Each year, millions of Americans volunteer their time to community-service organizations. According to the Electronic Journal of the U.S. Information Agency, more than 90 million American citizens participate in volunteer activities. And in recent years, the number of corporate-sponsored employee volunteer initiatives has increased in response to the realization that they benefit employers and employees, as well as the organizations they serve.

Research Links Volunteerism & Profits

Betty B. Stallings, a San Francisco-based trainer, consultant, and author who specializes in volunteerism, cites a 1993 survey in which more than 50 percent of businesses surveyed acknowledged a link between volunteer programs and profitability. Stallings states that research involving Fortune 500 companies demonstrates “an exponentially increasing number of employee volunteer programs.” These programs bring corporations and communities together as partners, and have been shown to be beneficial in attracting talented employees and in motivating staff.

Stallings points to General Mills, Federal Express, and Intel as examples of companies that have reported enhanced skills among employees who have participated in corporate-sponsored volunteer programs. Specific skills mentioned include leadership, teamwork, decision-making, communication, and time management.

“The employees themselves derive considerable benefits as well,” Stallings writes. “Through their volunteering, they have developed new business contacts, gained experience in strategic planning, [and] become involved with community leaders. There is a decided link, too, between physical and mental health and participation in volunteer activities.”

Volunteers Undervalue Experience

Surprisingly, many volunteers don’t realize that their altruism can result in acquiring highly marketable skills. Anita Collins, a licensed independent clinical social worker and life-planning coach, says people—especially women—tend to undervalue their volunteer experience simply because they don’t get paid for it.

“There is still a strong bias about volunteer work—that we shouldn’t list it on a resume because it’s not considered a real job,” Collins explains. “I encourage my clients to include it because they’ve brought value to an organization with the skills they were using and developing.”

Collins, who practices in Worcester, MA, suggests that one of the best ways to identify those skills is to analyze the volunteer activity as if you were writing a job description. What tasks were performed? What was accomplished? What goals were achieved?

“In my work, I find that women in midlife are really stopping and saying, ‘I have 30 productive years ahead of me, and I want to spend them in a way that makes sense to me and makes me happy,’” Collins says. “The challenge for me is to help them identify why they’re not satisfied now, and how to move to the next phase.

“Many of these women have had wonderful non-paid work histories,” Collins continues. “They run organizations, work on committees, address neighborhood and school issues, and put together major charitable events and fund-raising campaigns. The fact is, they have skills and experience to do just about anything they choose, and that information most definitely belongs on their resumes. I try to help my clients realize the value of their volunteer experience, and connect that with their careers. Without that value piece as an underpinning, they often have a hard time finding satisfaction.”

This writer can attest to the value of showcasing volunteer work on a resume. A few years ago, while in the throes of a career transition, I served as a volunteer board member for a patient-services program of The American Cancer Society. In helping plan a multifaceted event, I co-wrote a video script, helped produce printed materials, and organized a workshop on women’s cancer issues. The event was a success and the video earned a recognition award from a local ad club. Referencing this activity on my resume has led to several lucrative freelance assignments that I would not otherwise have been offered.

Perceptions Are Changing

Collins says it’s gratifying to see that the perception of volunteerism has changed. Unlike 20 or 30 years ago, the value of volunteer contributions is recognized.

When you think about what’s involved in, for instance, organizing a charity golf tournament, “you realize that it takes organizational, management, marketing, and public relations skills, as well as dedication, stamina and a willingness to work very hard,” says Collins. “Those attributes are attractive to potential employers. And they can open up entire new career avenues that you might not have considered.”

Nate Breindel is one busy student. In addition to completing his last semester at Washington University in St. Louis with a major in marketing and psychology, he also owns and operates his own business.

“It’s especially difficult when you have three stores. There’s a lot going on. But I wouldn’t trade the experience for anything,” says Breindel.

The undergrad decided early on that he would rather work for himself than someone else. He opened his first on-campus store, called Nate’s Place, in August 2000. The store provides students with an array of services, including cellular telephones, test preparation and travel-arrangement services and computer repair.

Breindel came up with the idea for a student-focused store after he went to a nearby mall to buy a cell phone. He was upset with the service and soon realized that most students would rather go to an on-campus store geared toward their needs than drive several miles to a nearby mall.

“This is a platform for student-oriented services. We can add and take out,” says Breindel. He not only added services. He added stores. Breindel now operates three stores and employs seven part-time employees. In addition to the first store, he also operates a store at St. Louis University and the University of Missouri-St. Louis.

“With any luck, we’ll have five more next year,” says Breindel, who plans to continue the business after graduation. “I see the large state schools as the most lucrative. I think there eventually could be 350 Nate’s Place stores across the country.”

A Good Alternative

Starting a business now, while the job market is lousy, may be a good alternative to finding employment. At first glance, though, it might seem especially risky with the economy still in the doldrums. But Breindel may be on to something. Over the years, college-age students have started some of the largest and most successful companies. At the age of 17, Fred Deluca borrowed money from a friend and started Subway Restaurants. Paul Orfalea leased a garage, rented a copy machine and launched Kinko’s.

And now actually may be a good time to start a company, says Kenneth Harrington, professor of entrepreneurship at Washington University. Harrington has seen the entrepreneurship program at his school triple in size since the year 2000. Breindel is just one of 450 students in the program this year.

“If you find the right opportunity where you can make high margins and high growth and cover your capital needs, it’s possible that these types of businesses can get started without support financially in good times and bad times,” says Harrington.

But how do you go about finding the right opportunity? Harrington says the first and possibly the most important step is creating the idea. Think about major societal trends.

