Business school students usually know the career they want, right?
Not always.
They come seeking direction from Irene Hillman, who in October 2013 was hired as manager of career services at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga's College of Business.
Her office helps business majors get ready for work through internships, job-shadowing, mentorships and events such as "resume week," and "mock interview week."
Hillman also helps students answer bigger questions.
"'What am I doing with my life?' is a big one," Hillman said.
"Have you thought about what your purpose is in life?" she'll ask business majors. "What job is going to make you excited to wake up every day?"
Depending on a student's ability to answer those questions, Hillman might recommend an assessment, such as the Myers-Briggs Personality Test, or informational interviews with people in various careers, or online resources such as onetonline.org, a careers website sponsored by the U.S. Department of Labor.
She also recommends books, such as Tom Rath's best-seller, "StrengthsFinder," that includes a test to help people uncover their "top five talents" to build on.
"Dale Carnegie is probably still the best professional development guy I've ever read," Hillman said, citing his insight that "companies are nothing more than groups of people."
To get freshman thinking about their future careers, the college of business participates in UTC's living learning communities (LLC) program.
UTC clusters freshmen with similar interests together in dorms - there's the Film Fanatics LLC for movie buffs, a Wild LLC for outdoorsy students and a Business LLC for business students.
"To us the most important day is the day after you graduate," Hillman said. "We try to get them thinking about that as soon as possible."
Hillman is one of two career counselors at the business school, which also has six academic counselors. In 2016, Hillman and the other counselors will all move into the Joseph F. Decosimo Student Success Center in a space that's under construction on the second floor of Fletcher Hall on McCallie Avenue.
"She's fabulous. Students absolutely love her," Success Center Director Sue Culpepper said of Hillman.
"Many of our students are first-generation [college] graduates," Culpepper said. "So they're looking for people to help them."
Hillman helped increase the number of business school students who get internships for academic credit to 70 this fall, Culpepper said, up from 24 academic internships last fall.
"Our internships have just grown by leaps and bounds," Culpepper said.
Before moving to Chattanooga, Hillman, her husband Isaac Gardner relocated to Atlanta from the Boulder, Colo., area to be closer to family. The couple have an infant daughter, Vera.
Hillman, who's expecting a baby boy in December, got tired of the commute-heavy Atlanta after three weeks, because "people live in their cars."
Chattanooga, meanwhile, was pretty much love at first sight for the couple. They took their daughter here for the 2013 Day Out With Thomas the Train event at the Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum and decided to move here.
"Chattanooga, huh?" Hillman remembers thinking. "I never even thought of Chattanooga."
Culpepper still remembers the last thing Hillman wrote in her cover letter.
"The last sentence was, 'You will not be disappointed,'" Culpepper said. "And we're not."