CAREERS NOW 04-16-08

When Job Doesn't Fit, Keep Shopping

DEAR JOYCE: I frequently see the word "fit" in connection with how a person fits in with a job. What does that mean? - P.H.F.

"Fit" questions probe whether you're like coffee and cream with a job, or oil and water. Ingredients of a fit with a position generally start with company culture, but also include the challenge, location, travel, career path, long-term compensation, and immediate salary and bonuses. That's the word from towering career and salary coach Jack Chapman (salarynegotiations.com).

Years ago it took serious effort to sleuth the environment inside a potential employer's company. You could hang out at the local watering hole and hope to buttonhole an employee or two, or you could race around town trying to find someone on the inside.

Sleuthing is easier today: You can use an online network, such as LinkedIn.com or Facebook.com, to network your way to insiders. Or you can research through the day-in-the-life style of employee videos streamed on company Web sites.

Keep dashes of salt handy as you view employees who presumably are talking without a script. Do you think a real employee portraying the real work life at ABC Company is going to say the place is a rat hole or that the bosses ought to be tried for war crimes?

But at least you'll get an idea of what to wear for an interview by watching the target company's video. An even better reason for you to do fit research is that there's no point in wasting your valuable interview time on companies where chances are you would be a huge misfit.

DEAR JOYCE: My daughter is graduating from college this year but has more than $20,000 in student loans to pay off. Unlike the (reported) 65 percent of new graduates said to be moving home to save money and look for a job, my daughter is hoping that I will back her move to New York City, where she hopes to find a job in publishing or TV. I don't know about that! What do you think she should do? - C.L.

The go-or-stay decision is beyond my job description. I know parents who support their offspring's efforts to move into a glamour industry far from home, and I know others who've said no.

One small tip: Encourage your daughter to visit a new Web site to discover her "freedom quotient." The site, whatsyourfq.com, presents a rent calculator paired with a job board and a credit check. Your daughter will get clued into how much it will cost to live on her own and whether jobs are still growing on trees for Millennials.

DEAR JOYCE: After 18 years in the finance arena, the time has come to do what has always been a dream for me: work with one of our many local humane societies, such as S.P.C.A or animal rescue foundations. How does someone go about finding work in an animal welfare nonprofit? - L.C.V.

Become a volunteer at your favorite place and apply when a paid job opens. Get to know staff and other volunteers. If a job doesn't open on your timetable where you're working, your new network may tell you of openings in other organizations.

When volunteering isn't feasible for you, make the rounds of potential employers with a snail-mailed resume and cover letter (or even better, a two-page resume letter, which is a combination cover letter and resume). Leverage your finance skills, translating them to show how you can cross over into an animal wekfare office and be immediately productive with the numbers work.

Alternatively, you could attend veterinary technician school and launch a new career from there. My dog's veterinarian became a vet tech 10 years ago. Before that she was a college graduate unhappily employed in information technology. After working as a vet tech for several years, making certain she was sniffing up the right tree for her second career choice, she attended a veterinary university in England for five years. Now, in her early 30s, she's back as a veterinarian and loving it.

Although you don't want to become a veterinarian, you have to show or develop qualifications relating to the work you want to do.

DEAR JOYCE: Starting my senior college year this fall, I know I should try for at least one good internship before graduation. But the ones I've seen don't pay. I can't afford to work for free even if I'm learning about the real world. What can I do?-F.T.

Look harder for quality internships that pay. New survey data from the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) reports that the trend is away from freebees and toward paid internships, especially in internship programs that function as feeders for full-time hiring. At organizations with recruiting-focused programs, NACE says the 2008 average hourly salary to an undergraduate intern is $16.69, and $25.93 to a master's level intern.

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