Follow Your Bliss

ADVERTORIAL: Networking and internships (and a leap of faith or two) are the keys to landing a job you'll love forever.

by Jason Tomassini

ADVERTORIAL CONTENT

(CLICK IMAGE FOR LARGER VERSION)

Liz Sieber's store Omoi, tucked into Rittenhouse Square at 16th and Pine, isn't the typical neighborhood business. Full of garments, gifts and knickknacks she bought from the Far East, Sieber's store isn't conventional for a lifelong Philadelphian, probably because Sieber isn't too familiar with convention.

The store was inspired first by the 26-year-old Villanova graduate's two stints in Japan (six months in high school and a semester in college) and second from a post-college desire to reject the predestined career track for marketing majors of toiling away in a New York City firm. After a short time working in retail, Sieber opened Omoi in December 2006 with only a loan, a ton of weird Japanese clothes and a remedial knowledge of running a business.

But with the passion to accompany that leap of faith and a unique and personal sense of fashion, Sieber's growing her operation steadily. It now includes toys, art, books, jewelry and many other can't-find-this-anywhere-else items.

Massimo Taurisano, a 39-year-old who moved to the U.S. from Italy in 1996, certainly doesn't appear to be Sieber's kindred spirit on the surface. After a career that involved military service, a stint working in Kuwait, a few engineering and real estate jobs in the U.S. and eventually the executive program at Penn's Wharton Business School, Taurisano has now settled into, you guessed it, the coffee business.

Hausbrandt USA, an importer and distributor of the Hausbrandt brand of gourmet Italian coffee, and also the parent company of the Academia Del Caffe coffee shops, was founded in 2004 as the result of Taurisano's lifelong dream to run a business. It started as he was working a steady job designing trading floors, offices and data centers for high-end clients in Manhattan. He was fascinated with the business side of things and although he already had two Master's degrees in engineering and probably couldn't afford it, Taurisano enrolled in Wharton's executive program in 2002, which allowed him to take classes around his job.

After stumbling upon a shop in Philadelphia that sold Hausbrandt, an Italian coffee which he recognized from his hometown of Trieste, he learned the owner was losing the business. So he bought the store, put his newly found business acumen to work and 11 shops, 65 employees and a downtown distribution company later, Taurisano no longer dreams of running his own business, he lives it.

So what do the 26-year-old lifelong Philly resident, who was "kind of apathetic in school" and the 39-year-old Italian immigrant with three post-graduate degrees have in common?

"I could've moved forward with a company," Sieber says. "But I was thinking, I have my own vision and I want to do my own vision in my own way and that's what I'm going to do."

Taurisano: "To this very day I still think, I could just work a regular job. At the time when I was working for somebody else, I was doing very well, making very good money. But when I went home I was done.

"Now every time I go home, I still think of everything that is going on here because it is part of my life now. And that's what I wanted."

What binds Sieber and Taurisano is their ability to embrace risk and follow their passion, despite more conventional, secure career paths available. And while not everyone is an entrepreneur, nor does everyone have the resources or education of Sieber and Taurisano, everyone does have a vision of what their career should be like and a drive to fulfill that vision.

For college students or recent graduates the methods used to decide on a career are often the same used to obtain a job. And in the current job market, the two channels stressed the most are internships and networking.

(CLICK IMAGE FOR LARGER VERSION)

Internships, once an added bonus on a resume, are quickly becoming a necessity for kids entering the job market. Now just working somewhere the summer before senior year is no longer enough. Patricia Rose, director of career services at Penn, says employers are looking for multiple college internships and even relevant work experience from high school.

"Internships have become more important, both to experience an opportunity and to see if they really like it," Rose says. "They may want go into a certain kind of field and once they get there, they find out it's not all it's cracked up to be.

"And sometimes it's essential to getting a permanent job, one that might only be available to those who have had internships. More and more employers still fill a substantial number of their vacancies with their interns."

It's familiarity with the day-to-day routine of a job and the actual work setting, Rose says, that is invaluable for students trying to decide if a career is attractive.

Sieber, who was a marketing major at Villanova, says the vision to open her own store was cultivated solely in work experience, with some of the skills to help manage the business coming from the classroom.

"I can say when I was in high school and college, I was a good student but I wasn't an enthusiastic student," she says, acknowledging classroom skills like bookkeeping and tracking inventory made running Omoi a bit easier. "All the things that I took away were active experiences like working [at the retail chain Urban Outfitters] and going abroad [to Japan] and that taught me infinitely more than sitting in class."

Many career service centers focus on setting students up with jobs in any market, but city-funded organizations are helping students land jobs specifically in Philadelphia.

And while internships are a great way to pinpoint what career path to take and learn about an employer, most career specialists agree networking is still the best way for young adults to land their first job.

Lisa DeLuca, assistant director of student services at Drexel's LeBow College of Business, says the best way to begin networking is setting up informational interviews with attractive employers in the student's preferred field.

Students should look to meet with people who have jobs they aspire toward, she says, but shouldn't openly ask for a job, instead inquiring if the person knows anyone else to contact. This way, the student's network grows, and the employer may come calling if a position opens up down the line.

"People are always happy to talk about themselves and their experience. They aren't always happy to take your resume and give it to their company," DeLuca says. "You're not asking them to find you a job, you just want to pick their brain and learn about them and most people are willing to help out that way."

It may sound simple enough to just sit down with some employers, talk about yourself and wait until the phone rings, but according to DeLuca, most students don't have the patience to network properly.

"This generation is used to instant everything," she says. "They don't realize that the job search takes awhile. It takes time and you need to build upon it. You start off talking to someone in a networking situation but you need to follow up so it's not just a one-time thing."

The current generation's quick-fix approach to job seeking isn't the only problem career experts have noticed in recent grads. Nancy Dudak, director of career services at Villanova, says that the reliance on new technology by young people has resulted in a fundamental inability to have productive conversations about their own careers.

Dudak says students often use the convenience of online job boards as a crutch, simply applying to jobs through e-mail and waiting. With technology minimizing the avenues of communication, she says, students who don't have conversational skills generally can't sell themselves to employers.

"If you're getting ready to start networking, go out and talk as much as you can," Dudak says. "I mean, you go to Wawa for example, you don't even have to talk to order a sandwich! People don't talk anymore and networking is a very verbal activity.

"All employers put communication skills as No. 1."

Career experts stress the importance of complementing work experience and networking with strong personal interests. There are going to be other candidates with the same work experience, the same education and the same contacts, but DeLuca says putting your qualifications in terms that are meaningful to you, will also be meaningful to employers.

"Write accomplishment statements rather than just saying what you did," says DeLuca, who was in accounting before embarking on a career change. "What impact did it have on the company and can you personally quantify that influence? Something that sets your personality apart from someone doing the same thing."

As is evident with Liz Sieber and Massimo Taurisano, what actually sets you apart might not be conventional or appear attractive to potential employers, but the job you want isn't always going to find you.

"You need to have a vision," Taurisano says. "You need to find something that grabs you every day. Even if you have a job with security, you have to want a job that makes you happy. If you have to do a job just for a paycheck that should tell you to think about what you're doing."