For interviews, dust off skeletons in your closet

With Penn students in the thick of job hunting, many wonder how to explain one bad semester's GPA or incriminating Facebook.com photos.

Career Services counselor Peggy Curchack held an informational workshop - with the fitting title, "When Life Gives You Lemons, Make Lemonade" - yesterday to discuss issues students wish they could avoid during job interviews.

Curchack addressed many important "skeletons" that may be brought up during interviews that students should be prepared to answer.

In an intimate setting of about 20 students sitting around a conference table, several scenarios - both invented and real - were brought up.

"You shouldn't reveal any more than you are comfortable with revealing," Curchack said. "Figure out a way to present your skeletons that gives the person asking the question confidence in you."

One topic discussed during the workshop that many students found interesting was the issue of employers searching public spaces such as MySpace.com and Facebook.

"If you've got hugely incriminating material there, employers can ask about it," Curchack warned. "You want to think about what you have on these social spaces. I can tell you that employers are looking."

Curchack also said that, if a student has a regret about his or her past, he or she ought to reveal it and say what they learned from it.

She used the example of getting excessively drunk one night and doing something stupid that ends up on your Penn record.

"Just take credit for it. Say something like, 'I was a jerk. It was a low moment at Penn. I made a really stupid decision. It helps you grow up fast. I'm sorry for my stupidity, but I'm not sorry for my actions because I learned from it,'" Curchack suggested.

Another important topic was explaining a low GPA, whether it be for one semester or two years.

"How do you make this appealing to the employer? You have two choices. Choice one: You could blame the system, or you could be straightforward. . That way, you're neither apologizing nor excusing your failures academically, and you're not blaming yourself," Curchack said.

Students who attended said they found the session helpful.

"I had a lot of questions I didn't know how to answer, and [Curchack] helped me answer them," Engineering sophomore Vivian Shaw said.

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