Courtney Crosby and Kelly Ayers are your MPA Peer Career Consultants.  They’ve successfully navigated the MPA recruiting process and want to help you do the same.  Check out their posts here each week for valuable recruiting tips.

Choosing the right career path
The semester is wrapping up, which means office visits are just around the corner. Kelly wrote last week about what to expect during a typical office visit, and like she said, you will enjoy them. The hard part comes after the office visits, which is deciding which offer to accept. The decision needs to be entirely yours, but here are a few pieces of advice I can give:

  • Try to limit your friends’ influence in your decision making process. If you start polling all of your peers before accepting an offer, you may be inclined to go to a particular organization or city simply because others are all doing the same. It is great if you end up with friends, but this needs to happen because you made a personal decision, not because you followed the crowd somewhere.
  • Think about what organization is the best fit for you. Reflect on the recruiting events you attended during the semester. Which ones did you look forward to? At which ones did you feel the most comfortable? Were there any that you wished you did not have to attend? While these events allowed you to interact with only a tiny percentage of the employees, they still can be a good indication of fit and company culture. You are going to spend hundreds of hours at work, and you want to enjoy them as much as possible.
  • Do not accept an offer solely based on an employer’s perceived prestige. I hear far too many students say that they hope to sign at a particular organization because it will give them more opportunities in the future. However, having an employer name on your resume is not a golden ticket. You will make your own opportunities in the future based on your drive, determination, experience, and passion. Plus, you are all going to have the MPA brand and reputation, which will help you stand out among other candidates. Pick the employer that is right for you, not the employer that you think is right for your resume.

Ultimately, any internship experience you have will be valuable in some way. You may find that you love the organization and position, which will allow you to confidently accept a full time offer. You also may find that the position is not right for you. If that happens, you can cross that option off the list and continue exploring options that will be the right fit.

Kelly Ayers and I wish you the best as your recruiting journey comes to an end! If you have any last minute questions, feel free to email us at PeerMPA@mccombs.utexas.edu. Otherwise…finish the semester strong and go secure an internship offer!