really have to work at
it
and so see right now i'm looking right
at the camera and then when the other
person speaks i look at
so that i can read their body language
because you're not in the room with them
and it's hard
to your body language is usually
something that's very useful in an
interviewing
and you can't get it as readily so
concentrate on that
but then again reestablish your content
by looking at the screen
john that's really good i hate that i
feel like i'm at the eye doctor and i
can't stand looking at that one
is what every broadcaster does right
important
right at that camera that's why you feel
some sort of connection
yeah good okay next
yeah thank you mel uh our next question
comes from joe evangelista
joe we have unmuted you and you're ready
to ask your question
thank you um can you hear me just making
sure we okay
perfect um i guess some of the questions
i have actually are related to
uh the questions about the resume and
thank you for your for the many tips
because it does coincide with a lot of
different things that people have told
me about
updating resumes um reaching out and and
especially networking
the question i had was um potentially
creating almost like a
summary of the resume it's called it's
i've heard it called career marketing
summary
one pager uh something to the
how do you recommend like the different
formats of that specific it's not
necessarily like a full resume it's
almost like something where you
summarize
key points within it and you present it
to
a potential networking connection or
someone who is not necessarily hiring
for a position
but almost as like a bullet bullet point
to help start the conversation
have you had have you heard anybody of a
different format that would be
useful for uh for a potential connection
i know
hopefully that made sense with the guts
of the question makes sense
um uh and then let me say a few things
and john you may have
a different perspective um i actually
use something
with my clients that's that's a little
different i ask each person to create an
ideal jobs
summary based on his or her resume
and so when someone says well what are
you looking for then i have this
document that they have that says well
this is what i'm looking for
based on the experiences that i've had
so it's sort of a hybrid between a job
description
and a resume but it really shows what
you're interested in doing
for that for that personal or company or
organization
and it's a good exercise to take
yourself through to figure out well when
i look at job descriptions on linkedin
or the harvard message board or wherever
it is
to to see well what resonates with me
and as my mother said you know they're
always going to be parts of a job you
don't want that's what they give you the
money for
the rest of the stuff you'd be happy to
do but i think
if you take yourself through this
exercise of making a really is a kind of
a summary but then when when you're
trying to connect with someone and if
they say
what are you looking for then you can
say well here's the kind of thing i'm
looking for
and again to always be able to offer off
the top of your
off the tip of your tongue three
companies three areas
or or three job titles and be able to
drop them out so you say you know i'm
also interested in
x y and z might not might not resonate
but they might be able to say oh yes i
do know someone who actually works in
this kind of marketing but the generic
summary it doesn't really do it for me
because
my eyes glaze over and i i just need i
need names i need proper nouns i need
brands i need to know who's taken a
chance on you
so that's that's a a thing that i use or
again i use
a instead of a summary i use a bio a
sort of a bio that you would see
classically for a speaker or someone in
theater i don't know john how
how do you one yeah i i would agree with
you that something really generic
doesn't doesn't necessarily interest me
one question you always get though is
where you see yourself in five years
and you just want to make sure that
you're where you see yourself alliance
with the strategic vision of
whomever you're talking to uh and that's
usually not that difficult to find out
you can get it in the annual reports or
you just want to make sure that where
you want to go is where the company
wants to go
in the future if you're if you're
planning on having a future with that
company
yeah and none of the um where do you see
yourself in five years
in your job well thanks very much where
am i gonna go
um and people really do say this i've
heard that you know so i really
think be careful of those i think a
degree of humility is always
welcome accepted finance
yes all right
all right thank you so much for the
question our next
person that we're going to be asking to
unmute themselves and ask
is libby phelps libby you have the heir
hi um thank you for taking my question
um so mine was a little bit again on the
i wouldn't call myself mature but i've
been
working for a number of years now in a
very specialized technical field
and the industry that i'm in is going
through a very large downturn
oh okay i'll try again um
so the industry is no longer hiring um
we don't think the jobs will
recover and so there's a lot of highly
skilled stem
people that need to find a career pivot
um and so you're
how do you make yourself marketable
when you're not a new hire but you don't
have any past experience
in potentially the new field that you're
going to be applying to jobs for
oh i'm going to let you handle that sure
um
thanks john no i'd love to talk about
