Over 400,000 people across the world take the Universum Ideal Employer Survey to help with their career development and career goals. This survey offers insight into what you gauge as diversity in a workplace and how you as a diverse person can add to a workplace. A survey like this helps you identify what your priorities are when you look for a job—after all, a job should be a good fit for both you and your employer. What you think you bring to a workplace is important so you know what is personally important for you to market when you go on job interviews. The best part of this survey was when it asked me to select from a list of companies some I would be interested in working for one day. I took a class in Human Resource Management last semester which helped me see that each company has attributes which make them unique from any other company. Because I see myself as a very diverse person, I selected companies that were diverse but where I could see a different skill set used for each respective company.
As any college student majoring in the humanities, I fear that we will not be able to get a job after graduation. What studying humanities, specifically English, has taught me thus far is that communication and written skills are important for any company to have from its employers. I feel that I can market these skills to many of the companies that were listed on the Universum Employer Survey. One part of this survey also offers you the chance to identify the companies which you have not heard about before. This shows how many employment opportunities are available throughout the nation and world and that maybe I should not gear my job search to just mainstream macro employers, but start at a smaller business and gain experience at a small company first and then gradually work towards a larger company.
The survey took me approximately 25 minutes to take but definitely helped me with my insight into myself as an employee after my undergraduate career. Try it for yourself here.
Dawn Angelicca Barcelona is a sophomore at Rutgers University. She is majoring in English and Human Resource Management. Among many things, she is a poet, dancer, green tea lover, and productive insomniac. She was a former Rutgers Admissions Student Blogger and currently works for Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society. Follow her on Twitter: @DawnAngelicca.