Undergraduate Q&A - Career Placement September 25, 2006, 7:52PM EST

Lehigh's Eager Alums

The school's director of career services talks about the extensive alumni network and other job-hunting aids

At Lehigh University, business majors don't rely just on typical business world contacts for jobs. Because of the school's well-known engineering program, several manufacturing and other engineering-related companies come to campus looking to interview marketing and supply-chain management students, says Donna Goldfeder, Lehigh's director of career services (see BusinessWeek.com, 5/8/06, "Why Put Real Work Off Till Tomorrow?").

Goldfeder heads up career services for the entire student body; the College of Business & Economics does not have a separate career center. However, many work-related initiatives are of interest to business majors, and the university has a relationship with many of the Big Four accounting firms, investment banks, and other companies of note—related to engineering and otherwise.

	Donna Goldfeder Lehigh University

Goldfeder, who has been working in Lehigh career services for 15 years, recently spoke to BusinessWeek.com reporter Julie Gordon. Here are edited excerpts of their conversation.

The College of Business & Economics doesn't have its own career center. What does general career services offer that is of particular interest to business undergrads?

Our externship program is quite special and unique.

What types of externships are available for business students?

Many of them are offered through alumni contacts. The alums at Lehigh are just so cool. The students go into work sites from one day to as much as two or three weeks over winter break.

If they're one day, it's a tour with the ability to shadow a professional. When they're as long as the three weeks, they're sometimes given projects. One I'm thinking of in particular was at Goldman Sachs (GS), so they actually had a mini-internship. (See BusinessWeek.com, 5/11/06, "Jammin' Like Crazy at Goldman").

Externships are really a special way to get a short glimpse at what you think you might want— even pre-internship. One student that took the Goldman Sachs externship came back and said: 'Quite frankly, it's not for me.' So that student didn't waste the entire summer on a Wall Street internship that wasn't right for him when he could go for something else like Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) or L'Oreal (LORLY).

For students unable to participate in externships, what other self-evaluation exercises can they do?

We use, as most career services do, assessment tools like the Strong Inventory or the Myers-Briggs Inventory to help point out their strengths and interests. There are certain personality types that make very good counselors and other personality types that really like sales. That doesn't mean that the person good at counseling can't do sales or vice versa, but it means that that's what's going to feel natural and comfortable.

What skills do business majors need in today's job market?

Ethics is also becoming much more talked-about. I don't know if you'd call it a skill as much as a value, but I'm hearing the word 'ethics' a lot from business employers and the business faculty members and such.

Students have to be able to write well, even in e-mails (ssee BusinessWeek.com, 4/26, "Memo to Students: Writing Skills Matter"). And they have to be able to speak without every other word being 'like,' or 'you know,' or 'um.

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