HNC's very own Career Counselor Robbie Shields with a career update from Nanjing:
"Greetings from Nanjing! My name is Robbie Shields and I am the Career Counselor for the Hopkins-Nanjing Center (HNC). This past fall, the HNC added career counseling to the services it provides students onsite in Nanjing. While we are a not quite halfway through the semester, it’s already evident that students at the HNC are seeking out opportunities to enhance their career development.
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| 2011 Career Day in Shanghai |
As a part of our orientation, all new students attended an introduction to Career Services. The purpose of this workshop was twofold. First, to remind students that finding a career that is a good fit takes time and requires effort. Just as you spend many hours to succeed in class, you also must invest many hours to succeed in your career. This takes patience, but benefits you greatly. Second, we explored how to write an effective resume. It’s important for job seekers to know that your resume is not a biography but instead a summary of your previous accomplishments and the value you can add to a particular company or organization. As such, we discussed the importance of writing 'results driven' resumes as opposed to 'duties driven' resumes. This helps ensure that when you’re applying for a position of interest you’ve targeted your resume to that specific position and given yourself the best opportunity to be granted an interview.
In October, students participated in a workshop on effective interviewing. Whether your career interest is in consulting, financial services, government service, education, non-profit, pr, or another field, you will inevitably have to go through at least one job interview. In this workshop, we explored various strategies for success regardless of the interview format or industry. It’s important to remember that while interviews can be nerve racking, with a little preparation you can put yourself in position to succeed.
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| 2011 Career Day in Shanghai |
Also in October, we hosted a panel of alumni to discuss careers in consulting. Andres Carrillo Perea of Bain (Shanghai), Pu Yang of L.E.K. (Shanghai), Brendon Stewart of KPMG (Beijing), and Xu Jiahong of Accenture (Shenzhen) returned to the HNC to share their insights on life as a consultant in China. The spirited discussion highlighted some of the benefits of the profession and shed light on the often difficult application process. In total, 53 current HNC students learned first-hand how to succeed in the case interview and how to leverage the skills developed at HNC to consulting firms.
Finally, this past weekend, the HNC welcomed back its alumni for Alumni Weekend. In total, 25 alumni from classes dating as far back as 1998 and as recent as 2012 came back to Nanjing to meet with current students and reconnect with classmates and friends. While there were many highlights from the weekend, no event was more meaningful than the alumni panel. The panel featured Gary Huang (’03), Sue Anne Tay (SAIS ’08), Du Wenjun (’10), and Abe Sorock (’12) and all of whom offered their insights to current HNC students on everything from getting involved in the alumni community, working in China, balancing work and life, and how to maximize the many opportunities at the HNC. To me, the most salient point that was offered was the special relationship that exists among Center alumni. As Abe put it, 'you are a student at the Center for a short period of time, but you are alumni for the rest of your life.'"
