Her Campus Hofstra hosted their annual Dream Job Panel on April 25, 2019. The Dream Job Panel offers an opportunity for media industry professionals to speak to Her Campus Hofstra chapter members and the greater Hofstra community about how they acquired their dream job, what it’s really like in the working world, and how to be successful in both career-finding and beyond.
This year, the panelists were Emily Miethner ’10, founder and CEO of FindSpark, Naledi Ushe ’17, editorial content creator for OK Magazine and previous Her Campus Hofstra Vice President, and Serena Kerrigan, producer and host at Refinery29.
Our Co-Presidents, Sarah Hanlon ’19, and Abby Strusowski ’19 led the panel with guided questions, but the panelists were eager to go off script and share their honest accounts of battling the working world.
“Verbalizing what you want is so important,” noted Serena. “I once saw a picture of Penelope Cruz in a Chanel campaign and I decided that I want to be the face of Chanel one day. A lot of people don’t verbalize what they want. When it comes to careers, women don’t feel confident enough to verbalize that they want to be president or a CEO, or that they want to start their own company, but if you want something you have to say it out loud.”
*Photo courtesy of Faith Cheehan
The panelists shared their own college experiences and how they took every opportunity to get where they are today. They also explored the effects that social media has on the working world, and how to utilize it to your advantage.
Emily suggested that “there’s no timeline for it not to be viable for you to reach out to someone. Everybody thinks of people many times throughout the day, and they don’t think to stop and send something to those people. If you take those few moments every day to send notes, messages, or email, those genuine [actions] really add up, especially if you do it with no expectation of getting anything in return.”
When it comes down to it, the panelists all agreed that personalizing the job hunt and reaching out to recruiters or connections one-on-one is the optimum route to securing favors and offers in the future. We all crave human connection, and formulating that will get you far in the working world.
*Photo courtesy of Faith Cheehan
The panelists also agreed that, at the end of the day, we are all vying for similar “real world” positions, but that doesn’t mean we need to compete with each other.
“That kind of competition should not exist with your peers,” Naledi insisted, “you should all be working on building each other up and not comparing yourselves. Don’t let other’s accomplishments bring you down because at the end of the day, we’re all women here [in the room], and one person’s accomplishment is everyone’s accomplishment.”
*Photo courtesy of Faith Cheehan
After audience questions and more real-life stories, the panelists encouraged everyone to connect with them on LinkedIn and never be afraid to reach out to them for networking, connections, or simply just to check in. Overall, the Her Campus Hofstra Dream Job Panel 2019 was an empowering, inspiring, and motivating success.
If you’re going to procrastinate, it might as well be productive procrastination. There’s nothing wrong with finding out which short-haired Hollywood “Ryan” might be your true love if you were a Cheetah Girl, but looking a little deeper into yourself may be just what the doctor ordered. Happy “studying!”