May 1—the date when many colleges require students who plan on attending to submit their deposit—is right around the corner. And Patrick O’Connor’s recent piece has some great reminders for students, parents, and counselors, especially applicants who have been waitlisted and any families considering depositing at more than one college (please don’t).

This week, I traveled 2100 miles round trip to spend less than 3 hours in Irvine, California. I do this 4-6 times a year, and every time, it always feels like one of the best uses of travel, time, and energy I could choose to spend. I go for day #1 of Collegewise orientation for new employees, which kicks off with a 90-minute welcome from me, the founder.

Part of my motivation for doing this is purely selfish—I really enjoy it. In the early years of Collegewise, I personally interviewed, hired, trained, and managed every employee. We’re a much bigger company nearly 20 years later. As we’ve grown, it’s been important for me to hand off various aspects of the work to other people who can devote more time or skill to a particular responsibility than I can. But the opening of orientation is one of the last things I’d want to step away from.

We spend a considerable amount of time and energy recruiting people to join us at Collegewise. We’re not just filling open jobs–we’re finding our future colleagues, people with whom we hope to do the best work of our careers. And we’ve designed our recruiting process to help us really get to know the applicant behind the application. By the time each new class finally arrives at orientation, I’m really excited to finally say hello in person and officially kick off their Collegewise careers.

Each session is a little different, but I typically talk about four areas:

The history of Collegewise
There’s a history here at Collegewise, and I enjoy sharing it with new colleagues. Nobody would be particularly interested in a dry recitation of dates and facts. But when I can personalize it, when I can explain how we got started, how we grew, what challenges we’ve faced, and why we’ve made many of the decisions we’ve made along the way, it breathes some life into our past that this group wasn’t here to experience. People feel more personally connected to the company when they understand where we came from and how we got here.

Our values
What do we believe at Collegewise? Why do we do what we do? What are the principles from which we will never stray? By the time someone arrives at orientation, they’ve inevitably been exposed to all of those things already. In fact, the values at Collegewise are a big part of what draws most people to work here. But discussing them during my welcome is yet another way to show people that our values aren’t just words we share in our employee handbook. They’re reflected in the actions we take—and those we refuse to take—every day.

The future
Work is not a place where people feel comfortable journeying towards an uncharted, vague destination. Orientation is my opportunity to talk about the future of Collegewise. Where are we headed? What are our plans? What’s the big vision? I want new colleagues to see where we’re trying to go and to begin thinking, right from day one, about how each of their particular talents can help us get there together.

Why they were hired
This is the most important topic I cover. It feels great to be offered a new job, but employees at most companies never get to hear why they were hired. So right there in the orientation, I tell each new colleague what ultimately tipped the scales and brought them into Collegewise. The story in their cover letter that resonated with us. Their reply to an interview question that made us say, “Yep—they’re one of us.” The reference check who raved so glowingly they almost scolded us for waiting so long to make an offer. New colleagues deserve to hear these things. We’ve learned from past classes that imposter syndrome is a very real feeling for some new employees here, like the new freshman at MIT who feels intimidated by their remarkable classmates and concludes they must have been the lone student admitted by accident. And just as many colleges reassure those unsure freshmen, we want our new colleagues to know we did better than just avoid a mistake; we made a thoughtful, informed choice we’re really excited about.

Does your club, office, group, or organization do an orientation for new members? If not, how might you design one to show people right from the start how thrilled you are to have them in the room with you? What could you share with them to make them feel not just like a new addition, but an important part of something you’re all invested in together? It’s easy to dispatch those considerations and claim you’re too busy. But experience has taught us that few returns on our investment are as guaranteed as those we make when helping our new colleagues feel like they’ve found the right professional home at Collegewise. For me, day one is always worth the trip.

“Personal brand” appears to be the new business buzzword making the rounds (a Google search for the term brings up over 6 million results). Loosely defined, it translates into the practice of intentionally cultivating and curating a persona, image, or impression, ostensibly to drive career success.

But the truth is that whether you’re a teen trying to get into college or a working professional trying to get ahead in your career, you’re not a brand at all. You’re a human being, not a widget. You’ve got independent and often changing thoughts and feelings. A tagline, logo, or social media profile doesn’t encapsulate you.

But here’s what we all do have—a reputation. We’re always leaving a trail, like a wake we can see in our rearview mirror. That’s our history of the work we’ve done, the impact we’ve made, and the people we’ve helped. Our history tells a story, one that influences the expectations people have of just who and what they’re getting when we show up. And those expectations are the closest thing we’ve got to a personal brand.

Yes, you can improve or outright change that story. But you can’t do it without changing the behaviors that drove the expectations. Give people the best version of yourself. The expectations—and the resulting story—will inevitably match.

Yes, it’s still important to tend to your online presence so you can give Google good fodder. But it’s a lot easier to sell a true story than one artificially concocted to create a personal brand.