Next, look for pain. Harrington says it’s important to notice things that bother you. “If you see a major trend and see some things around that trend that are causing pain or not working well, then that creates an opportunity,” he says.

Who Will Buy and Why?

Once an opportunity is identified, ask questions to find out if the idea is promising. Who would get the most value of any offering? How much is that person willing to pay? How would you sell or distribute the product or service? “What we want to do is identify whether the opportunity is really real,” says Harrington.

If you still think the idea is promising, the next step is team formation. Decide what kind of team is needed to implement the business. What kinds of skills are needed? Who would play what role? What legal structure would be most appropriate? These questions help the entrepreneur to imagine what the business would look like.

Now comes the hard part: raising the necessary funds to get started. Since most college-age students would have problems raising money for a new venture, you may want to consider the bootstrap approach to entrepreneurship, which means starting a business with very little money.

“If you bootstrap, [your] idea has to be valuable enough for you to get the customer to give you high enough gross margins or terms on your offering, in terms of paying you early or paying you for your effort as you create your product. The value has to be high enough that they, in fact, are funding your business,” says Harrington.

He continues: “You could have a mediocre idea, execute flawlessly and be successful. But the probability to have an undergraduate execute flawlessly is low. Therefore, the opportunity has to be right, or we would recommend you not pursue it.”

Good Timing

A lack of family responsibilities is another reason why undergrads may want to consider starting a business, says Caron St. John, director of the Spiro Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership at Clemson University in South Carolina. “It’s not as much risk for them to try to start a business as it would be for someone with a family and other obligations,” she says.

The key to success, according to St. John, is the student entrepreneur’s willingness to rely on others with experience. “If they’re willing to work with people who have experience in developing new businesses and launching them, then I think they’re much more likely to be successful than someone who wants to do it completely on their own.”

Help From Friends

Many students she works with are good at enlisting the free assistance of friends and family, she adds. “Often they enlist the support of others to give them time. That’s a wonderful source of bootstrap funds,” says St. John. “That goes beyond the ability to recognize an opportunity.”

Adam Witty, a marketing major at Clemson University, enlisted his friends and family to help him start a business. Witty launched TicketAdvantage in the fall of 2001 with the financial backing from his father and help from friends.

TicketAdvantage is an online secondary-market ticket exchange that allows season-ticket holders to sell their unused tickets. Witty spent about a year building the infrastructure of the business before launching it.

He says his biggest problem is skepticism from the business community. “It’s probably a little bit harder to get the attention and the respect of companies that you are trying to work with, because a lot of people think we’re just stupid kids,” he says.

Witty plans to continue the business after graduation and hopes it will eventually support him and the friends who are working with him. He advises other students who want to start businesses to follow their dreams.

“If you do have an idea, develop it, and if the pieces fit together, start a business,” he says. “Starting a business in school is a great opportunity. If you can get it going, then when you graduate, you won’t have to work for someone else.”

Like countless summer interns before her, Bonnie Ulmer stuffs envelopes, jots down messages and signs for packages. But you won’t find her hanging out at the mall after work — she’d rather be doting on her grandson.

Ms. Ulmer, 56, signed on to be an intern at consulting firm Triad Communication in Washington, working alongside a college student who listens to hip-hop and frets about life after graduation. Laid off and looking for something to do, she jumped at the grunt-work opportunity. “It’s all fun money for me.”

This summer, the regular crop of interns has some interlopers in its midst: the over-30 crowd. From small businesses and restaurants to large health-care companies and public-relations firms, eager workplace veterans are lining up for a shot at the bottom rung of the ladder for little or no pay, just like those college kids. And companies are happy to let them in the door. While only 5% of internships were open to folks past their college years in 1995, that number has climbed to 20% today, according to career-information company Vault Inc.

Some of these aging interns don’t have much choice, with jobs scarce in a down economy. Others say they’re using internships as a convenient way to try something different, take a break from the job track or just dabble. In New York, there’s a 35-year-old ex-VP playing pastry chef at an upscale restaurant. A Chicago TV station had a lawyer running errands for the boss.

But not all of these graying apprentices are winning friends, of course. For out-of-work veterans, the notion of companies beefing up their ranks with experienced workers in short-term internships can be infuriating. Then there are the young interns forced to work side-by-side with condescending boomers. Jonathan Krause, a 22-year-old law student, found himself teamed with an older intern at a government office. The woman not only patronized him, but snorted whenever she heard him making after-work plans to meet his friends at a bar. “At first I was irritated, then I tried to provoke her,” he says.

Internships used to be just for kids, of course. Then came the dot-com boom of the late ’90s, when jobs were plentiful and labor was scarce, and some employers were forced to go outside the traditional intern mold to fill their slots. Now that the economy has slowed, companies from public relations giant Fleishman-Hillard to law firm Cleary Gottlieb are welcoming older interns. And why not? It’s a way to get better help for less, and without a long-term commitment. McKesson Corp., a health-care information company, has five over-30 interns out of a total of 40 at one of its units.

Thrill of the Kitchen

That’s all just fine with dabblers like Marissa Rothkopf Bates, who is starting a six-week internship as a pastry chef’s apprentice at a tony New York seafood restaurant. When she was laid off from her job as a vice president at Oxygen Media, she quickly signed up for cooking school and a follow-up “externship.” After following a chef around for a day and whipping up chocolate treats, she exalted in the “adrenaline thrill” of the kitchen. But once she’s done garnishing desserts, she figures she’ll look for another media job: “I don’t actually see myself becoming a chef.”

