Dress for Success and Personal Branding with Melissa Baker

Isenberg HTM Professor Melissa Baker joined us this week to share her thoughts on dressing for success. She started off the meeting by noting that, “you don’t get a second chance for first impressions”. That’s why dressing to represent your personal brand is so important.

Melissa walked us through an exercise to identify what each of our personal brands is. She had everyone write down three words or short phrases that set you apart from others. This is a great way to think about the qualities you can bring to an organization that differentiate you from any other candidates. Another takeaway from this exercise was thinking about how you can reflect these qualities through fashion, while also keeping it professional.

For men, it is easy to dress professionally, a suit does the job. But for women, there are often many possibilities when it comes to casual, business casual, and business professional attire. Melissa’s recommendation is to always play it safe if you are unsure of the expectation, it’s always better to be overdressed than underdressed.

You wouldn’t wear a perfectly tailored pantsuit to a Google interview! It is widely known that their culture is extremely relaxed, you’d stand out, and not in a good way. Remember that dressing for success is all about wearing fashion that compliments the person you are and the characteristics that make you stand out.

TJX with Laurie Lynch: Day in the Life of Merchandising

This week, Laurie Lynch, a campus recruiter for TJX companies, joined us to discuss all things merchandising and the various opportunities available at the company for undergrads.

With 78% of their total global workforce being female, TJX has plenty of opportunities for undergrad students, specifically women at UMASS! Their merchandising internship includes a planning/allocation program and a buying program. Additionally, TJX offers internships in finance, IT, and distribution. Each of these internships includes paid training, strong networking opportunities, collaboration with all levels of management, and constructive feedback. TJX's goal for their interns is to give each the opportunity to take on the everyday responsibilities of long-standing associates in their department.

At the meeting, a few TJX summer interns spoke about the various departments they worked in ranging from sportswear to beauty to luggage and accessories and more. All of the interns enjoyed contributing to the unique business model that drives success at TJX. Despite the internships being primarily virtual, some of these interns were invited to travel to store locations to further understand the department they worked in.

If you are interested in applying for their upcoming Summer of 2022 internships, rising juniors and rising seniors can apply through Handshake. Pro tip from Laurie herself: write a cover letter to set yourself apart in the application process!

Women and Politics By Madi Green

We had our amazing Treasure Madi Green, give an informative presentation on the role women have in politics and how that relates to business.

Madi went over the history of women in politics, the gender gap, the race gap, and the evolvement of women in office and high positions of power. Women are a minority in society as all of the stated occurrences have affected women directly whether they were in a position of power or not.

The history of Women in Politics roots back to the Passage of the 19th Amendment in 1920 where women were granted the right to vote. Over time women have grown in positions in policy where in 2016, we saw a women run as a Presidential candidate for a major party.

The gender gap defines the disparities between men and women in opportunities, expectations, and wage… something women often challenge through in business as well. To prove the gap, women only make up about 25% of Senior Executive positions in U.S. Public Companies.

This all leads to the question of “Why aren’t there more women in politics?” This question can be answered in several reasonings, such as: career pipeline, incumbent advantage, lack of insider support, and public perception and self-doubt.

There is a clear solution to increasing female power across several fields, and that is to vote! Check out the resources below that Madi provided to remain vocal women in society!

Thank you Madi for the insight into Women and Politics. Our members were able to take away valuable resources and information to progress our journey as Women in Business!

Resources:

Register to Vote: https://www.voteamerica.com

Be an Informed Voter: https://justfacts.votesmart.org/

More than just President on the ballot: Maine, Alabama, Arizona, Colorado, NC, Iowa, Georgia, Montana

Run for Office: https://www.runforoffice.org/

TJX: A Day in the Life of Merchandising with Laurie Lynch

TJX Companies is the leading off-price apparel and home fashions retailer in the United States and worldwide. In 2020, they were ranked number 80 in the Fortune 500 company listings. We were very grateful to have recruiter, Laurie Lynch to come talk to us about some of the internship opportuntiies TJX has to offer, as well as perspectives from UMass Alumna and WiB Alumni, Isabelle Berton and Jenna Woeller.

TJX offers the following internship opportunities:

• Merchandising: Planning and Allocation, Buying

• Finance and Accounting

• Information Technology

• Distribution Operations

All of the internships are paid summer programs that include:

• Classroom and on-the-job training

• Placement in specific category/area

• Informative workshops + networking

• Interaction with all levels of management

• Ongoing feedback + development

TJX hires through IsenbergWorks and Handshake for the upcoming 2021 season. For more information on the internships and application process visit the UMass TJX handout to learn more about the company! Thank you Laurie, Isabelle, and Jenna for the amazing presentation and advice!

Laurie Lynch’s email: laurie_lynch@tjx.com

Taking Care of Yourself + Creating Better Balance - Ashley Olafsen

We were lucky to have social entrepreneur and UMass Alumna, Ashley Olafsen give us a presentation on “Taking Care of Yourself + Creating Better Balance.” Ashley gave examples of how she transformed her life, especially in pandemic times where adapting was a skill everyone regardless of position, had to acquire.

There was an interactive portion where she had us make lists of our obligations and analyze them into what we enjoy doing vs. don’t enjoy doing. In doing this, we were able to see on paper everything we are responsible for and how packed our lives really are. Most of us were really shocked to see how much we are occupied with and talked ways of making all of those duties more enjoyable.

In a fast-paced society where we constantly have to catch up, we often get lost in our own well-being practices which can lead to a feeling of burn-out. Using Ashley’s advice, our members were able to each take something away to apply into our busy lives as full-time students with other responsibilities on top of it all. It is important to stop sometimes and think about what we are doing and how beneficial it is to us. To some, that might look like staying active, to others it may be to learn a new skill or start a new healthy habit. Self-care is not a one-size fits all, but it is certainly inclusive and customizable to everyone

Thank you Ashley for the amazing advice and new practices that our new members will surely remember and apply to their day-to-day lives. Remember to take a moment to debrief and take care of yourselves!