EOC Newsletter

Dec 27 2011

Do You Have What it Takes

by Dan Choi

Getting a great job and having a successful career is like dating and having a great relationship, you might get lucky, but usually it requires a clear assessment of what you have to offer and what you are looking for. You need to find someone who meets your requirements and whose requirements you meet. Then there needs to be chemistry and a mutual desire to progress. In order to grow the relationship once it is established, you need to continually re-evaluate, adapt and enhance your qualities. As the state of the relationship changes, the criteria for success in that relationship will change as well. Your understanding and willingness to change are key factors to continued success. Most people understand intuitively that personal relationships are about the intangibles, not the hard skills. Yet in the workplace, many workers continue to believe that their success is based on their hard skills. I believe that while the hard skills are an important factor in one’s career, it is interpersonal skills and other soft skills that differentiate you.

I have worked for 25 years at multiple companies and all levels of management. During this time, it has become painfully apparent that while students and employees are trained and schooled in various professional skills, the vast majority still do not know how to successfully navigate their careers to reach their goals. I see bright, smart and highly skilled people taking the wrong initial opportunity, which sets a less than optimum trajectory for the rest of their career. Even worse is when a person has all the right skills, are in the right job yet still plateau in their career because they do not understand how they are truly being measured and the criteria for success.

I have worked extensively with corporate learning and development organizations to help address this issue of career development within the companies which I have worked. As I have become more involved with Baruch and the Executives on Campus (EOC) program, it has become apparent that the challenge is even greater for graduating students.

These concerns led to the creation of the “Do You Have What It Takes” career development workshop. This workshop was built in conjunction with my two partners in crime, Jacqueline (“J.”) McLoughlin, EOC Program, and Eugenia Liakaris, Graduate Career Management Center, Zicklin School of Business. The program was held every Friday for two hours over a four week period. The focus of the workshop was the challenges of the changing world, entering the workplace, defining “your brand,” and understanding the criteria for success in the workplace. To maintain focus and have maximum impact, the workshop was kept small. Ten students from Zicklin School of Business successfully applied and were accepted.

The goal of the workshop was not to focus on the mechanics and tactical steps required for students to get a job and be successful in their careers. Rather, the intent was to enlarge students’ vision and understanding of how they are being viewed at work, what types of challenges they may face, and how to understand the criteria for measurement by which they will be judged. Through lecture, role play, dialogue and presentation, we spent the four weeks exploring the impact of global events on the job market, how to approach the interview, the value of building a personal brand that is representative, and finally, how to apply this to finding and being successful in a career. Without this knowledge, the ability to get a great job and ultimately have a very successful career is often luck. “Trust me, you can’t play the game if you don’t know the rules. And if you don’t know the rules, someone’s bound to get hurt.” – Alyson Noel

General feedback was very positive from the participants and several of the students commented on how the workshop has helped change their viewpoint and approach to their careers. Tying real world experiences and direct and honest dialogue together in a more comprehensive view of building a career offered the students a way to build a broader picture of what the challenges and success may look like. Sometimes it only takes one new thought or key concept to dramatically change the trajectory of one’s career. Hopefully this workshop has exposed participants to new ways of thinking about their careers, and will help them be successful in the workplace.

Sep 15 2011

Executives on Campus Mentee Alumni Program (MAP)

by Terresa Ling, Jason Wang and Ryan Meltzer
EOC MAP Kicks Off with Summer Picnic
The Mentee Alumni Program (MAP) successfully launched at the EOC’s 10th anniversary celebration on May 5th, 2011. To move forward with our organization, MAP kicked off summer in style with our first event, a picnic on June 5th at Madison Square Park with some delicious picnic food and casual sports activities for the alumni.

Alumni enjoyed homemade guacamole and chips and fresh cut fruits as they networked with each other. Participants agree that they were glad they attended. Danish Kapur said, “The last EOC event was well attended by the recent graduates working in different sectors and industries and it certainly helped in making me aware of the latest corporate trends and how companies are positioning themselves in response to the current economic conditions.”

Another student is glad to be a part of EOC MAP. She said, “An important part of the Baruch education/experience is the relationships we build with our peers and professors. EOC MAP allows us to extend this experience by giving us the opportunity to further build on the network of awesome students, present and former. It is fun and it’s good for our career development.”

Attendees are excited about attending more EOC MAP events. If you have an idea for a future event or would like to organize one, feel free to email us at [email protected].