this because
um this is again it's learning to talk
about
the the la the new job that you want or
the new field that you're going into
in the language of the employer so the
first thing i would be doing
is to be using again use the harvard
database use the harvard network use
harvard linkedin
use any kind of network at your disposal
to be finding people who already work
in the industry in which you find
yourself to which you find yourself
applying and have easy conversations and
and don't be afraid to say what you just
said to us
which is i'm making a transition these
are my skills this is my resume
you're in the field how would you
recommend that i recast my resume to
show the transferable skills
that i have so i'm often for example
when i work at the tandon
school of engineering at nyu i'm working
with career
switchers often who are hard scientists
and are going into financial
computational finance and they think
it's they don't know
how to create their narrative and i say
well wait a minute um
i've learned that you use something
called stochastic processes i don't know
what this is
in this field and now you have the same
ones in the financial field right or you
used linear processes when you were
doing chemical experiments and now
you're going to use them to predict
volatility in the market
oh yes okay you just need to do the work
for the employer to be able to show that
you do have the transferable skills
that and when you're job hunting nothing
was bad even if you got laid off if you
hated it if you were fired
nothing is bad things were good this
next opportunity is
better we have to be very positive and
say you know
you were you loved what you were doing
before even if you didn't love it or you
know you was fine
but now you're really excited about this
new challenge and opportunity and you're
trying to get advice about how best to
present yourself
in this new field you know i just like
to you know emphasize one thing is it's
so useful
to use your harvard network before you
get to that interview and
it's the harvard network is to get all
these negatives out and to get informal
advice and to talk to people who can you
know in a
low-key less pressured way who can get
you
uh to this point where during the
interview you're going to be completely
comfortable saying what you're saying
because you've tried it out all the bad
stuff and you've gotten feedback from it
so
uh please for god's sake i can't say
this enough use your harvard network
uh and don't stop using it and build
this
build this uh group of friends don't
don't start at the top
i mean when i um i have people make
lists of people to whom they'd like to
reach out and i say start
close start with a roommate you haven't
talked to in years
but who would happily receive your call
and you could say look this is what i've
been doing lately what are you doing
start with an easy close network that
feels comfortable
widen the circle don't go too high up
the food chain
until you're really ready until your
materials have been refined
by other people by other people you've
connected to maybe in the database
who've reviewed your resume and so
you're able to say things like well when
i was talking to so and so
at this company or in this department um
i learned blah blah blah the more you
talk to people the more you'll have to
say when you finally are ready to reach
out to someone
explicitly in a decision-making capacity
or you'll be able to really impress them
with your knowledge of the field
and i will add the competition i would
never
talk to someone without having found out
who do they perceive as the competitive
as a competitor
and um and be able to talk about that
because that's something that
that really shows that you're already
thinking as a member of the team
of this organization but that you're
aware of the bigger of the bigger
picture
you remember this this takes time too it
takes a long time it took me seven years
you know to get the job i really wanted
and during that i was working
i was working at something else but at
night i was pursuing you know my dream
job
uh but you can't pursue a dream by
dreaming you really have to do the hard
technical brass tax work every single
day
so i it's not going to happen overnight
uh
but it will happen if you pursue a dog
we do john and i were talking the other
day about there is sort of a sense from
some harvard people that
things should happen immediately and
that we have a little bit of a warped
sense of timeline
because there were things that we were
able to do very quickly um
but that you know maybe it not to say
that some things can't happen quickly
with kovid but that you do really have
to be
in it for the long haul um i'll say one
quick word about that before the next
question there was a question that came
in about well should you be
holding out for a dream job or should
you be taking a job
in a ancillary industry if you can't get
what you want now
or should you be changing jobs while you
already have a job
first i would keep your job and then be
looking while you have your job don't
give it up until you have a new one
unless you can afford it but there's no
reason to you can keep looking
but it's okay to take in my perspective
any kind of job in any field as long as
you know why you're taking it
that it is building a skill or building
a part of a network that you
need for the next thing that you know
you want to do
so it makes it a lot easier again if
that job is by
intent and strategy and not just by
default
right and also you have to be practical
