On October 14, the first CIERA Connections event of the 2024-2025 academic year drew 49 attendees to the CIERA Cafe to hear from Elysse Longiotti, then-Associate Director of Student Career Advising at Northwestern University. Shortly after the event, Longiotti began a new role as Director of PhD Program Administration at Northwestern’s McCormick School of Engineering. Introduced by CIERA Director of Operations Kari Frank, Longiotti spoke to CIERA members about job search strategies and resources offered at Northwestern.
Specifically, Longiotti’s talk focused on a framework for establishing professional goals at every stage of the career search. This framework, SMART goal-setting, emphasizes the importance of defining objectives that are specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound. When applying the SMART framework to the post-graduate job search, Longiotti counselled that “as you explore your career options, spend time considering the level of impact you want your subject matter expertise to have on your next step.”
Longiotti earned a Bachelor of Arts in History from Northwestern, a Master of Arts in Italian Studies at UIUC, and a Master of Science in Higher Ed Admin & Policy from Northwestern. The CIERA Connections series is designed to provide junior researchers exposure to career opportunities outside academic through informal seminars. The CIERA Connections Committee includes Peter Anglada, Kari Frank, Fulya Kıroğlu, Elena González Prieto, and Sanaea Rose.