Michael Feldman, a 34-year-old former software entrepreneur, actually converted his internship into a cushy new job. After seeing his business go down the tubes last year, Mr. Feldman talked a friend into bringing him on as an intern at his online food-delivery service, arguing there was no downside since he would only get paid on commission. He then negotiated flexible hours to accommodate his morning triathlon-training schedule. “Sometimes I’ll roll in the door at noon,” he says.

While nobody’s expecting a gigantic rush of middle-aged interns, the summer workplace may well continue to get more mature. For starters, rules about workplace equality make it tougher for employers to consider age when hiring. Earlier this year, one Massachusetts company was forced to revisit its internship policy after rejecting an applicant for being too old (the would-be intern complained to state authorities). Plus, many employers like having older interns around. At McKesson’s information solutions unit, senior vice president Terry Geraghty says it’s a no-brainer to bring summer help with years of experience into the fold.

‘Stop the World’

Still, these May-September internships can have drawbacks for both sides. Experts say some boomers are more likely to worry about what comes next rather than the internship itself. Others may think it’s fun to try something new, but should make sure they aren’t just trying to avoid the commitment of a real job. Says Lynn Friedman, a clinical psychologist and workplace consultant in Bethesda, Md.: “I see a lot of ‘Stop the world, I want to get off.’”

Even if interns are excited going in, they may find the glamour fades quickly when they see just how little money they are getting. Alex Livingston moved to Los Angeles to serve as the unpaid producer for “Wide Awake in Nothing,” a film-student friend’s movie about a group of rebellious factory workers. He had a blast working 15-hour days for seven weeks straight, but then he jumped at a paying job — as a software engineer.

Starting Over

Companies and organizations vary widely regarding their approach to employing older interns. Below, a sampling of some of the programs:

Peder Nelson loves both skiing and mountain biking. So when it came time for him to decide on his major at Western State College in Gunnison, Colo., he quickly chose recreation.

“I thought I wanted to work at a ski area,” he says, explaining that he wasn’t exactly certain of what kind of work he would do.

To be extra sure about his major, Peder sought help from Layne Meredith Nelson, director of career services and academic support at Western State.

“She helped me out a lot,” he says. “I took some career tests to feel out if recreation was a strong point for me. It was one of the top things on the list of jobs that would fit my personality.”

Peder, who’s not related to Layne, says he began working in the career center during his freshman year and became familiar with all it had to offer. So when he became interested in global positioning and geographic information systems — computerized mapping — in a sophomore environmental studies class, he knew where to go to get help in finding how to turn his interest into a career.

Peder researched the uses for the mapping systems, which are primarily used in engineering. He learned that the same techniques that are used to map things like flood plains and water sources can be used in recreation.

“There’s a growing need for mountain bike mapping,” Peder says, explaining that ski areas could benefit from the mapping techniques as well. “It’s kind of the wave of the future.”

Through career services, Peder found an opportunity to perform a “guest analysis” for the Crested Butte Mountain Resort, using a special geographic information systems computer program to track and map where the resort’s guests live and help predict where to target advertising for future guests.

“A lot of marketing firms are starting to use it,” Peder says. “People understand things much better when they see maps.”

Peder spent the summer between his junior and senior years volunteering for the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, teaching employees how to use global positioning and geographic information equipment. Then he spent the fall semester of his senior year as a teaching assistant in a geographic information systems class at Western State. He has been able to keep his major in recreation and tailor it to his newfound interest. He knows he has found his calling.

Making Your Interests Marketable

Layne Nelson says that Peder isn’t the only student she’s counseled who’s been able to find a way to make a living doing what he loves. And she points out that any student with a strong interest can do the same.

What can you do if want to turn an interest into a career?

“There’s no set routine, really,” Layne says. “A lot of it is just brainstorming. I usually start out by asking students what they really see themselves doing to make sure they understand what they’re talking about…A lot of it is just conversation.”

Trish Bergmaier, director of career services at Georgia Southern University in Statesboro, Ga., says she starts in the same way with students who are looking to make their interests marketable.

“The first thing I like to do is sit down and talk with them,” she says. “I ask them what are some things they are good at.”

Both career counselors say they often give students assessment tests to help them decide if they’re really suited to the area they’re considering.

“I’ll also send them away to do some research about the careers they may be interested in,” Layne says.

Bergmaier says she also likes to have students do research in books and on the Internet.

Some students, Bergmaier adds, know what career they want to pursue, but need to find an appropriate major. She points to a student she counseled several years ago who wanted to become a wedding planner.

“She wanted a four-year degree and she wanted to stay at our university,” Bergmaier says, explaining that the student knew someone who already ran a wedding-planning business.

“I had her do informational interviewing,” Bergmaier says. “I had her look at some wedding planning books and referred her to a professional association.”

After all that, Bergmaier says, she and the student began looking at possible majors.

“She chose management with an emphasis in small business,” Bergmaier says, adding that the student also spent her weekends working for the friend who is already in the business. By the time she graduated, Bergmaier says, she was ready to go into business for herself.

Layne says she also encourages students to talk to people working in fields related to their interests.

“We give out names of people they can talk to,” she says. “Sometimes that helps clarify things for them.”

Layne stresses that students who hope to turn an interest into a career shouldn’t try to go it alone.

“Take advantage of the resources at your career center,” she says. “Talk to faculty members. Go to career fairs…Just get some idea.”

As you start to evaluate prospective information-technology career opportunities, don’t think about just the job at hand, the day-to-day ins and outs and the immediate prospect of a promotion or higher salary. Think instead in terms of both your current priorities and long-term goals. While that advice could apply to any job in any field, it’s especially critical in IT, where technology, projects and job descriptions change so rapidly.

