Prof. Donald Spratt leads a highly regarded research program at Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts. His team is pursuing a deeper understanding of enzyme catalysis and protein-protein interactions for enzymes involved in the ubiquitylation-signalling pathway.
Got that? I thought so.
In the interest of full disclosure, Spratt is also a member of my extended family and a good friend.
Spratt’s research team is searching for more information about human diseases, including cancer and neurological disorders, pitiless ailments that affect the lives of so many people.
As remarkable as all that is, Spratt also teaches a new class of his own creation for graduate and undergraduate students called “LEEPing into a Science Career” (the title is a nod to Clark’s undergraduate curriculum — Liberal Education, Effective Practice).
The class provides students majoring in STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) with practical ideas about how to navigate the job market successfully.
“I’ve met with many students concerned about finding jobs after leaving Clark University, and I thought it would be a great opportunity to get everybody in the same room, inviting guest speakers, some of them former ‘Clarkies,’ to talk about how they found their jobs,” says Spratt.
The guest speakers in the weekly class range from specialists in job searching to the president of a technology company to a pharmaceutical sales representative to a head-hunter identifying job candidates for STEM employers.
Among their topics: networking, setting up informational interviews, writing cover letters and resumés, identifying potential jobs, selling yourself in job interviews, and negotiating salaries and benefits.
That’s refreshing, because too often the ivory tower of the university education system operates as if the “real world” either doesn’t exist or is of little interest or inaccessible to kids who have followed the path to higher education only to find that undergraduate and post-graduate degrees lead to a career cul-de-sac at Starbucks.
“Instead of focusing on the job as a reward for completing their education,” says Spratt, “I encourage students to aim for a career that aligns with their values, interests and skills. Career development is long-term, constantly changing and full of possibility — a marathon, not a sprint. Education is a part of this development, not just a means to an end.”
Amen.
One of Spratt’s guest speakers shared a widely referenced career development book titled The Startup of You by Reid Hoffman (co-founder and chairman of LinkedIn) and Ben Casnocha.
The career-search advice Hoffman and Casnocha dispense is universal in its application and boils down to three practical recommendations for those who soon will be cast out into the hard, cold world of job searching.
First, suggest the authors, list your personal assets — what you have going for you now.
That’s useful advice, and in my own field of education I’ve always advised soon-to-be teacher grads: “Keep your resumé as brief as possible but make sure you tell them who you are; sports, hobbies, interests, successes in anything you’ve attempted beyond your academic qualifications that you’ll bring to the job. All that plays a part in telling a prospective employer that you are more than a one-trick pony.”
Hoffman and Casnocha’s second piece of advice is about aspirations and values. “Have some idea about where you might like to go in the future,” they say.
Again, in my own experience, that provides some indication of a desire for a career in the ever-broadening field of education or in Spratt’s case, in the relatively focused fields of the sciences.
Experience tells me that a career in any field is not a matter of climbing some ladder but of discovering through a variety of experiences what you can bring to the evolution of enterprise.
Last, Hoffman and Casnocha advise that soon to be “out there” students take a long, hard look at market realities.
Skills that can’t earn money will not get you very far, they advise, nor will following your bliss without being very good at your bliss. That, it is suggested, is unlikely to keep you blissful for very long.
I’d even add another piece of advice to today’s career aspirants: “Clean up your online image.”
According to a recent Harris poll, more that 70 per cent of employers use social media for recruiting, and research potential candidates online before hiring them. So that pic of a glassy-eyed you pouring beer on your head might come back to haunt you.
Unless, of course, you are applying for a seat on the U.S. Supreme Court.
Geoff Johnson is a former superintendent of schools.
