Career advice students can bank on

The 32 Lerner College of Business and Economics students who visited financial institutions in New York City last fall got the benefit of career guidance from a panel of UD alumni who work at Goldman Sachs, one of the leading investment banking, securities and investment management firms providing a wide range of services worldwide.

Keynote speaker Linda Fox, AS ’84, managing director in the Human Capital Management Division of Goldman Sachs, suggested that students broaden their thinking when planning the first step from college to career.

“Not everyone who is hired here walks in the door as a trader or a banker,” she says. “There are positions in the non-revenue-generating part of the firm, such as technology or operations, which provide good entry-level opportunities.”

Other Goldman Sachs panelists were Thomas Casulli, AS ’93, who works in compliance; Lindsay Friedman, CHEP ’98, operations; Steve Leo, CHS ’95, securities; John McCabe, AS ’95, investment management; and Brenda Montagna, AS ’79, technology. All spoke about their professional experiences and took questions from the UD students, whose trip to New York was arranged by Joyce Henderson in the University’s Bank of America Career Services Center. The trip also included a stop at Bloomberg.

Fox’s own career path has been a bit unusual, she acknowledges, because she decided while still a UD undergraduate that she wanted to work in human resources (HR)—or, as it was more commonly called at the time, personnel.

“That’s different from most people who do something else first and then ‘end up’ working in the HR field,” she says. “But I was very fortunate to get a great education at the University of Delaware and then to get a job with the Career Services Office—in my day, it was called the Career Planning and Placement Office—while I was still a student.”

A psychology major, Fox learned about career planning from that part-time job, in which she helped students write résumés and prepare for job interviews. She went on to earn a master’s degree in organizational psychology from the University of Pennsylvania, while again working in that institution’s career services center.

“While I was working there, I took all the tests and read all the books I could find on career planning,” she says. “It was a great opportunity to think and reflect about what I wanted to do. And I probably never would have done all that without that first job at UD.”

After graduate school, Fox moved to New York, first working in HR for Macy’s and then joining Goldman Sachs as a recruiter in December 1986. She’s had a variety of HR roles with the firm and today is in charge of the Employee Relations group, where she supervises a staff of 30 worldwide.

“My group handles the more legal side of HR, making sure the proper procedures are followed when an employee is terminated or being performance-managed,” Fox says. “We specialize in conflict resolution and conduct investigations regarding HR matters.”

Most of the professionals in her group are former employment lawyers, although several members of the group have backgrounds in psychology as well.

“Although I have been at the firm for 22 years, I have never been bored, and I continue to be challenged,” Fox says. “I enjoy my relationship with my clients, and they value my advice. I am also grateful that the firm has provided me with the necessary flexibility to manage my family life, which includes three young children. “From my perspective, there is no better place to have a career.”

Much of the October meeting with the visiting UD students focused on the corporate culture and business model of Goldman Sachs, whose nearly 30,000 employees work in locations around the world. Students, all business majors ranging from freshmen to seniors, describe the experience as enlightening.

The trip “gave students a sense of the expectations for internship and full-time positions within financial firms and the skills and qualities that hiring managers look for in a candidate,” says Meghan McNulty, BE ’09, a finance major. “Besides the benefit of networking with alumni, this trip made us aware of skills and concepts we have to develop and gave us insight into potential areas of business where we might someday desire to work.”

Bill Rank, BE ’09, also a finance major with minors in international business and management information systems, describes the trip as “more beneficial than I previously imagined.” He says he gained insight into the importance of presenting himself professionally during an interview and the value that firms place on honesty, initiative and teamwork.

Rank also notes that one of the panelists told the students that when a Goldman Sachs employee is asked a question, he or she never says, “I don’t know,” but instead volunteers to look into the matter and find the answer. “I feel that this represents a culture of continuous learning, action and efficiency,” Rank says.

In addition to the alumni working at Goldman, the firm has another UD connection. The late John L. Weinberg, who died in 2006, was a senior partner and chairman of Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and an important University benefactor.

His foundation endowed the John L. Weinberg Center for Corporate Governance in the Lerner College of Business and Economics, and Mr. Weinberg was instrumental in establishing the Edgar S. Woolard Jr. Chair in Corporate Governance, which is held by Charles Elson.

—Ann Manser, AS ’73