Flexibility is key so that you don’t inadvertently miss out on emerging new career opportunities that may not exist today. It would be foolhardy to have a rigid 10-year plan that’s fixated on attaining a certain IT position, because even if that position is strategic in 2001, it may be obsolete by 2011. Try to think in broad terms, such as the type of contribution you’d like to be making five years from now. And don’t expect to reach your career apex in just a few years, no matter how bleeding-edge your skills may be.

Once you have a flexible long-term plan in place and you’re weighing your immediate opportunities, remember that there are no hard-and-fast rules for IT career advancement. Neither is there a formula to guarantee that an opportunity in front of you will be a good one. So apply some creative thought to different kinds of career moves that might propel you toward your next goal or your ultimate goal.

With a crystal ball in one hand and a serious self-assessment in the other, analyze any new opportunity in the context of the current IT job market as well as where the market might be going a couple of years from now and balance that against your personal goals.

Ten Tips I Wish Someone Had Given Me

With nearly 30 years of IT experience behind him, Carl Wilson, executive vice president and chief information officer of Marriott International, Bethesda, Md., shares the advice he wishes someone had given him at the outset of his career. His 10 recommendations for IT career planning serve as criteria you can use for evaluating potential job opportunities. As you weigh various offers, use these points to judge an opportunity in the context of your long-term career.

1. Choose your company and boss carefully.

Does the company you’re considering conduct its business in a manner that you’re comfortable with? Is its main line of business one that you’ll feel comfortable supporting? “It’s very important that you can personally identify with what that company is trying to achieve, its products and services,” Wilson advises. “You will not achieve full success working in an environment that runs counter to your values.” For example, Wilson notes that he “would have a very hard time working for an arms dealer, but it feels great to be working for a hospitality company that’s trying to make travelers’ experiences wonderful.” Likewise, you probably won’t feel you’re meeting your full potential working for a boss whose values don’t mesh with your own.

2. Work only for an employer that reinvests in you.

Will the employer’s policies, practices and IT budget support your further skills development and career advancement? “Look for a company that has a career path you can progress through based on your own acquired and demonstrated skills, especially in the early stages, when you’re as much a student as a worker,” Wilson says. “If a company isn’t reinvesting in you, eventually that will impact your career negatively.” In each round of interviews you go through with an employer, ask for concrete examples of IT staff members who have progressed through different jobs in the organization, training that others in your position have attended and skill-development opportunities that would be available to you.

3. Build your network early and grow it over time.

Does the employer support participation in professional associations and industry groups? Is the environment one in which you can foster a variety of different relationships? Because you never know where a colleague — within your company or without — is going to end up, it always pays to build relationships with other professionals in your field, Wilson says. “Most major jobs in really good companies are filled by word-of-mouth and recommendations by employees,” he explains. Start developing a network of people you respect preferably while you’re still in college. Get involved in professional associations as soon as you enter the work force or launch a new career path. Not only will a solid network help you uncover viable new career opportunities, it will also expose you to new ideas, technologies and approaches to your work.

4. Try to not repeat a work experience more than two or three times.

Does the employer seem to pigeonhole IT professionals or does it regularly provide opportunities to pursue new challenges? “Make sure your role changes over time so you keep growing,” Wilson says. “You don’t want to accumulate 20 years of experience that’s really just four years’ experience repeated five times.” If, for example, you’re an applications developer, don’t get stuck building one particular type of application, such as sales-force automation systems.

5. Don’t be afraid to take a lateral or lower-graded job for more experience.

Does the company offer flexible career paths? Would it support unconventional moves that could benefit your long-term career development? Sometimes, the best career moves for your future are those that don’t necessarily advance you from your current position, but will expose you to new ways of thinking about IT. Wilson says his career has profited several times over from a willingness to step down the ladder rather than up it. In the mid-1970s, as a top mainframe programmer at Bendix Corp, he took a 6% pay cut to move into a business-process re-engineering job, because he “wanted the opportunity to have a direct influence on the design of systems and not be just a top coder.” The experience broadened his perspective on how IT could be applied to the business. Nine months later, Bendix recognized his efforts by moving him into a key project-management position. While you want to assess the pros and cons of an unconventional move carefully, don’t rule out what may be a good opportunity simply because it doesn’t fit a traditional model.

6. Don’t be afraid to take on tough assignments that no one else wants.

Does the company recognize and reward employees for taking risks and accepting challenges that have a high potential for failure? Does management provide a soft landing if you fail? “That should be part of the leadership role in IT because it’s not always an individual’s fault when a project isn’t successful,” Wilson says. “There may be extenuating circumstances or it just turned out not to be a good idea.” Management should encourage staff to take on risky assignments — and IT professionals should seek challenging opportunities — because “you learn at an accelerated rate when you take those on,” he says.

7. Realize you won’t be promoted by your boss, but by your peers and subordinates.

Does the job give you the opportunity to interact with colleagues up, down and across the organization? Does the environment support peer feedback and 360-degree reviews (in which leaders and subordinates review each other)? “The way bosses know who to promote and move forward is based on what they hear from an employee’s peers and subordinates,” Wilson says. “A lot of people try to manage their careers by ingratiating themselves with upper management, but it’s more important to focus your time on developing strong relationships with your peers and being an advocate and supporter of your subordinates. If you do those two things well, management will notice and upward movement will come automatically.”

8. Acquire project-management skills.

Does the IT organization follow sound project-management methodologies? Does it advocate project-management training? “This is the most sought-after skill set within most companies today,” Wilson says. “People who can organize work, break it into chunks, influence and get work done by others and define deliverables that produce value are very, very valuable to any company.” Even if you don’t plan to become a project manager, Wilson still recommends project-management training because “it helps you to be a better team player and understand the demands of the project; you’ll contribute more to the team’s success.”