What’s Next Up for MAP?
MAP will be hosting our first workshop, “Managing the Corporate Ladder Series” on Wednesday, October 12, 2011 at 7PM in NVC 14-275 (55 Lexington Avenue). Long time Baruch mentor and newly anointed MAP Consiglieri, also an Executive Director of Finance and Planning at Thomas Industrial Network, Jeffrey Goldstein will be holding an hour-long interactive discussion about:

understanding your place on the corporate ladder
learning how to “manage up the ladder”
lateral career moves and why they might be an overlooked strategy
how to begin to take control of your forward momentum up the career ladder by effectively understanding your role in managing yourself and your boss

Space is extremely limited on a first-come-first served basis! RSVP NOW to EOC Alumni! Light snacks and refreshments will be served.

MAP to Support Current EOC Mentees
Executive Student Partnership (ESP) Mentoring Program of 2013 kicked off with their launch event on September 15th. The next step is matching mentor and mentee pairs and both parties are waiting enthusiastically and nervously to find out who they have been matched with. In order to prepare the mentees for the mentoring program so they can make the most of their mentorship, Ryan Meltzer from J.P. Morgan and Jason Wang from Citigroup, Baruch alumni, former ESP mentees and current board members of MAP will be conducting a mentee orientation on Tuesday, October, 25, 2011 during club hour at 12:45PM in room 14-245 in the Vertical Campus. Jason and Ryan will share their experiences during their tenure with the program, share tips on how to build an everlasting relationship with their mentors and ways and techniques to reap the benefits to its fullest out of the year-long program. Mentees are encouraged to attend where they will have the chance to ask questions and gain insight from their peers.

Sep 15 2011

New Mentor Spotlight

by Nick Passarelli
When I began with my former firm, Kellogg Group LLC, in 2003, I was hired as the Director of Human Resources, but was told that my help was needed in other areas, specifically compliance. I knew about regulatory compliance from my days at Prudential Securities, but never considered it as a career. Here I am starting a new position and immediately was asked to get involved in an area where I have zero experience. Since I was new and the company was small, I agreed to help.

The experience in compliance began primarily in areas such as registration and continuing education. As I became more familiar with the different areas of the firm, my manager gave me greater compliance-related responsibilities. Six months into the job, my day was split between 50% HR and 50% compliance. I’m not sure if many people would be happy doing something other than what they were hired to do, but I actually enjoyed it. In fact, I enjoyed compliance more.

In 2005, I was named the Chief Compliance Officer (CCO) of Kellogg Partners, the Institutional Sales division of Kellogg Group. The experience really helped me grow professionally into a compliance role. At a small firm, there is a lot of baptism by fire. I made mistakes, but I learned from them quickly. As I began to understand the business in detail, it only helped me develop further into the role.

I stayed in compliance at Kellogg Partners for over four years. In 2009, I accepted a position as the CCO of Hilliard Farber/Dealerweb in 2009. My current firm has a different business model, but the responsibilities remain the same. When you work in compliance, you are the liaison between your firm and the various regulators who oversee you. It’s important that regulators understand what your firm does and that you’re compliant with their various rules and regulations. There’s a delicate balance between being compliant and tying that into the firm’s business. If you say no to everything your business wants, they will never make any money. At the same time, giving the business free reign on everything will inevitably lead to issues. It’s my job to work closely with my business people and help put them in a position where they can be as successful as possible while satisfying our regulatory responsibilities.

I am a graduate of Baruch’s MBA Program and always appreciated my experience at the school. My professors were excellent. They always made you think and tied everything into real-life scenarios. I also believe that attending part-time at night while working full-time during the day enhanced my experience. We always discussed general work items in class and the professors were always appreciative of it. It also helped the full-time students get a better understanding of topics in terms of their real life applicability.

I have always enjoyed mentoring younger people and will continue this fall as a mentor in the Executives on Campus program. There were so many people who gave me their time when I was younger and I was always appreciative. I made myself a promise that I would do the same and share my experiences and advice to those who are just getting started in their careers.

For the mentees who are reading this, here’s some advice from my experience: When it comes to starting your career, your biggest obstacle is lack of experience. It’s something you’ll overcome in time, but you need to be patient. Also, people with certain personality traits tend to be more desirable to employers. If you are willing to roll up their sleeves, get their hands dirty and handle the grunt work, it shows me that you’re not above anything and I respect that. I learned a lot about HR by starting in an administrative on-boarding position. While it wasn’t what I envisioned in HR, I learned how the on-boarding tied in with the different HR functions at the firm. The experience was great.

Even after 15 years of experience, I am still amazed at how some people have difficulty working with others. I don’t care what you decide to do as a career. If you don’t know how to work with all types of people in your field, then your upside is limited. You don’t have to be friends with everyone, but you do need to find a way to work with them and get the job done.

One final piece of advice for the mentees in the program which I think is important: Network!! I cannot begin to stress the importance of networking. Create an account on Linked In, exchange information with people you meet and keep in touch with those in your network. You’ll be amazed at the amount of people you meet who may know someone that you do. I always tell my interns that what you know helps, but who you know will lead to more opportunities for you.

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