I worked hard to earn my first job, but I wouldn’t have actually gotten it without Mark Zuckerberg.  That may sound counter-intuitive, since all we usually hear about Facebook and job hunting is that they don’t mix. Allow me, then, to explain.

Like many other seniors at Hamilton, I wasn’t completely confident in pursuing just one career path for my post-college life. I was interested in exploring options, learning more about prospective fields, and gathering as much information as I possibly could.  However, as many seniors can also relate, the job market was limited at the time of my graduation and when offered a job at a high powered law firm in New York City I couldn’t refuse.

Join Zeeshan Haider '09 for a presentation on September 2, 2011.  He will share his current experience working for a credit agency. The presentation will start at 4:15pm in Kirner Johnson 101. Students are encouraged to sign up on HamNET . In the meantime, read on about how Zee got his first job.

I had a plan at graduation – not a sustainable career trajectory, but a plan. I stressed over this plan until late April and worried about my fate even after I got my wooden cane, green apple pin, and Hamilton degree. While all my peers seemed to have offers for great entry-level jobs or acceptance letters from graduate programs in every possible field, I still did not know what I wanted to do after college.

I decided to major in psychology at Hamilton because I was fascinated by the academic material.  When I declared my major as a sophomore, I didn't have any specific idea of how I might translate my academic training in psychology into a future career.  In fact, I had originally rejected the idea of pursuing a PhD in clinical psychology because I didn't think I was very interested in research and I thought the programs would be too competitive for me.

My years at Hamilton were undoubtedly some of the most formative of my life; I got the chance to discover and explore my own passions. I knew I wanted to continue this path after graduation, and a few months later, I began my year of service   working with a non-profit called City Year in Washington, D.C., only a few miles from where I grew up.

The Career Center at Hamilton College is a tremendous resource of which first years and seniors alike should take advantage. I made my first visit to the Career Center as a second-semester sophomore who found the process of researching and applying for summer internships daunting.

George Baker ’74 returned to Hamilton on March 3 and spoke with students about starting their career search in Washington. The discussion, titled “So You Want to Work in Washington, D.C.: A User’s Guide to Finding a Job in the Nation's Capital,” introduced students to the nature of the Washington job market and provided a framework for beginning the search. Baker is a partner at Williams & Jensen PLLC in D.C., a litigation lobbying firm where he started working in 1980.

Hamilton was a wonderful outlet for me during my four years; I tried all sorts of new things, grew personally as well as intellectually, and somewhere along the line stumbled across what I hope to be my future career path. But at the beginning of my senior year, I decided that I wanted to spend several years right out of college helping others before helping myself.