9. Learn from your mistakes. If you don’t make any, you haven’t done anything.

Does the company’s management style make room for you to learn from your mistakes? Does it foster a generous, risk-tolerant environment, seeking to turn errors into opportunities for growth instead of admonishments and recrimination? “Celebrate your failures as much as your successes,” Wilson says, because that’s how you learn and grow. His favorite interview question is: “Tell me something that you really screwed up badly,” he says, because people reveal a lot about themselves in how they respond. “If they say they’ve never made any mistakes or had any problems, then they probably haven’t done a lot,” he says. “If they say it was everyone else’s fault, they probably didn’t learn anything. But if they say, ‘Yes, I had this project and I messed it up and in retrospect, I should have done this,’ then I know I’ve found a star.”

10. Live a balanced life, because your work is what you do, not what you are.

Does the company expect you to always put your job first, or does it promote policies and practices that will help you strike a balance between your professional and personal lives? “If we become too absorbed in our work and identify ourselves so closely with our work that it’s all we think about, we cease to be effective and that’s where burnout comes from,” Wilson explains. “You have to have a life outside of work.”

Build time into your day that belongs to you and “vigorously protect and defend it,” Wilson says. For example, he gets to the office around 7 a.m., but he avoids meetings before 8 or 9 a.m., so he can use mornings for thinking and strategizing. Likewise, he clears his calendar after 4:30 p.m., because that’s when he wraps up the day’s to-do lists. By 6 p.m., he’s headed home for family time. “It requires some prior planning, and there are times that the job demands that you step out of the lines,” Wilson says, “but you have to maintain time for you.”

What a difference a year makes. At business schools nowadays, b-to b and b-to-c stand for “back to banking” and “back to consulting.”

With the dry-up of funding, fewer students are thinking about starting businesses, particularly dot-com ventures. At Harvard Business School, the decline in student entrepreneurs has been steep. About 40 teams entered the school’s annual business-plan contest in 2008, compared to 60 in 2007, even though the top three winners receive cash prizes.

About 12 of the b-school’s teams received venture-capital funding in 2007, compared to 33 teams in 2006. School officials aren’t sure how many of this year’s 41 entrants received VC funding, but expect the number to be low.

“We’ll probably be able to count them on one or two hands,” says Thomas Eisenmann, a Harvard Business School assistant professor.

Two Risk-Takers

The decline in entrepreneurial activity at Harvard has made rarities out of students bold enough to risk writing a plan and seeking funding for a business. Paula Pontes and Samantha Ettus, recent Harvard M.B.A. graduates, say they stuck out like sore thumbs when promoting their new business idea on campus. Called Magic Ribbon, it would sell a software-based solution aimed at improving employee retention rates by enhancing communication.

“Last year we might have been a dime-a-dozen,” says Ms. Ettus. “This year it just wasn’t the case.”

Ms. Pontes and Ms. Ettus tried to use their “novelty status” to their advantage when seeking funding for their business. Being among the few “enabled us to get a lot of attention from the venture community, as well as the people on campus,” says Ms. Ettus.

Much of the change in attitude toward starting companies has been due to the stock market’s erratic performance in 2008, says Ms. Pontes. “Business-school students in general are just more risk averse,” she says. “When the market was very high and it was very easy to get funding for any kind of idea, everyone had a business plan in their back pocket.” Adds Ms. Ettus, “Last year starting a business was the cool thing to do…this year it’s, ‘Oh, that’s risky’.”

Other Harvard students noticed a drop off in entrepreneurial activity. In 2000, if three students were sitting together at lunch, “that meant they were working on a business plan,” says James Ratcliffe, a 2001 M.B.A. graduate now with Narad Networks, a 135-employee start-up in Wesford, Mass. “It’s definitely wasn’t that sort of frenzied atmosphere.”

The class of 2002 seems to be even more risk-averse than the class of 2001, says Mr. Ratcliffe. Whereas his class gravitated toward consulting careers, new second-year students seem more interested in banking, he says.

Packed Conference

Despite the new risk-averse sentiment, industry leaders speaking at Harvard’s annual Cyberposium high-tech conference for M.B.A.s encouraged fledgling entrepreneurs not to give up their dreams. As long as their businesses solve problems and their plans make sense and show how and when cash flow will be generated, capital is still available.

Students from 30 business schools world-wide attended the event and crowded into a career fair afterwards. Technology giants with booths at the event included Yahoo Inc., Microsoft Corp., Dell Computer Corp., Inktomi Corp., Intuit Inc., RealNetworks Inc., AOL Time Warner Inc., Akamai Technologies Inc., Cisco Systems Inc. and the Extreme Blue program created by International Business Machines Corp.

Yahoo drew the largest crowds, attracting students seeking positions in business development, brand marketing, graphical user interface and administration. The big turnout at Yahoo indicates that the dot-com crash is encouraging students to find new ways to use the Internet, not desert it entirely, says Mr. Eisenmann. While launching a dot-com isn’t a popular option for M.B.A.s, neither is working for firms with 40 or fewer employees, Mr. Eisenmann adds.

New View of the Internet

Still, keynote speaker Tim Koogle, former president and chief executive officer of Yahoo, encouraged entrepreneurs to hold on to their dreams. Now that the Internet is going from “experimental and quirky” to “essential for consumers and businesses,” more opportunities exist for start-ups that focus on finding solutions, he says.

Mr. Koogle described the recent slowdown in the U.S. economy as an “economic pothole” and predicted the number of Internet users world-wide will grow from to 500 million in 2002 from 300 million in 2001 — providing more opportunities for well-conceived startups.

