Career Coach Debbie Matson P ’14 Offers Advice for Liberal Arts Students

By Matt Mandel ‘19

Debbie Matson P ’14, the founder of the career-coaching company CareerAmplify, specializes in helping college students find their first job. She’s a big believer in students starting early in their college experience. By pulling together professional materials like a resume and LinkedIn page as a first-year, students can then start to identify and pursue the kinds of experiences (e.g. internships, courses, volunteer work) that will set them apart by the time they graduate.

An early start and an initial plan for how to complete each item on a career-readiness list, makes the process more manageable.

“I think it’s really important to put yourself on a schedule and treat the job search or internship search like any other task you have,” Matson said. She recommends breaking up career-related research and preparation into short segments, and scheduling it into your calendar. By focusing on getting one item done at a time, such as a resume one month and a cover letter another month, it starts to alleviate some of the normal anxiety associated with a job search.

Matson also emphasized that if a student is looking for an internship or job they should go to the Career Development Office. “There are employers that are specifically hiring through your career services office,” Matson said. “Then you should also be talking to your professors in that field.”

For liberal arts students who do not know what they want to do or apply for, Matson recommends they research companies that are growing quickly, and therefore hiring more frequently. She suggests trying to find out more about the kind of work these companies do, the culture of the organization, and who makes up the leadership team. Getting a foot in the door to a well-run company with a positive culture offers a kind of anthropological opportunity, according to Matson. “Analyze people that are very happy and successful … You’ll [also] see parts of the company that interest you and others that don’t.”

Matson offered that it does not matter whether you know what you want to be, but rather she guides college students to gain experience while continuing to self reflect.

“I think if you really don’t know what you want to do, you want to think about the things you’ve studied that interest you the most. ‘Do I like thinking and arguing, and reading and writing? Or do I really like problem solving? Am I sort of technical in my thoughts?’ That helps you think about industry sectors,” Matson said.

Once a student lands an interview, Matson helps her clients by coaching them to think about what they have done professionally, and what academic or extracurricular projects they have worked on that show them as a team player, as a thinker, as a problem solver. She said it’s essential to have these kind of examples ready to articulate to employers.

“Employers are focused on how you get things done, not just what you can do. Liberal arts students are in a unique position to show that they are lifetime learners, that they can do critical thinking. You have to think about how your experiences to date and the competencies that you’ve developed will add value to that organization,” she said.

When asked to sum up her advice, Matson shared, “If everyone starts systematically in freshman year, they do the basic groundwork early and they make themselves known to career services early, there will be ups and there will be downs but it will happen because it’s just a process instead of an emergency.”