Colby Sim, the peer engagement manager at the BU Center for Career Development, provides insight into a 4-part Zoom workshop series for BU graduate students that lets them explore how they can best market themselves.
What made you and the Career Development Center want to do this four-part series?
Graduate students, while they have a lot of the same needs as all students, definitely have specific needs in terms of their careers. They’re pursuing a higher level degree; they might be trying to make a career shift or trying to dive more deeply into a career or a field; or they might be trying to pursue academia. So I think that a lot of times, graduate students need some tailored programming that aligns with their needs and the types of things that they’re thinking of in their career development. So we’re very excited to try this sort of workshop series. We have a career development workshop series that is open to all students, including graduate students. We do see a lot of graduate students at those events, but it’s nice to have a space that’s really for them. And the questions can be a little bit more tailored, and the conversations can be a little bit more tailored, so it is meant to provide a space for graduate students.
The center has already had the first two sessions. What would you say was the main takeaway of the first session for those who couldn’t attend and who would want to attend the others?
The topic was really about how to market yourself as a graduate student. It’s thinking a lot about transferable skills and how do you talk about your experiences in interviews? How do you articulate your experiences on a resume, on a CV? I was focused on identifying what those transferable skills are and how to apply them to a variety of different fields and different industries.
So there was a lot of opportunity for graduate students to share their goals in terms of trying to advance their skills to be able to connect to a certain industry. We talked a lot about all the various places that you communicate your brand. We did some exercises of finding what is that, what are those skills that I want to hone in on. It’s one thing to list all of your experiences on a CD and just say, these are all the things I’ve ever done.
And it’s another thing to say, no, these are the most relevant things. This is the language that I’m seeing in job postings, in my industry, and the keywords that I’m noticing, and I like speaking their language. I want that language in your documents, in your interviews, doing that extra work of, you know, going on LinkedIn, seeing people in the industry, looking up job descriptions, and seeing where is this reflected in my brand, and on my LinkedIn profile.
We talked a lot about how to make those connections between the experiences that you have, the skills that you’re developing, and what skills are most relevant in your industry and your field.
Why is it important to not only network with older, more accomplished employers but also with each other at BU?
I think it’s a common misconception about networking that networking has to happen with people who are years into their career who are maybe removed from our own lived experiences but in reality, networking happens with people of all generations, of all ages, and it includes peers, family, friends, professors, advisors, supervisors, and mentors. I think the unique thing about graduate students is it’s very rare that graduate students get to be in a shared space with other graduate students outside of their cohort or outside of their program.
So graduate students need to be able to connect with people who have a shared affinity with them. And it’s also a safe space to practice networking skills. Being able to practice some of those skills in a safe space with people who want to see you succeed and are also looking to expand their networking skills can be empowering. We always say that when you connect with people on LinkedIn, when you expand your network, include peers in that. Many folks in graduate school have industry experience. They have years of experience. So you’re tapping into a knowledgeable network.
Will you go over how to create and tailor a LinkedIn profile?
We cover that on our website, but I think LinkedIn is always kind of a part of the conversation. I think a lot of the same tools and strategies when we’re talking about how to market yourself, how to you know set up your resume and CV in a way that’s transferable to your industry, also apply to LinkedIn. And graduate students can also make a one-on-one appointment with us, and one of our appointment types is LinkedIn. So we can fully focus on LinkedIn when we’re meeting with them and make sure that they feel empowered.
Negotiating a salary was one of the things that’s going to be discussed in the fourth session. Why is it important for grad students to know how to have this skill and how to do it?
We recognize that students don’t get to talk about these things, right? Like you said, like it’s not, you’re not in classrooms learning how to negotiate salary. But when you even get a job offer, how do you evaluate that offer? A salary is just a part of the offer. Maybe parental leave is important to you. Maybe vacation time, health benefits. So it’s a package. And so it’s exciting and empowering to talk to graduate students and undergraduate students about these things.
But I think graduate students especially, have done the work of investing in this higher degree and are coming from years of industry experience so being able to talk about that to employers and being able to know how to do your research on what are the typical salaries in my industry, in this city, in this region can be empowering because for a lot of students, this is the first time they’re even having these conversations. We love this session because it can be very empowering for folks.
Anything else that you would like to include?
I think sometimes for graduate students, it can be very overwhelming, especially at a place like BU, to navigate all the available resources, and I think sometimes graduate students don’t know what is available to them. And so my hope is that graduate students know that we’re here for them, and that we have resources for them and we want them to come to our program. These programs and resources are for them. So hopefully we’ll see more graduate students engaging with us.
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