“The Internet is becoming essential,” says Mr. Koogle, now vice chairman and director of Yahoo. “Businesses world-wide are adopting it as their infrastructure…this is a very interesting breakpoint we’re crossing over, because this is when real value gets built.”

Funding is available for start-ups that provide solutions for businesses and consumers using the Internet for their infrastructure, says Mr. Koogle. “The capital markets are being a little more discretionary right now,” he says. “You need an idea with some promise of a decent business model that gets you to cash-flow-positive in some rational period of time. That combination is actually being rewarded for new business ideas right now.”

Ms. Ettus and Ms. Pontes agree that investors want to see solid business plans that spell out solutions to specific problems instead of broad, grandiose business plans presented by early dot-com entrepreneurs. “VC and angel investors really want to hear that you’re solving a problem,” says Ms. Ettus. “That seems to be the universal sentiment — that you’re solving a problem.”

Ultimately, the funding climate proved too tough for their idea and it’s been tabled until conditions improve. “We still believe in the product, but it looked as if there would be an enormous battle to raise funding,” says Ms. Ettus. “This isn’t to say that in two years we won’t be back.”

Different Approaches

“There’s no diminishment in interest in the New Economy…[students] know their jobs are going to involve a wired world: networked commerce, communication, content and all that jazz,” says Mr. Eisenmann.”They’re just going to be doing it in a different kind of place than the [prototypical] five kids in a garage.”

Moreover, although entrepreneurial interest has declined at Harvard, it’s still higher than in pre-Internet days, says Michael Roberts, the school’s executive director of entrepreneurial studies. “The pendulum is swinging, but it hasn’t fallen to levels of the pre-Internet bubble,” he says.

The Internet explosion was an aberration, but for students to flock to the market with business plans was rational behavior because competition was weak and starting a dot-com was easy. “Everybody was starting from scratch, and therefore, our M.B.A. students weren’t at the kind of competitive disadvantage they would be in an established industry,” says Mr. Roberts. “The kind of rush you saw, in a large measure, was a rational response to that.”

Nowadays, entrepreneurial-minded students are applying ideas to other sectors, though not in the same numbers, says Mr. Roberts. These include health-care services, wireless applications and social enterprises, such as education.

What’s more, international students are using their skills to start international businesses. “Every year more international students, working along with classmates from the U.S., focus on overseas opportunities,” says Mr. Roberts.

Trends at Other B-Schools

Other top b-schools also report declines in entrepreneurial activity. At Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management, fewer students are interested in starting companies because they have less access to funding, fewer opportunities and less profit opportunity, says Barry Merkin, clinical professor at the school. “Our students seem to follow society,” he says. “Fewer people are doing it.”

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Sloan School of Management is an exception. Entrepreneurial activity there is alive and well, even when compared to the dot-com craze of 1999 and 2000, say school officials.

“We haven’t seen a significant drop-off,” says Kenneth P. Morse, managing director of the M.I.T. Entrepreneurship Center. At Sloan, students are encouraged to take a long-term view of their prospects. Consequently, even during the dot-com craze, Sloan students didn’t launch web sites, says Mr. Morse.

“Most of our students didn’t get caught up in the dot-com craze,” he says. “We always knew that the laws of gravity hadn’t been repealed, and we’ve always insisted that student teams needed to quantify the value proposition and have a sustainable competitive advantage.”

The school’s annual business plan competition is a good way to measure entrepreneurial interest. Called the “$50K” competition, it awards a total of $50,000 and a lot of exposure to the top three teams. This year, 135 teams entered the well-publicized derby, down from the 206 that entered in 2000. However, enrollment in entrepreneurship classes remains high, says Mr. Morse.

Sloan has a strong focus on technology, and students have been developing innovative technologies ahead of the competition, says Ms. Morse. He describes it as “serious technology” compared to what he calls dot-com b-to-b and b-to-c “BS.”

“Two years ago [our students] were thinking about optical networking, and now everyone is talking about it,” says Mr. Morse. “Three years ago [our students] were talking about the confluence of the human-genome data and the new technologies in bio-informatics and how to pull those together for new drug discovery.”

Currently, Sloan students are exploring “last mile” fiber optics and ways to provide wide-band Internet access in the home, which could solve drawbacks to DSL, says Mr. Morse.

Jobs That Come With
A Little Something Extra

Perks just keep getting harder to find. However, there are jobs for which perks are a part of the compensation package.

In healthy, happy mid-20^th century America, when the executive level was the career ideal to strive for, the key to the senior washroom stood as the symbol of success — the magical instrument that unlocked a secret door, behind which a select, beknighted few undertook decisions that moved and shook America. Gaining entrance to that chamber was a rite of passage signifying one’s advancement to elite status.

By the go-go 1980s, perks had become more diverse, more expansive and a little more fun. Condos in Vail, membership in exclusive country clubs, catered lunches, chauffeured limos, fully stocked bars, helicopters to the Hamptons, villas in Mexico — these were the goodies at the top of the corporate heap, the trickle-up blessings of Reaganomics. In time, those perks took on a life of their own. What began as symbols of success and as motivation on the climb up the corporate ladder, became benefits to be expected of the potential employer. What, no luxury box for the local professional football team? No corporate health club? No personal assistant? Sorry, I’ll take my career elsewhere.

But a funny thing happened on the way to the top — the recession of the early 1990s. Now the economy is once again prompting another wave of corporate belt-tightening. And, there are other factors that come into play, such as the Internal Revenue Service. The IRS is increasingly looking at perks and taxing the recipients, not to mention putting pressure on the companies to treat them as part of a taxable-income package.

