Hello! My name is Julia Schrank, and I’m a Network Assistant at the Liberal Arts Career Enrichment Network (CEN). Last week, I attended an information session held by Bates-White, LLC on behalf of the CEN. Their recruiters had some fresh tips about searching for jobs and also explained the intriguing field of economic consulting. I hope this post chronicling my night at the session is helpful to you in your own job search!

Right away, I knew that Ben and Joe were not typical recruiters. First of all, they introduced themselves as “Ben and Joe,” as if I had known them all of my life. Also, they had this undeniably sophisticated air about them; both were impeccably dressed, and Joe’s round-frame, gold glasses made him look like a scholar of yesteryear.

Their affability juxtaposed with their formal appearances threw me off the trail a little bit when, almost instantly, the two revealed that they were Penn State alumni. Ben graduated in 2007 as an Economics and Math major, and Joe graduated in 2006 also with a degree in Economics. I guess I wasn’t used to thinking of Penn Staters as sophisticated intellectuals rather than casual students like me!

Their Penn State background, combined with their senior consultant positions, made them very credible hosts for the first half of their presentation, which they called the “Job Search Workshop.” Here are some of their best tips from the presentation:

1) Remember that it is easier to make a bad impression than a good one.
Because they openly want all Penn State students to succeed, Ben and Joe described some faux pas that they’ve seen at the Career Fair in the past. It peeved them when interested individuals would act as though they knew what the firm did, but then provide the wrong information! They emphatically reminded us to research companies beforehand, because the Career Fair is “as much for you to learn about employers as for employers to learn about you.” More research beforehand equals more time for you to sell your qualifications to the employer!

2) Follow up with someone after the first interaction.
For example, it pays to contact the recruiter you met at the Career Fair, or to check with Career Services to see if there is a local representative for the company in their network.

3) “Avoid hyperbole” in your cover letter.
They emphasized that they don’t need you to praise the company in an overwhelming way, and that employers are much more interested in how you and your skills can fit into their company.

4) A resume needs to be “short and punchy.”
It should be a “one page snapshot of why you’re qualified,” and you should do your best to avoid redundancy between your application, cover letter, and resume.

5) Your transcript should reflect academic challenges and be easy to read.
“It’s not impressive to brag about how easy all of your classes were. Employers want to see you challenging yourself,” Ben noted. As for readability, he added that when Penn State transcripts are copied into Microsoft Word, formatting issues often arise. If the formatting is off, spend some time playing around with spacing and fonts to make your transcript easy to read. But in most cases, the best idea is to download a PDF of your transcript directly from eLion.

After this platter of advice, they moved on to talking about types of interviews. At the session, I touched base with attendee Rachel Franceschino, who said that their description of one specific interview, the ‘case’ interview was particularly helpful. “[The employer] told me that I would be working in a group of other applicants to solve a problem in four hours,” Rachel said, “So [their description of a case interview] was definitely helpful.”

According to Ben and Joe, if an employer specifies the sort of information that Rachel received, you will have a ‘case’ or ‘work’ interview in which your problem-solving ability and your analysis will be tested using an actual scenario that might be given to employees of the firm. To this, they added cheekily: “Don’t psych yourself out!”

Finally, they spoke about the intense field of economic consulting, which, in short, is the preparation of detailed economic reports for law firms that ultimately become “what they present as expert economic opinions” in court.

As always, if you would like to learn more about Bates-White, LLC or job hunt advice in general, don’t hesitate to stop by the Career Enrichment Network!