I’ve got about six months left before I retire the Collegewise blog on its tenth anniversary (here’s the original announcement of that decision). And for the next month or two, I’d like to invite questions from readers. Every week or so, I’ll choose one to answer in the form of a post. The question form is here if you’d like to submit one for consideration. Feel free to submit anything, but questions that are too specific to one particular student aren’t likely to get selected unless there’s a broader application for other readers. I’m looking forward to reading—and answering—them.

 

I don’t know what everyone I went to college with is doing today. But the internet does, at least to some degree. And I’ve noticed some interesting differences when it comes to what the internet finds based on the person I knew.

I remember people in college who were always doing something interesting, new, or challenging. People who became resident advisors. People who sought out interesting internships. People who studied abroad. People who became tutors, campus leaders, and TAs. Intramural sports referees. Members of campus bands. Peer counselors, student academic advisors, and others who worked in the various departments on campus. Even bartenders at the campus pub. They all had something going on besides just showing up and attending class.

When I google those people, almost without exception, the internet comes back with something interesting. What they’re up to may or may not be related to their college interests, but these folks are doing something impactful, something where they’re leading and creating change, something where people would notice if they stopped showing up. It’s not an exact science, and the internet can certainly distort reality. But those who were always involved in something interesting or good appear to have continued that trend post college.

And then there were those who never quite leapt all the way into the college experience. They went to class. They might have even performed well academically. But when faced with boundless opportunities to explore, to try new things, to discover and lead and make their mark in some way, they sat back. Maybe they didn’t appreciate the real opportunity. Maybe they were waiting to be told what to do. But it wasn’t because they prioritized academics so much that they had little time for anything else, as I don’t recall this group having universally higher GPAs than those who chose to fill their time outside of the classroom with other pursuits.

And when I search for members of that group online, something interesting happens. They don’t show up. Google either has no record of them (other than the most basic sites that tell you where people with that same name have lived) or they appear as role-players in a bigger story about the company or the organization where they work. It doesn’t mean they aren’t happy and successful—they get to decide what those metrics are for themselves. But it does feel like both groups carried their college personas with them into adulthood. And doing so impacted what, where, and how they made their way after college.

Here’s what I’m hoping the college-bound notice and take from this. Those college personas were based on choices, not personality types or DNA. It wasn’t as if all of those in the first group were naturally better-wired to pursue those opportunities. They made the choice to do so. Those in the other group made a different choice.

Not everyone is allotted the same level of freedom to make those choices, as those students who pay for some or all of their college also need to work. Their circumstances may not have been their choice, but doing that work inevitably put them into the group who took as much from the college experience as they were giving to it.

College isn’t a roller coaster ride where you simply sit down and wait for everything to happen. It’s a four-year choose your own adventure. And the choices you make will inevitably impact what you do, how you do it, and how you show up, at work and on the internet, once you leave.

The secret to having a great visit at Disneyland is to go on a day when it’s not crowded. Show up when it’s packed and you’ll spend more time waiting in line than doing anything else. But arrive on a day when Mickey and friends are serving a fraction of their total capacity and you’ll get more rides per hour, more bang for your buck, and more fun per single visit. You’ll still need to make the effort and the rounds—the fun isn’t just going to come to you. But when there’s nothing stopping you from zooming through Space Mountain one more time, why not take the ride? The small crowd makes that possible.

Some of the most appealing pursuits in high school are crowded (which in many cases is exactly what makes them appealing in the first place). The club everyone seems to join. The class everyone wants to take. The college everyone else wants to attend. The crowds make it harder to avail yourself of what they have to offer. You either can’t get in at all or you manage to get in only to compete with a large crowd for all the opportunities. If you’ve identified something you really want to do, don’t avoid it just because of crowds or competition. But if an alternative could suffice, maybe it should?

Why not join a club that’s just begging for someone to lead and make an impact?

Why not learn that class’s material a different way, like through an online course, a community college, or a self-directed study?

Why not find some colleges that may not be as famous but still present the same offerings and opportunities that drew you to the crowded one? (There are plenty of them—trust me.)

The more opportunity you have to initiate, to lead, to solve problems, to make an impact, to make a difference, and to enact positive change, the more you’ll get out of whatever you’re choosing to do. And those opportunities are often a lot more readily available when you avoid the crowds.

Author and researcher Marcus Buckingham has spent his career studying success in the workplace. In his recent post and accompanying video, Buckingham shares what he believes is the best career advice he has ever heard. The entire post and video are worth a look, but here’s my favorite snippet:

“When it comes to work, there is no preset route. The most successful people are always searching for new opportunities to use their strengths. They’re able to pivot paths, and if it’s not right, they scavenge back. Don’t worry about moving a little off course; in fact, a lot of successful peoples’ routes are scattered because their scavenger hunt has led them to a few different places, and they’ve course-corrected until they’ve found the best opportunities to fit their strengths.”

Worth considering for students preparing to head to college this fall. Rather than viewing college as one step in a preset route to a career, consider turning that time into a four-year hunting season in which you search for opportunities to learn, grow, and discover your talents.