No, I’m not talking about posting your resume on LinkedIn. I’m talking about joining a professional organization, putting on dress clothes, going to a dinner or convention or fundraiser, shaking hands, chatting with people who might intimidate you, putting your best face forward even though you may not feel like it that day.

Networking. Lots of people hate it. They’d rather sit at home and scroll through endless lists of jobs on Monster or CareerBuilder. Essentially, no human interaction is involved with many online job search sites — you can just *click* and send in your cover letter and resume.

In my limited time spent in the post-college working world, I’ve come to realize the colossal importance of networking. I used to think that I could get a job based solely on my super-organized resume and academic prowess. But during the search for summer internships in college, I quickly discovered that neither of these meant diddly squat to future employers. There was an entire ocean of aggressive overachievers out there and I was just lost in the crowd.

The Chinese have a word, “guanxi,” a complicated social term that roughly translates to a relationship between people, often where one person can prevail upon the other to perform a service or favor, or vice versa. It’s like “having connections.” In the business world in China, it’s all about the guanxi.

It makes some people uncomfortable to think that their basis for hire can be as much about whether the hirer knows the applicant as whether the applicant’s resume is stellar.

But there’s a reason why networking exists. It seems guanxi is especially important in Hawaii, which is a pretty small town. Each local industry seems very tight, making it both easy and difficult to move between jobs in your profession.

I was thinking about this while preparing for tonight’s “College Night,” hosted by the Hawaii chapter of the Asian American Journalists Association, which I’ve been a member of since returning to Hawaii after graduation, and which I believe ultimately helped me to get a job at the Advertiser. The event is a chance for college students interested in journalism to meet professionals in the media industry, talk about their careers and receive feedback on resumes and clips.

It is odd to find myself on the “professional” side and not the student side anymore. I hardly feel like I embody everything that the word “professional” connotes. Heck, I’m still psyched about having company BUSINESS CARDS.

I wish that I had seized on more opportunities to attend networking events like College Night while I was still in school. It feels good to help plan an event for people who are not too much younger than I am. And I’m excited to meet young people who are interested in journalism and eager to get into the field. Meeting people, having good conversations about something you’re passionate about — it goes both ways.

And … I’m still working on building my guanxi.

Image: FreeDigitalPhotos.net

When I graduated from college, I did not feel prepared for the real world.

Given, I graduated from a small, liberal arts school that didn’t really offer degrees in anything useful (I’m a Political Science and Chinese double major) and which was situated smack dab in the middle of nowhere, meaning doing an internship or finding a job outside school when classes were in session was almost out of the question.

Now, a national commission has released the results of a survey of 301 business leaders nationwide that suggests that colleges find ways to assess students’ ability to apply what they have learned in college to real-world settings.

Those surveyed wanted to see more faculty assessments of internships, senior projects or community-based work. They also want graduates to possess more “global knowledge,” although I’m not sure how that is defined.

In an overview, the survey notes that

(e)mployers are satisfied that the majority of college graduates who apply for positions at their companies possess a range of skills that prepare them for success in entry-level positions, but they are notably less confident that graduates are prepared for advancement or promotion. While recent graduates are seen to demonstrate solid skills in the areas of teamwork, ethical judgment, and intercultural skills, employers are less convinced of their preparedness in terms of global knowledge, self-direction, and writing.

Some interesting details, picked up in the USA Today article:

•57% said half or fewer of today’s college graduates have the full set of skills and knowledge necessary to advance in today’s workplace.

And though most say graduates are reasonably well-prepared in a variety of areas, they are not exceptionally strong in any.

•40% said a faculty supervisor’s assessment of a student’s internship in a real-world setting would be “very useful.”

•14% said a score showing how an applicant’s college compares with others in advancing students’ critical-thinking skills would be “very useful.”

•13% said college transcripts are “very useful.”

•6% said an applicant’s score on a multiple-choice test of general content knowledge would be “very useful.”

This builds off a survey conducted last year in which business leaders said 67 percent of graduates are not prepared for the global economy.

I always thought that if I had graduated with a degree in something like Accounting or Engineering, which are less romantic but more practical than Political Science, I might be better equipped to deal with the real world after graduation. At least I would know what path to take, rather than bouncing around for a while until I finally found something I was interested in.

The fact that business leaders want today’s college grads to possess more global knowledge is not surprising. Hello, globalization. (Goodbye, jobs to India and China.)

But what about putting an emphasis on work experience during college? Should college grads be worrying more about internships and community service projects than grades?

How well do you feel your school prepared you to enter the real world?

My post-college-graduation plan was to get someone to pay me to travel the world.

It didn’t really work out. The best I can do now is get someone to pay me to go to Hawaii Kai.

Like many other college seniors who suddenly find graduation bearing down on them, I started looking at jobs, fellowships and volunteer opportunities that I knew would send me places, like Teach For America, the Japan Exchange and Teaching Program (JET) or the Peace Corps.

When I told my dad that I was considering joining the Peace Corps right out of college, he balked. Dad, a proud former PCV, spent three years in Thailand teaching English. Now that he’s looking towards retirement, he’s considering re-joining the Peace Corps, which is actively recruiting volunteers who are 50 and older, many of them former PCVs.

I think he sensed that I hadn’t really thought it through at all. Well, he was right.

Although I returned to Hawaii after graduation, lots of my high school and college friends went abroad and some even joined the Peace Corps.

I have no doubt that they had selfless goals in mind when they applied to teach English to kids in rural Africa or re-build houses in Southeast Asia.

But I suspect that lots of fresh college grads who sign up for programs like the Peace Corps are more like I was two years ago — they think first of the chance to visit a foreign country, and second about how they’ll be helping people.

Writing in the NYT today from Antananarivo, Madagascar, Robert Strauss, a former Peace Corps volunteer, recruiter and country director, echoes that sentiment, saying many young PCVs “lack the maturity and professional experience to be effective development workers in the 21st century,” at a time when America really needs good will from other nations:

In Cameroon, we had many volunteers sent to serve in the agriculture program whose only experience was puttering around in their mom and dad’s backyard during high school. I wrote to our headquarters in Washington to ask if anyone had considered how an American farmer would feel if a fresh-out-of-college Cameroonian with a liberal arts degree who had occasionally visited Grandma’s cassava plot were sent to Iowa to consult on pig-raising techniques learned in a three-month crash course. I’m pretty sure the American farmer would see it as a publicity stunt and a bunch of hooey, but I never heard back from headquarters.

He raises some interesting points.

The Peace Corps started with President Kennedy in 1961, as a way to help tame the anti-Americanism of the 1960s abroad. Back then, as Strauss says, many other nations were in need of college grads, whereas now, that’s not so much the case.

Many have pointed out that in the post-9/11 era, the original mission of the Peace Corps is highly important, especially the part about promoting a better understanding of Americans on the part of people served.

But is sending recent college grads to be, essentially, American ambassadors the best thing to do?

Should the Peace Corps start being more selective? Recruit only the best and brightest and most fit for each host country?

Or should it remain open to all, even kids who have never had a real job experience before — let alone had to deal with mosquito nets or dysentery.