Weinberg College
of Arts & Sciences

Timestamps

  0:00: Introductions

  1:40: Job Function vs Industry

  6:00: The Process of Narrowing Down Career Options

  10:15: How to Approach the Career Summit

  14:00: Closing Advice for Students

Cassie Petoskey:
Welcome everyone. Hi, my name is Cassie Petoskey and I'm the director of the Waldron Student Alumni Connections Program, where our goal is to help Weinberg College students explore different career options through connecting with alumni. And we are so excited for our career summit coming up this fall where we're going to offer some great career exploration tools for students through campus resources and also, of course, our great alumni network. And as we were recruiting alumni to speak at this event, almost every single person we reached out to could speak on multiple industry panels. We had a lawyer who was working in education or a startup founder who's in sustainability, and we even have healthcare consultants. There's so much crossover between spaces and no one career fits any box. And so this is why we've invited Tracie Thomas, Director of Career Development at the Northwestern Career Advancement office to talk more about the importance of knowing the difference between job function and industry. So Tracie, thank you so much for being here and joining us today. And Tracie, can you share just a little bit more about yourself?

Tracie Thomas:
Absolutely. I am the Director of Career Development at Northwestern Career Advancement. I oversee our team of advisors who counsel students and advise students on things such as connecting your major to careers and how to begin the internship search, as well as how to explore careers and assess who you are, your interest, values, and skills, and how those relate to specific careers. I've actually been at Northwestern for 22 years and I've loved every year of it.

Cassie Petoskey:
Tracie, that is amazing. I love to hear that. I didn't even know that you've been here for 22 years. That's great.

Tracie Thomas:
Yeah.

Cassie Petoskey:
And Tracie, you and your colleagues at NCA are really the experts in this area that we're going to dive into today around job function industry, right?

Tracie Thomas:
Yes.

Cassie Petoskey:
Can you just tell us a little bit more in general about job functions and industries? What's the difference and what's the big deal?

Tracie Thomas:
Sure, I'd love to. The difference between industries and job functions can be really crucial for understanding how to think about your career and how careers are organized. It's the aspect of career exploration that I think most often confuses students as they start to begin their internship search. So what's the difference and why is that important?
Let's start with job function. Job function is what you do. It usually is reflected in the job title. It reflects the skills that you're going to use on a day-to-day basis. And it is typically what you see when you look for jobs.
The industry is where you do what you do. It reflects the product, the process, or the service that's involved. An industry very often reflects a specific interest that a student has. For example, a student might have an interest in sustainability. That's an industry. Or they might have an interest in healthcare. That's an industry. But those students might be less knowledgeable about all the jobs that can be done in those industries.
Now the other consideration here is that there are some fields that are both job functions and industries. Marketing's a great example of that. You could work for a marketing agency or you could have the job function of marketing in many different industries. You might be doing marketing for a nonprofit, you might be doing marketing for the tech industry. Other examples of that would include things like consulting and to some extent technology.
I think distinguishing between job function and industry can help students who are really confused about where to start the exploration or internship search. That's usually the hardest part. Where do I start this process? Choosing to look at industries of interest or job functions that fit skills gives you a place to start to focus. Trying to focus on both at the same time gets really confusing and overwhelming.

Cassie Petoskey:
Yeah, so interesting because I was hearing you say something about marketing and nonprofits, and I'm thinking about that individual. Did they start thinking, "I'm really good at marketing." Or did they think, "I want to work in a nonprofit and this is what I'm good at." And you're saying either or both?

Tracie Thomas:
It could be either or. Some people have a very specific interest that they have. So they might be interested in the automotive industry, for example. But they might think, "Well, the only thing I know that I can do in the automotive industry is be an engineer, so I probably don't want to look at the automotive industry," when really there are so many other things that one can do, so many other jobs you can do in the automotive industry. And that's the great thing about this is at the same time, it allows you to have a starting place. It also opens up a lot of doors that you didn't realize were there.

