Tag Archives: Initiating Contact

Networking Hacks: CP&R Resume Book

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This week, I thought I would take a little time to highlight one of CP&R’s resources that I have found helpful in the never-ending search for internships.  As I have said before, I think networking is valuable no matter what field you are going into.  Not only do personal connections give you a leg up in the application process, but you have the chance to make real, meaningful connections with professionals in your field.  It’s hard to put yourself out there to “network”, in whatever form that may take, but I have found that people are inherently kind and genuinely want to help.  Without further ado, here is one of my favorite weapons in my (not so secret) networking arsenal!

The CP&R Resume Book

Every year, Scripps Career Planning & Resources invites members of the current graduating class (and alumnae 1 year out) to submit their resume for an online resource called the Resume Book. It serves multiple purposes:

First, it is a publicly available document that allows recruiters to see the accomplishments of the graduating class and contact them about job opportunities.

Second, for first years, sophomores and juniors who may be stressed out looking for jobs/internships, it provides some wonderful ideas of internships that our amazing seniors have landed, formatting examples and a way to build a list of companies you might be interested in.

The Resume Book is organized by career interests, so all you need to do is look up professions you’re interested in and BOOM! you can see where past Scrippsies interned, what their activities they were involved in on campus, and get good examples of what a resume in your field might look like.  While I’m not saying that you need to follow someone’s exact career trajectory, it gives you a good idea of how their budding careers have evolved from student activities to professional experience.

When we think of networking, we usually think of contacting real, professional adults.  But your peers are also a invaluable resource.  For example, last year I was panicking about internships and began digging through the resume book.  I found, and reached out to, a then current senior who had interned at companies I was interested in.  When I emailed her, she warmly agreed to meet me at the Motley, we had a delightful conversation, and she then connected me to a company she had interned with.  Through a personal introduction, and subsequent calls with employees at the company, I landed an internship!  Because I have had such success with and find the resume book a valuable resource, I thought I would share this insider tip.

Beginings, Endings, and Reflections

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Hello Everyone! Welcome back for another term! Or if you are out of school, welcome to another day in the life. While it is that time of year where we excitedly look forward to what the future has in store, read for new adventures to begin, it is also a time to remember and reflect on the recent past.  Most notably the summer that came to a screeching halt with the introduction of new classes.  I think oftentimes as students we do not take the time to reflect on our summers because of excitement about what lies ahead.  But it is important to remember and digest our experiences because of the diamonds of knowledge we can glean when we reflect.  We are able to see the bigger picture now that the canvas is full of paint.  Because I had an incredibly jam packed summer where I was working on preparing for a career after college, I will spend the majority of my blog posts this summer reflecting on the experience as well as my thoughts on what lies ahead.  To start with, let me outline my experiences and how I got my internships.

Yes, I did get the grammar right.  I indeed had two internships this summer, both in the entertainment business at two small Film and TV development/production companies.  What scares people so much about the entertainment business is the idea that you need to know people to succeed.  And while it is true that connections are VERY important (as I found out) it wasn’t nearly as hard as I would have thought to start building them.  You just have to put yourself out there.  It helps that Scripps is in the LA area so there are quite a few alums working in the business but I bet that students of basically any college have gone onto working in entertainment.  And you never know, you family may know someone who knows someone and you can make connections that way.  But I found that once I started voicing my interest to people, they were more than happy to connect me on to people in the business.  After tons of informational interviews, mostly with Scripps alums, I managed to secure my internships.  First at Endgame Entertainment.  Last fall I connected with a senior who had done several entertainment internships.  I asked her to coffee at the Motley to hear about her experiences and she connected me to a Scripps alum there.  I spoke with that Scripps alum who encouraged me to apply to their intern program (they had taken Claremont people before).  From there I went through the regular application process, bolstered by that connection, and got the internship.  My second internship at Oddlot Entertainment, I got more directly through participation in CP&R events.  I went on the Media Networking Trek in Fall of 2016 and we visited the Oddlot office.  I stayed in contact with the Scripps Alum who actually runs their intern program.  I was eventually able to apply from there and got the internship.  I had a really fantastic time at both and I can’t wait to share more about my experience over the summer.  Hopefully sharing my experiences in entertainment can dispel some of the myths and mysteries about it as well as help anyone who thinks a career in storytelling might be for them.  Happy Fall!

