Christina Domenico | Careers for the rest of us

Nothing starts my morning off quite like a parade of e-mails from Career Services.

I typically browse through the various opportunities daily before I hit the delete key. On occasion, something interesting may catch my eye, so I save the e-mail from a quick and easy death. The chance that I'll remember it later on, however, is slim to none.

Other days, when I'm feeling motivated, I'll browse PennLink for something interesting to do with my summer. Oftentimes a potentially promising internship lacks the critical information I need to decide whether or not to apply. What's the job entail? Who's the contact person? What type of students are they looking for? Most importantly, does it pay?

Experience has taught me that the more detailed PennLink listings deal with the F-word: finance. Many other industries simply don't have very informative job descriptions. The fault lies with the companies themselves because employers post the job listings in the first place.

Unfortunately, this causes a disparity in the summer job searches between students interested in calculating cash flows and those who, well, wouldn't touch a financial statement with a 10-foot pole. If you look at the statistics, it's clear to see that the students who are benefiting the most from Career Services are the future i-Bankers of America.

Approximately 60 percent of the Wharton class of 2007 found junior summer internships through either On-Campus Recruiting or another Career Services lead. On the other hand, only 23 percent of their College counterparts - who usually don't participate in OCR - found internships by utilizing the same resources.

Career Services doesn't mean to discriminate against the rest of us.

It's just the nature of the companies involved in OCR.

"Banks and consulting firms are able to predict their hiring needs and have the staff in place to conduct large numbers of on-campus interviews," senior associate director Kelly Cleary told me in an e-mail.

This lack of highly visible information available for non-OCR internships makes Career Services appear to favor those students destined for business, leaving others in the dark.

But help is on the way.

Cleary told me, "We hear that students feel there aren't as many resources for non-finance and non-consulting jobs."

Career Services is reaching out to those industries that traditionally don't recruit on campus, such as advertising, education and public service. The Spring Career Fair on Feb. 29 will feature employers from many other sectors. Officials are also holding a number of panels this semester to further guide students.

Still, these options should only be the beginning.

As we enter a world of personalized, up-to-the-minute information, Career Services needs to adjust accordingly to bring its resources for internship searches to the next level. The PennLink system works well, if you're logging on at midnight to find out what interviews you can sign up for.

But if you want to look up more information about that internship at the bottom of the e-mail last week, you're out of luck. There's no archive or record of that listing.

Cleary also noted that since many students aren't sure which industries interest them, the e-mails sent out contain a broad variety of opportunities.

I can tell you, however, that while many students may not know what does interest them, they usually know what doesn't. Career Services could allow liberal-arts students to choose what job industries they want to learn about.

In short, reaching out to College students will help change the misconception that Career Services only helps pre-professional students.

That change can't occur immediately, but it has already begun. Over 30 percent of the College class of 2008 found a job last summer through Career Services - a 10-percent jump from the year before.

In time, all students will feel like they have an equal opportunity for guidance toward what could be a gateway job.

And that's the way it should be.

Christina Domenico is a College junior from North Wildwood, NJ. Her e-mail is domenico@dailypennsylvanian.com. The Undersized Undergrad appears on Fridays.

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