Career Corner: “The Work is Mysterious and Important…” But it doesn’t have to be hard to find
Severance — the best television show on right now — is admittedly a little hard to find. If you canceled your Apple TV subscription after watching Ted Lasso during COVID, it’s probably worth firing it back up again to watch this masterpiece.
The show, now in Season 2, follows a group of four “severed” employees at Lumon Industries, a company shrouded in mystery. These four employees have undergone Lumon’s severance procedure, whereby an implant placed in their brain separates their work life from their personal life; when they go down the elevator to the “severed floor,” they have no knowledge of their personal history or their relationships. At the end of the work day, as they go back up the elevator to leave, it’s as if they were never at work at all, as their “outie” has no memory of the work that they did or the people they work with.
Needless to say, it’s all a bit surreal. The “innies” or work personas work on a project that they don’t completely understand (and neither do we, the viewer). At one point Mark, played expertly by Adam Scott, tells Helly (Brit Lower), a new employee struggling to find her place, that “the work is mysterious and important.”
Looking for jobs and internships is very important, but it doesn’t have to be mysterious.
The Employer Engagement and Experiential Learning Team at the Center for Career Excellence has started an email campaign they’ve titled “Open Apps.”
Open Apps are targeted, curated messages about opportunities with SLU-connected employers — i.e., employers who are specifically looking for St. Lawrence University students like you.
Students who update their career interests on Handshake will receive more specifically targeted Open App messages, and therefore will more easily find job and internship listings that relate to their interests.
To access your profile in Handshake:
- Click on the icon of your photo or initials in the upper right corner
- In the drop-down menu, click on “My Career Interests” and check or select the industries, roles, jobs and locations that appeal to you. Don’t forget to click “Save” at the bottom.
- Then, go back to the drop-down menu and click on “My Profile.”
- Update the “Looking for” section, as well as the skills and all other sections.
The more data you provide, the more targeted your communications will be. If you have additional questions about Open Apps or your Handshake profile, contact Anne Warren at awarren@stlawu.edu.
Finally, as we close this week’s column about email communications, we’d be remiss if we didn’t promote our Pathways to Career Excellence email newsletter. This weekly email, which you receive every Sunday afternoon, is chock full of information about programming, resources and opportunities you can take advantage of to explore careers, connect with Laurentians, gain meaningful experiences and engage in post-SLU planning.
We challenge you to commit yourself to spending five minutes every week to opening and reading Pathways (our shorthand name for the newsletter). We promise it will be worth your while, and you might even find an opportunity to enter into a drawing for a free cup of coffee, which sounds like a better perk than finger traps or a melon bar. (And if you don’t understand these references, watch Severance. Seriously. You won’t be disappointed.)