How Networking Can Lead to (FREE) Cookies

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For me, the completion of any laborious task always is accompanied by a massive exhale that I feel through my whole body. It’s an exhale that portrays not a sense of relief, but rather a sense of “I did my best and whatever happens now is out of my hands.” This past Friday, I completed my internship with Books & Such Literary Agency. I had an amazing four months with their agency and I especially loved getting to know my boss Janet. She is such an incredible mentor and I know that my relationship with her will only continue to grow.

That being said, after concluding the final presentation on the business behind writing and what it means to be an authorpreneur, I stood there, just waiting for my exhale to come…and then I stood there some more…and a bit more…

Nothing. Nada. No exhale.

This may not seem weird to anyone except for me, except for the fact it always happens naturally. I mean, yeah, I could have forced an exhale out but that’s not the same! That was cheating! So there I stood, very confused as to what this all meant.

After some thinking, I realized that the reason there was no exhale was because I am so sad to see the end of this project. I learned aspects of every career path I am interested in: publishing, marketing, editing, writing, publicity, sales, etc. How many people can say that their internship taught them the basics behind each department of their desired job?

As soon as I realized this, I knew I needed to send similar words to Janet. I wanted her to know how much this internship positively impacted me and how I have grown because of her generosity.

However, this email has more than one effect: Not only does it express my gratitude to Janet, but it also establishes a lasting relationship. (Yay Networking!) One of my favorite parts of the interviews I conducted with the graduates this summer was reaching out to them just last month and updating them on the project. They had all expressed during their interviews how ecstatic they were to learn more and how much they wanted me to keep in touch. I didn’t really understand the extent to which these emails were building relationships. However, now looking back, I can see that I now have 13 women I can reach out to if I ever want to learn more about a specific career field or maybe even if I am interested in an internship at their company. One woman wants her daughter to come tour Scripps with me; another wants me to test her homemade chocolate chip cookies (okay… maybe I suggested this task…). I built relationships that go beyond the interview—ones’ that edge into every day life and are built upon more than just a work-related foundation.

My relationships with these women and Janet will have nothing but a positive impact upon my future and me—and look how easy it was to establish them. I encourage all of you to use networking to your advantage—no matter how simple or how unserious the connection may seem. Anyone can be a connection and you never know whom he or she knows. Your mailman? He could be best friends with Taylor Swift’s manager…and excuse me? Who wouldn’t want an internship with them? (If your mailman is TSwift’s manager’s best friend, please give me their name and email address now. Please and thank you.) Emailing is your best friend, and luckily CP&R is there to help you construct those emails that seem so scary at first. Don’t be afraid to go for what you want. Reach out for your desires instead of letting them pass you by because you think the connection is not “sophisticated” enough. You never know…you could get some cookies out of it 😉

What was the strangest connection you ever made that led you to a new opportunity? Did you have to take a leap to make this connection? If yes, tell us about it and tell us about how it felt!

The importance of Self Awareness

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I love to talk. If you were to come up to me on the street—even if you were a random stranger—I would gladly hold a conversation with you about anything. Preferably, I would want it to be about food or Taylor Swift or my pillow pets or something, but honestly, I love to talk about anything. So, you could imagine my pleasure when Karen, an American Studies Major that graduated in 1993, told me to spend my time talking to people.

“I talked to a lot of people, and the best thing about that was the questions they asked me, which forced me to be more introspective and make sure I was answering and thinking in a way that was true to myself and not what other people expected. It was really helpful to talk to a range of people, not just my parents, professors, and friends.”

Luckily, that’s exactly what my internship has entailed. As I have mentioned in previous posts, talking to such amazing women made me really think about what I want to do in the future. However, Karen’s advice has motivated me to talk to fellow students I have never met before, to ask professionals in specific fields if they see me alongside them, and, yes, to speak to my professors, friends, and family about their opinions, too.

All of the people I speak to ask me questions, just like Karen said, challenging me to think and respond for myself. Even if in the moment I am afraid to answer “incorrectly” or hear them say no, they don’t think I can make it as an author, or no, I don’t have the grammar skills to go into editing (seriously, this could be a huge problem…Y’all should be thankful CP&R edits my posts), they are giving me something to think about. If they don’t think I can be an author but their questions make me realize that I do want to be just that, then I will just have to prove them wrong.