Even freebies, the access to which employees see as normal and necessary to the work environment, can be recast as a perk by scrupulous financial officers. Writing implements may not seem like an amenity to an office worker, but one well-known company that places temporary computer operators charges its employees for extra pens if they lose the one they’re given. Similarly, most professionals view a telephone as an indispensable piece of business equipment — but does that mean employees must, or should, have unlimited access to it? Indeed, for many cost-conscious companies, access codes for each employee to the company’s long-distance service are becoming increasingly popular as a means of preventing abuse of phone privileges. Just print up a list of who called where, and a boss can track whether a call was made for business or personal purposes.

The perk isn’t dead, but it is being viewed in a new light — the light of reason in the cost-conscious, post-New Economy era. As Nobel Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman pointed out years ago, there’s no such thing as a free lunch. The money going toward perks has to come from somewhere. Might that money be better spent on something that more directly influences the bottom line?

Even the beneficiaries of presumed perks may start to see them differently. It’s common for sports teams to provide journalists with complimentary food and beverages at games, but most often the bounty isn’t of the healthiest variety — hot dogs, fried chicken, pizza. To someone watching his or her weight, the complimentary buffet isn’t a perk any longer. Employees of a company or nonprofit organization that seems to spend an inordinate amount of its funds on baubles to keep the workers happy may begin to question the direction of the company or the mission of the organization. And in the new hands-on corporate environment, some top executives are moving out of their plush, wood-paneled corner offices and back into cubicles out on the floor to become more involved in the everyday workings of the business and its employees.

As people re-evaluate their place in the world — both in their careers and in life outside the job — they may also begin to re-evaluate the worth and necessity of the freebies that have become part and parcel of the commercial environment. Whereas once it may have been common to accept gifts from potential clients or customers, the new business climate has begun to call some of that palm-greasing into question. We hold our elected representatives to high standards in terms of receiving gifts as a way to influence decisions. Should the decision-makers in the business world be held similarly accountable? You may be trying to decide between two companies with similar products or services. Is the value of those products or services truly reflected in the size of a company’s vacation retreat or corporate jet? Maybe the young, hungry company that hasn’t yet established itself enough to indulge in such perquisites is the one you’d rather work at.

Still, perks, amenities and benefits will continue to be a drawing card for professionals deciding on new careers or evaluating job offers. Our advice? Don’t let the glitter of those attractive baubles sway you from your prime concern, which should be: Is the job right for you? Will you enjoy doing this job day in and day out? Will you be personally rewarded — not just financially, not just with advancement, and not just with certain amenities and privileges, but with a feeling of self-fulfillment? That, ultimately, is the best perk of all.

“This is the best job in America.”

“I love what I do.”

Ask people who work in community development about their careers and that’s what you’re likely to hear. It’s a field in which you can be entrepreneurial and ambitious, take risks and earn a living, yet feel fulfilled by knowing your work has a positive impact on people’s lives. Because it often offers unusual opportunities for creativity and leadership, it can be a good choice for young professionals starting careers.

Community development is the economic, physical and social revitalization of a community, led by local residents. The field emerged about 30 years ago as a grass-roots movement to improve living conditions, most often in low-income areas. It has since grown into an industry, and continues growing, with jobs in urban, suburban and rural areas in every state and overseas.

Volunteering and Internships Are Keys to Future Jobs

The difference that community-development efforts can make is evident in the South Bronx, N.Y., says Paul Grogan, a vice president at Harvard University and former president of the Local Initiatives Support Corp., a national organization based in New York that finances local community development housing and business initiatives. “In 1979, [the South Bronx] was rubble, the dustbin of history. Today it’s still poor. But housing is booming, crime is down, and you can see the start of economic revival. A new supermarket is opening, there’s a Little League team playing, it’s now a place where life is normal,” he says.

Partnerships Are Key

The field relies on partnerships between resident-led and professionally staffed neighborhood groups and public-sector and for-profit investment and support. Nonprofits pursue programs, such as low-income housing or job-training for at-risk youth. These are supported by local, regional and national nonprofit intermediaries which provide funding and technical assistance. Sources of business-sector backing can include corporations, investment banks, law firms, lenders, mortgage companies and even venture-capital pools.

“In a growing number of corporate boardrooms, lagging neighborhoods are now touted as targets of opportunities,” says Neal Peirce, a syndicated columnist based in Washington, D.C., who writes about state and local issues. For some banks, community-development finance has become an important business line. For example, Bank of America has made a 10-year $350 billion commitment to community-development lending. Additionally, developers, property-management companies and business owners are partnering with local groups in housing and economic development ventures.

The public sector assists these efforts by providing subsidies and funding services, regulating, monitoring and even partnering in projects to make direct loans or reduce risk. Further, universities and foundations are expanding their support of community-development initiatives.

In Tune With the Times

Demand for talented community-development professionals has swelled over the past decade, and the career’s popularity has grown. “Community development is fully in tune with the times,” says Peirce. “The field is entrepreneurial; its approach spans the political spectrum and is popular because it combines doing good for people and communities with the ethic of self-help and self-improvement.”

The field spans a variety of careers and industries involved in economic and social revitalization. Dan Nissenbaum and Roxie Perez-Lohuis represent either end of this spectrum. Nissenbaum, 36, is a senior vice president at Chase Manhattan Bank’s community development lending arm. Perez-Lohuis, 28, is a manager in a social-services program run by a Bronx nonprofit neighborhood organization that owns more than 1,500 apartments. She helps tenants overcome obstacles in their daily lives, such as finding day care so they can work, and build their skills to help themselves and each other.

