The Career Services Office, the Alumni Office, and the Center for Student Development and Campus Activities (SDCA) hosted their Networking Roundtable with Alumni event, which allowed students to receive advice and network with some of Pace’s successful alumni.

The event took place on Wed., Nov. 4 at Kessel’s Multipurpose Room.

Fresh’s Vice-President of Global Product and Promotional Marketing Brenda Lilly was the first alum to speak. She stressed the importance of building a network of connections by treating everyone you meet well.

“You can have terrific grades, you can have so much achievement in school, but there is also a big human component to what you are venturing into,” Lilly said. “Treat people like they are your family.”

The next alum to speak was Investigations and Monitoring Systems Manager at RBS Thomas Aspinwall. He spoke about how strongly he believes in utilizing the resources that the school provides to get internships, and how people should utilize LinkedIn to stay connected with coworkers who leave their positions.

Career Counselor Carol Dockery reinforced Aspinwall’s point about utilizing LinkedIn.

“If you’re looking for an internship, using LinkedIn for connections is really good, and joining the Pace Alumni group, too. There ate groups for everything you can join,” Dockery said.

The third speaker was Finance Director of KPMG Adam Engelman. He spoke about how a person’s career path often finds them, as opposed to them actively seeking it out. He also suggested that people email five different members of their network everyday, because people will end up responding with opportunities.

“The most successful people I know are great communicators, and great networkers. You don’t have to be the smartest person; I’m not the smartest person. But you have to have really good communication skills and you have to carry yourself well,” Engelman said.

Chief Technology Officer of Data Land Tony Smith followed Engelman. He talked about the importance of getting an internship, because even if a person feels very strongly about going into a particular field, they might end up hating it once they get some actual experience.

Smith also stressed the importance of being able to fit in at a job.

“When I’m looking at people [to potentially hire] based on my background, I’m looking at people who can communicate well. Is it someone who’s going to fit into the culture? How well is this person going to pull in and learn? Because college is not the end of learning, it is just the start,” Tony Smith said.

Tony Smith’s wife, Lynette Smith, who has had experience in fields like human resources, marketing, accounting, food, and finance, spoke after him.

“I can walk into any Dunkin Donuts, tell you what’s wrong with the donuts, not to eat them, and why. I’ve done human resources for a small company, venture capitalist group, brought in a full new set of people, fired everybody and rebuilt all the systems, and ran the IT department,” Smith said. “It doesn’t matter how big or small you are. Learn to work with all different types of people.”

Lynette Smith also talked about how useful Pace’s Alumni website can be, as she connected with her husband there 10 years after graduating.

The last speaker was Stay Visible’s President Teresa Gonzalez.

She discussed how the most important aspect of networking is showing up, and that it is important to be able to network in ways outside of the Internet.

“You’re going to find yourself coming into different networks in your life. Family and friends, which is probably going to be the most important network you will ever have.” Gonzalez said. “Then you will have your career network, because you never know whom someone knows, I actually got into this career through a happy accident. I was at a Christmas party and I met someone who was retiring, and we started talking about this business that I never even knew existed, and she ended up wanting me to take over her business.”

Teresa also recommended that students always write hand written thank you cards to people in their network. She also talked about the importance of having business cards readily available, showing students myengagepage5.com, which is a site that for a monthly fee allows customers to have a digital business card.

PhD Student Nikhil Saxena found the event very informative.

“This event is great, you get to make yourself known. These kind of events should happen every two months,” Saxena said.