 The Career Center's Allyson Moore |
Allyson Moore arrived at Amherst in January as the new director of the Career Center and associate dean of students. Previously director of the Career Development Office at the Yale School of Management, she is now trying to help ease the pain of the bad economy.
Through one-on-one career counseling for students and alumni, the Career Center offers advice on résumés, networking, interviewing and negotiating job offers. It also connects students and alumni with recruiters by hosting career fairs, on-campus interviews and online job boards, and it helps those who are applying for national fellowships and graduate and pre-professional school.
Moore’s advice to job-hunters: cast a wider net. “Students and alumni should guard against putting all their eggs in one basket,” she says, but shouldn’t apply for hundreds of unrelated positions. “Instead, I encourage students and alumni to think more broadly about the various industries—including the public and nonprofit sectors—that offer the type of work they’re seeking.”
Now that hiring has slowed in many fields, Moore says the Career Center will be increasingly proactive in seeking out job opportunities. And she will call on alumni for help. “I want to connect students with alumni much more frequently,” she says. One way is by taking students on mini road trips to meet alumni working in various fields. “I’m especially interested in launching a structured mentorship program that would pair students with alumni mentors.”
In addition, Moore expects to implement a curriculum that helps students build skills in interviewing, networking and writing résumés and cover letters. “These are life-long career-search skills and strategies that will help students
immediately and also serve them well in the future,” says Moore, whose son is an Amherst student.
The Career Center is also collecting data on last year’s graduates. For the Class of 2007, surveyed six months after graduation, the top five employers were Amherst College, Teach for America, Morgan Stanley, Massachusetts General Hospital and Lehman Brothers.
Before joining Yale’s senior staff in 2006, Moore was director of full-time MBA career services at New York University’s Stern School of Business.