To find a career, look past the paycheck

By Christoph Meyer     9/23/10 7:00pm

Information sessions, application deadlines and the career fair: It's that time again. As recruiters and job opportunities continue to arrive on campus, from listservs to the Huff House, anxious seniors, hopeful juniors and enthusiastic sophomores prepare for interview season. While students' main job focus may be on the industry, the payment or the job description, another criterion that is often overlooked might be just as important: The employer's code of conduct. While applicants have sometimes spent their undergraduate experience working toward a particular job, they often forget that they should be just as demanding of the employer as the employer is of them.Finding the perfect job seems like an impossible task. How is one supposed to find a professional position that suits one's interests, pays well, is within a good company, provides benefits and aligns with one's objectives? Many times, this combination is an ideal that cannot be found right away and one aspect of the job must be sacrificed. When looking for a job this year, Rice students will hopefully not overlook a crucial point: the employer's ethics. Oftentimes, myself included, students do not take enough time to truly know the position they are applying for. While they might know what the job is about, they sometimes forget to be as analytical when considering the employer.

Some of the biggest and best paying companies recruit from our campus every year and have students hopeful to be one of the "lucky few" picked. However, some of these companies are far more profitable than ethical, presenting students with a difficult choice: Success or ethical integrity? For some students, the decision becomes even harder when the firms offer them large salaries or a fast track to professional achievement. Ideally, the student should already have made the decision before arriving at this stage. In fact, it needs to be made during the application process - when these temptations do not exist - and not when it comes down to accepting or rejecting an offer.

Of course, it's difficult to limit one's options in such a way, especially when fellow applicants might not follow the same path with the current state of the job market. Integrity, however, is just as crucial in the professional world as it is in one's personal life. Applying to an oil company as an environmentalist (like I did this past year) may very well be a conflict of interest and surely does not suit either side. Each company has its appeals as well as its flaws. The student must invest time and effort determining if the position provides the right working environment. With investment banks involved in financial fiascoes and oil companies responsible for ever larger environmental crises, students must not only work hard on their applications, but also on their selection process.

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Remaining blind to a company's track record just to receive a "good job" is selling the Rice degree short. While these companies may offer money and security, selling one's ethics for a job seems like a shortcut, rather than prudent long-term career planning. The Rice degree should show that students are not just qualified for a job, but have also given serious ethical thought into where they decide to work.

Christoph Meyer is a Hanszen College junior.

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