Cassie Petoskey:
Yeah, absolutely. And I feel like there's so many students across this spectrum at Northwestern in Weinberg College right now where they're at the beginning of, "I'm interested in a bunch of different things. Where do I go to?" There's also some people who are really mirroring it down. So we're speaking to all of these groups of students. But I'm thinking for the students in particular who are fresh on campus or still really early on in their exploration, I'm just wondering how we can help them narrow it down. Because Weinberg College, you can go and do anything. It's so exciting. But it can be daunting to figure out where to start.
Can you kind of just share with us a little bit about why it's important for students to consider a job function and industry as they explore their own careers and maybe how it's an ongoing process?

Tracie Thomas:
Yes, it is definitely an ongoing process. I'm so happy you said that. So something to consider is, first of all, it's important to know that there are some job functions that can only be done in certain industries. For example, your professors. Your professors are professors in the higher education industry. You can't be a professor in the consulting industry or in the tech industry.
You want to think about how generalized can a job function be. There are job functions that can be done in many different industries. For example, you can work in finance. That's a really great example. But most people, most students when they think of finance, they always think, "Oh, I have to go into investment banking." But that's not true. There are a number of industries that you could work in finance. You could work in finance at the Art Institute, for example. That's my favorite example. You could work in finance in a large nonprofit, for example. You could work for finance in the tech industry. So again, I think that it gives you a chance to really expand your thinking and not feel like you have to be put in a box just because you have this specific interest.
I also think looking at job functions as separate from industries can present more options. Instead of thinking again, that finance is only about investment banking, if you're interested in the skills that people in finance use, you would then want to know that you can do that job function in a number of industries. Or there might be similar job functions within those industries. If you're someone, for example, who really loves to use their quantitative skills. Similarly, looking at an industry at a whole and learning the job functions within those industries, I think will expand your thinking on the options within that industry.
I also think to make your exploration and internship search more manageable, you can think about whether you'd like to start with an industry because you have specific interests or you can think about a job function because you know that there are things that you really like to do. For example, I hear a lot of students say things like, "I'm a people person." Well, let's talk about the job functions that might work with people and where you might do that. I'm someone, I love organizational skills. Well, let's then think about how you can use those organizational skills in different job functions, and then think about what industries you might do them in.
So some people really like to start with, "This is what I like to do," whereas some people like to start with, "This is an interest that I have." I see that a lot, particularly with students in healthcare. And many of our pre-med students who may say, "All this time, I only thought, all I've been thinking about is being a doctor because I'm interested in healthcare." Opening yourself up to the different types of job functions within healthcare can be really, really illuminating and freeing because you're not then just thinking healthcare equals doctor.

Cassie Petoskey:
100% Tracie. Actually, Austin Waldron, who named our program was one of those students who wanted to be a doctor, decided after organic chemistry that that wasn't going to be his path, majored in psychology, and then had a very long successful career in operations in health insurance.

Tracie Thomas:
Exactly.

Cassie Petoskey:
It all works out, and you can find ways to work in the industry or the area you're interested in, which I think is really fun for students to hear real world stories from, hearing from alumni. That's one of the things we're so excited about for this career summit coming up where we have a ton of alumni panels during the afternoon where students can hear from real world stories. And it's great, it's exciting.
What is your advice and how can we help students prepare for these conversations? What should they be listening for as they're hearing alumni? How can we help them prepare to examine what interests them about job functions and industries?