you have to support yourself
i i worked for pepsico the day before i
got my saturday live job i was
uh i was supposed to fly to uh taiwan
and find out why they weren't eating
more of three delays
uh and you know i had a perfectly good
time at pepsico i liked everybody i did
it though
to support myself and to learn skills
and a lot of the stuff i learned there
was useful to me later on in life when i
was running shows so
again i i think be practical uh there
are no
nothing you do that's not useful to you
later on
uh but even you're not gonna get your
dream right away
all right guys i have one last question
for us unfortunately we are
we're almost out of time but i wanted to
make sure we got one last thing
harsher menon harsha you have the floor
okay well we'll give a second if not
all right let's move to david clifton
then he'll be our last question
david clifton
um hi can you hear me hey david yeah
hi yeah thanks for doing this first of
all um so i
uh i'm a graduate of 2017 from the
college
um and i i then went and did a master's
for two years and so i'm
sort of uh trying to start my career
right now um which is a interesting time
to try to start
um and one thing that i realized that
i didn't really uh network that much
when i was in college and i did some
internships but i'm now looking
um maybe to start a career in a field
that i didn't do internships for
and so i'm wondering what you would
suggest because
so many entry-level jobs it seems you
you have to do an internship first
but often internships are restricted to
college students so i'm not really sure
uh so what's our first steps to take
what you think what is your feeling on
internships listen i
became an intern at age 30 i was i'd
been teaching
and then i thought about taking what was
in the radcliff publishing course now
the columbia publishing course and i
reached out to my friend and classmate
diane wachtel who had started
the new press a non-profit publisher and
i literally was just asking her
do you think i should take this course
and the next thing i knew she said well
why don't you be our first education
intern you were a teacher
and i took that position i thought it
would be for six months and 15 years
later
i emerged executive editor i had been
the education editor
uh the you know um just stayed
i think um taking an internship anywhere
and
helping to create an internship right
now you may have to create one
and you may have to prove that you don't
need a lot of supervision
everyone is working remotely so if you
if you can again look at an organization
enough to say
i've noticed that you may need more help
in this department or you know could i
volunteer to do x
y and z and see whether this would turn
into
a part-time or full-time employment or
remote employment but it's really again
finding out
what problems need to be solved that
aren't getting things that aren't
getting done
and i think that using again using this
network is a great way to start
connecting with people who may may have
a project for you
an internship at any age is great it's a
great way to go
yeah no i agree i think internships are
a great way to make uh
contacts and also to prove yourself just
believe in yourself
i and it's good to have that humility
of an intern of all right i don't know
anything i'm gonna try to learn
everything
i think that's that's really appreciated
i mean all my children
started as interns and they all got jobs
in the industry that they were interning
at ultimately paying jobs so
so yeah i think it's a very useful thing
to do you shouldn't feel bad
no all right well we are over time at
this point
um so i just wanted to take an
opportunity to thank everyone for
joining us today and thank you
vanessa for providing our fantastic
introduction
and for john and ellen for leading us to
this fascinating and amazing
conversation around
career networking and resources during
this you know unusual time that we're in
do you guys have any last
thoughts or remarks for us
my last remark is stay positive uh
this covent is going to end at some
point and
it's horribly frustrating because of the
uncertainty and it's difficult to plan
but just know that everybody is going
through this
you're not alone in this and forgive
yourself a little bit i mean even
michelle obama said she has a slight
depression during this covet 19 and if
she can be depressed so can the rest of
us
but at the same time don't succumb to
that good get out you know
increase your knowledge base start
contacting people we're all out here
we're all
happy to talk to you you can all write
me or contact me at any time and i'll be
i'll be happy to sit down with you so
just uh don't get into a funk just start
taking action
likewise john i would say um first but
besides of course wanting to thank
vanessa chris angela mitchell heather
everyone at the aha who helped put this
together
and john um because it was so much fun
um
we this is the time take take a few
actions after this webinar
look at some of the resources add
yourself to the database or update
or update your profile look at the
virtual networking
events i saw there's one from the
central club of florida they're used
they're doing one every month
and if your area doesn't have one you
could help set one up
um take your take the time to watch some
of these uh career videos and things
that
that we've put together and i always
like to say
god helps those who help themselves but
people help people who help them help
them
and i hope that harvard and the haa can
help you
thanks
you
