The CCE offers a lot of services, as anyone who receives its incessant weekly e-mails knows. It will pretend to interview you for a job and try to make you crack. It will describe the career options for your major and try to make you cry. It will even give you tips on resume scents if you ask nicely. But its most important task is to find you a job. And employment, as you may or may not be aware, is kind of thin on the ground right now.
The CCE wants you to know it’s trying really, really hard. It wants you to know so badly, in fact, that it e-mailed your parents (they who pay the bills) telling them so. This morning, a message landed in parental inboxes across the country describing its response to the recession, the “Hire Columbians” initiative, in which the CCE promotes connections between student/graduate employees and alumni/affiliate employers.
It might have been easier to write, “It’s the economy, stupid,” and leave it at that, but then we wouldn’t know about “Columbia Champions,” who are constant and fearless, and will rescue you from ROUS’s if you’re wearing light blue.
The point is, the CCE is keeping up the fight. On one hand, it’s nice that you’re getting off the hook for not filling out a dozen job applications over spring break. On the other, anything that prompts a mental comparison between the CCE and the Little Engine That Could is a little worrying. Click for the full e-mail.
From: Center for Career Education <careereducation@columbia.edu>
Sent: Tuesday, March 31, 2009 10:43:00 AM
Subject: Hire Columbians – an initiative from the career center at Columbia University
Dear Columbia Parent,
At this difficult economic time, you can make a difference by assisting Columbia students and alumni looking for jobs and internships. The Columbia University Center for Career Education (CCE) is pleased to announce ‘Hire Columbians’, a new initiative designed to facilitate the hiring of Columbians. Listed below are several different ways you can get involved.
Post a Position
If your firm is hiring, ensure that CCE is aware of openings at your organization. Assist Columbians by posting positions exclusively for Columbia students and alumni on CCE’s job database LionSHARE.
Become a Columbia Champion
Make sure your colleagues know the benefits a Columbian will bring to an organization. CCE can work with you to turn your contacts into potential employers of Columbia students and alumni.
Offer your Industry Expertise
As CCE looks to find new opportunities, those who can speak as authorities within their field are a vital resource. As a Columbia Parent you can work with CCE to share trends within your field, provide industry contacts and help to expand the number of positions available to Columbia students and alumni.
To learn more about all the above contact:
Patrick Smith
Senior Associate Director of Employer Outreach at CCE
Telephone: 212-854 5496
Email: ps2211@columbia.edu
We hope that you are able to join the ‘Hire Columbians’ initiative and help fellow Columbians advance their career goals. Even a small amount of your time can make an enormous positive impact, both on job-seekers and on the firms that hire them.
Thank you for your consideration,
Kavita Sharma
Dean, Center for Career Education
6 Comments
@weak They sent a similar email to alumni last week signed by the chair of the Young Alumni. It’s an all out effort.
@another jobless alum amen!
@jobless alum uhh yeah, I’ll help you guys just as soon as someone helps me.
@so basically we just take our parents jobs? sounds fair enough. they deserve to relax and with birth rates the way they are, there will be just enough. will have to build more golf courses and whatever else old people do with their free time.
that is, the old people who don’t work at wal-mart.
@This is dope very good idea. A lot of small liberal arts colleges pair each student up with an alum who helps them post-graduation.
@Jobless A firm? Seriously? Fucking pizza shops aren’t hiring, for God’s sake.