STUDENT BLOG: Is It Enough?

As we make our way through our careers as business professionals, we are constantly exposed to various people who are at various points in their careers. Even as undergraduate students, there are many things that others have accomplished that some have not, and vice versa. Having fallen victim to this same situation myself, I know of the importance in not comparing your own accomplishments to the accomplishments of others.

Although we are all members of the same, reputable business institution, many of us are at drastically different stages in our lives and business careers. Being surrounded by so many gifted individuals at Isenberg and in the business world, we often have the urge to compare the accomplishments we have achieved in our young professional careers to the accomplishments of those around us. Being in this age of social media, it is not difficult to get caught up in the professional lives of others.

Over the past few years as a student at Isenberg, I have learned about the wonders of LinkedIn. Being an avid user of the platform myself, I know there are countless opportunities to benefit from by staying active on it. On LinkedIn, users are able to share experiences with fellow business students and professionals, build a network, and gain exposure to a number of career opportunities unlike you are able to on any other social media platform.

With all these great benefits LinkedIn has to offer, there has to be some sort of downside to it. While you are able to freely share your experiences and accomplishments with your network, this also gives you the ability to exaggerate or even lie about your accomplishments, as you are able to do on most social media platforms. While it may seem harmless at the surface, having this ability to over-glorify one’s professional career has the potential to discourage many other business professionals with great career accomplishments who hope to be in a similar situation.

That being said, there are plenty of people who are putting in the work to truly earn these accomplishments that deserve the opportunity to share them with their peers. The accomplishments of others should not be used to gauge your success as an individual, however, they can be used as a career guide to an extent. If one individual is in a situation you would like to be in yourself, gain an understanding of what they have accomplished to put themselves in that position.

It cannot be stressed enough how important it is to focus on yourself in situations like this. We must acknowledge that although we are all destined to accomplish great things in the world of business, each of us will move at different paces. Fortunately for us as Isenberg students, we have a number of resources, especially within the Chase Career Center, to keep us on track to reach our short-term and long-term goals. Before we ask ourselves questions such as “How did they land that internship opportunity?” or “How do they stay so involved in extracurriculars while maintaining such great grades?”, we must utilize our resources to decide if the pace we are moving at is right for us.

John Gomes is a Chase Career Peer – click HERE to access his bio.

By John Gomes
John Gomes Career Peer