Like Karen, my dad has always told me to stay true to myself. For as long as I can remember, the motto “be your own person” has been drilled into my head.

Dad: “Olivia, what are you going to remember on your first day of Kindergarten?”

Five-year-old Olivia: “To be my own person!”

Dad: “Olivia, who cares if they are bullying you? What is the only thing that matters?”

Seven-year-old Olivia: “That I am my own person!”

Dad: “Liv, honey, what do you want to be for Halloween this year?”

(Pause as eight-year-old Olivia thinks about the “correct” answer): “Um…my own person?”

Can I just take a moment to say here that I love Dylan O’Brian? Sadly, even he is annoyed with how oblivious my eight year old self sounds as she answers the question.

You get the idea.

Extensive questioning, whether it comes from others or yourself, is (in my opinion) one of the best ways to find out what you feel and what you want. It forces you to be self aware, which is so incredibly important when making decisions about your future.

“I found a way to be fulfilled when I was focused on me,” Karen said near the end of our interview. Being self aware is incredibly important at times. I’m not saying you should always be focused on you, but when it comes to your future, you should aware of what you think and feel. Take the classes you want to take, follow the career path you want to take, but make sure you research, you question, and you answer questions, always having that little voice inside your head prompting you to be your own person.

The Art of the PERM

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While this blog post mostly goes out to current first-years-going-on-sophoromes, I invite any who’ve participated in pre-registration before or need a few extra tips to comment below with questions or advice of your own!

This past week, most of the student population of the 5Cs participated in pre-registration, a long standing tradition which gives us the opportunity to plan out the rest of our four-year plans in detail, manufacturing stress levels that rival those of hall draw. I know that when I was a freshmen, I had little comprehension as to the severity of pre-registration and it’s effects on my academic psyche. It wasn’t until the second semester of my sophomore year when I was required to learn how “pre-reg” operates, and how to use it to get what you need.

As a science major, I was inevitably signing up for second semester Organic Chemistry. *shudder*  That semester, there were at least four different sections of the class and I knew that get into one of them. However, there was a bit of a scheduling conflict with one, and only one, of the sections and, wouldn’t you know it, it happened to be the only section available when my pre-reg time began. I quickly found the information of the professor to contact and emailed him right away. It wasn’t until two or three days later that I heard anything. He claimed to be swamped in something called PERM requests, a tool that I would eventually come to love and revere, and that I would have to submit my concerns and conflicts through the academic portal if I wanted my issue addressed. I was devastated. I’d felt like I had wasted so much time and that there was no way that I would be able to get into any section at that point and that I wouldn’t finish my major requirements and that I wouldn’t graduate… As you can probably guess, long story short, I calmed down, filled out the necessary request, and when the next semester came I was sitting in appropriate OChem class.

Now while this process isn’t always smooth, please be assured that the pre-registration system is a god-send and is set up specifically for the benefit of the students. The two biggest tips to making the system work for you is proper planning and an effective use of PERMs. As many of you may already know, before any of us are allowed to pre-register, all of the scheduled classes for the upcoming semester are displayed on the academic portal. My advice is to take this time to clearly and thoughtfully plan out as many alternate schedules as you feel is necessary. If you’re an underclass student, create back-up schedules in case particular classes fill up. If you need to fulfill major or graduation requirements, find alternate classes that fulfill similar prerequisites. If you want to try lots of different classes, develop schedules that include various disciplines so you won’t get bogged down in a single subject. The other point I’d like to make is to actively utilize PERM requests. For those who are unaware, PERM requests serve as messages to professors as an intent to enroll in a particular class and ask the permission of a professor to allow you into their class. Whether it’s because the class is already full or you don’t meet certain requirements, PERMs become the singular facet through which to communicate with professors. It is through PERM requests that you can actively make a case for your place in a class, which demonstrates initiative and motivation (even when it comes to the smaller issues like selecting your classes). PERMs make a first impression and get your foot in the (classroom) door, setting positive impressions on first-time professors.

I know that I sound like a broken record, calling on students to be proactive and to have a part in shaping their own education, but pre-registration is no different. It is an amazing opportunity to start considering the direction and progression of your academic career. It is a tool that you can actively control and manipulate for your own scholastic gain, something for which I will always advocate.