Tracie Thomas:
Absolutely. So first of all, talk to as many of our amazing alumni as you can. We have the best alumni, I think, anywhere. And then I think the reason that we have the best alumni is if you look at our alumni, if you were going to go to LinkedIn and look up 10 random Northwestern Weinberg alumni, you can see that their career trajectory was hardly linear because they learned something about themselves through each of the positions that they've had about what their next step might be. And so I think it's important to talk with alumni about what were their motivations for entering a field? What were their motivations for changing their field or their company or their job function? Was it a change in their circumstances, but a change in their values? Was it a change in the skills that they wanted to use? You can always see that our alumni have often done many different industries as well as many different job functions.
You may also want to ask alumni that have a specific job function, how applicable that job function is to other industries. Or you can also ask things such as have they done that job function in other industries? And how difficult is it to switch industries?
Another thing I think that's going to be very important if you're talking to an alum in a specific industry, ask that alumnus about other job functions in that industry. Who do they work with? Who do they collaborate with in their company? What other departments do they work with? Have a conversation with alumni about the skills you'd like to use and ask them about the job functions within their industry that might fit those skills. I think you'll always be surprised at how many types of jobs that there are that you just didn't know existed.

Cassie Petoskey:
Tracie, I love that. Great example questions for our students who are going to be attending the career summit coming up. And honestly, conversation as you described, talking with alumni. These are great questions to be asking to explore what they may want to do and to find out those motivations of alumni. I think this is really great, really helpful. I think there are so many alumni who are going to be speaking at this particular event where there's a lot of crossover.
I just was connecting with a founder of a sustainability startup, and I was like, 'You could speak on energy and sustainability or startups and entrepreneurship. What do you want to speak to?" And so I think it's really fun. It will be fun for students to see all the crossover. Like you said, no career is linear. There's lots of weaving to figure out what you might want to do. And what you might want to do evolves. It changes, and that's great.

Tracie Thomas:
It does. My favorite analogy with your career development is dating. I like to say you go out with someone, you decide what you like and you don't like about that person, and then if you're smart, you will apply that knowledge to the very next person you date. So I like to say you're never married to a career, you're always just dating it.

Cassie Petoskey:
I love that. Absolutely. There's always opportunity to shift and change what you're doing and what you enjoy. That's great, Tracie. And Tracie, I'd love to tee it over to you for any final words of wisdom for students. This is the beginning of the school year, lots of opportunity ahead of them, exciting time, but also there's going to be nerves there. So what advice do you have for our students?

Tracie Thomas:
The first thing I'll say is to pick up on something you just said is that this is an exciting time. Don't lose sight of that. Career decision making can be very anxiety provoking, but find the excitement and find the curiosity. Also, consider your work values. When you're looking at either job functions or industries. What are the industry norms for that work environment? Is it competitive, for example? Will you work alone or will you work with people? What's the work-life balance like for that industry or job function?
Also, consider some extrinsic values. For example, do you need to live in a specific geographic area where this field may not be as well represented? Do you need to have a certain standard of living and thus need to consider compensation possibilities of a certain job function or industry? And finally, collect as much information as you can from our alumni, but don't be paralyzed by that information. Be prepared to try something. Again, you are not making a final career decision because career development is lifelong.

Cassie Petoskey:
Absolutely. Tracie, thank you so much. And as Tracie mentioned in her advice of talking with alumni, we are going to be launching a new tool to students this fall called Ask a Wildcat, where students can go in, press a button, submit a question, and the tool will use AI to find alumni who can help. So even if you're a student out there is like, "Oh, I don't even know who to ask that too. Where do I start?" Ask a Wildcat is going to be the tool where you can come, and that's where you can start making connections with alumni. You don't have to know who to reach out to, what industry, what job function. The AI, the tool will do the work for you. So keep an eye out for more about Ask a Wildcat. We'll put that in the show notes from this episode. And Tracie, thank you so much for joining us today and helping us prepare students to really take advantage of the Career Summit, enjoy listening to alumni, and also get a ton out of it. So Tracie, thank you again for being here.

Tracie Thomas:
Absolutely. It was my pleasure. And go Cats.

Cassie Petoskey:
Go Cats. Thanks again, everyone.
Thanks for listening. If you want to hear more of these conversations, links to the full videos and podcasts are below. For more information about Weinberg College and this podcast, visit Weinberg.northwestern.edu and search for Waldron. As always, we would love to hear your feedback. Please email us with your thoughts on the program. Have a great day and go Cats.