Even though they come to the field from different approaches, they share a similar enthusiasm.

“My job is full of excitement. The phrase ‘doing well by doing good’ may be trite, but it’s true,” says Nissenbaum.

“This work is very rewarding, the type of reward that nourishes the soul,” says Perez-Lohuis.

Community development work can involve:

• community organizing,
• financing, housing and new businesses,
• redeveloping deserted industrial sites,
• job training,
• joint-venturing in developing local supermarkets and
• shaping public policy.

Employers include:

• community-based nonprofit organizations,
• banks,
• city, state and federal government,
• business enterprises,
• academic institutions,
• foundations,
• real-estate development companies,
• social-service agencies,
• job training and placement organizations,
• investment firms and
• think tanks.

Entry-Level Jobs

Even beginning jobs can offer challenge and interest. Shelia Slemp, 26, works for Neighborhood Progress Inc., a Cleveland organization. She designed and now manages a program that links college students to internships in grassroots community-development groups.

Slemp found her current position through an internship organized by Case Western Reserve University, where she’s pursuing a graduate degree in social work. She’s been participating in volunteer and civic organizations for years with her parents’ encouragement. After graduating from the University of Virginia, where she majored in government, she spent two years as an AmeriCorps intern, working in teams with community residents on building a greenbelt trail and other projects.

Community development appeals to Slemp because of its interaction with local groups that are “constantly innovating and thinking creatively,” she says. “I find building community by encouraging people to be involved is much more effective than through any corporate or government agenda.” She works 25 hours a week, setting her own hours, while continuing her studies.

Building Upon a First Job

An advanced degree usually isn’t necessary for your first job. The wisest career journey starts with an entry-level job. This experience will help you decide whether you really do enjoy the work, the kind of work you like best and the setting you prefer.

From your first job, you can climb the ladder in your organization. It may even pay for further education or training. Many banks, for example, offer first-rate in-house training. Or you might take a series of jobs — some paid, some volunteer — to try out different settings.

As an alternative to an advanced academic degree, you might consider enrolling in training courses. During the past three decades, a specialized nonprofit sector has grown that offers workshops on general community-development concepts and strategies, as well as specific techniques, such as commercial real-estate development. .

The Downside

All right, nothing is perfect. The best part of this career is seeing the positive changes in lives and neighborhoods that result from overcoming the economic factors that cause economic and social decline. The hard part is the frustration, day in and day out, of pushing against forces that resist change. Sometimes it’s people who can’t or won’t break out of their cycle of poverty. Other times it’s an external event, like a plant closing that eliminates neighborhood jobs.

Although community-development jobs often are more flexible than most, they may require long hours, including evenings to attend meetings or weekends to complete special projects. You may have the opportunity to quickly gain responsibility and experience in a variety of work mainly because your organization is understaffed, leaving you to handle many tasks and take the reins.

Another drawback can be compensation. Though salaries in nonprofit community-development organizations are comparable to those at other nonprofits, the pay is generally lower than in the for-profit sector.

A Springboard

This is a field where you could spend a lifetime or use as a springboard to another career. Former community developers lead foundations, banks, development companies, publishing houses and universities.

Others have followed a path to elected office, becoming mayors, state and local legislators or U.S. Congressmen and women. For example, Senator Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.) started out in public life organizing her neighborhood to fight the construction of a highway that would have cut the area into disjointed pieces. The neighbors won.

Volunteering and Internships Get You in the Door

Community service, through internships or volunteering, is a good way to land your first community-development job. It’s best not to walk in cold. Demonstrating your interest gives you an edge. If there’s a community-development group active in a neighborhood in your city, volunteer for its programs. Local and national religious institutions, including Habitat for Humanity International, based in Americus, Ga., and the Jesuit Volunteer Corps, also run community-volunteer programs.

Internships usually are structured positions within an organization, which will teach something about the work in return for your labor. They also may pay a stipend. Many local, regional and national community-development organizations and foundations have created formal internship programs. Or you can approach a community-development group and make your own slot.

Mark Gaines used networking and informational interviews to find a desirable employer. He learned about the Dallas division of Ryland Homes, a for-profit housing development company, and got his foot in the door by creating an internship with them. “They’d never had an intern before,” says Gaines. He was selected by the National Congress for Community Economic Development, a trade association in Washington, D.C., to participate in its emerging leaders training program. Gaines also has teamed with two other graduates of the program to launch Resurgence Magazine , a Web site devoted to community development.

His latest project is a collaboration with a newly formed nonprofit, the African-American Pastor’s Coalition, building 284 market-rate homes in a long-ignored section of Dallas. As part of the project, he administers a mentoring program that helps African-American builders complete about one-fifth of the homes.

Scientists and Doctors
Are Tops, Say Americans

Want a job that will wow them at parties? Then study the sciences.

That’s the message from the Harris Poll’s annual survey of attitudes toward a cross section of occupations. Of 1,011 adults surveyed nationwide, 51% said scientist was a job with “very great prestige.” Doctors were right behind with 50%, followed by military officers and teachers, each with 47%, and police officers, with 40%.

Of that top five, though, only the uniformed professions saw gains from the prior year. Military officers rose seven percentage points, while police climbed three points, moves that Harris attributed to the effects of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and the war in Afghanistan.

Scientists fell two points from last year, while doctors dropped 11 percentage points. Teachers saw esteem for their positions fall seven percentage points, Harris said.

Amid the corporate accounting scandals, at the bottom of this year’s list were accountants. Only 13% of those surveyed said they felt the profession carried “very great prestige,” down two percentage points.

Here are more highlights from the latest survey.

* * *

“For each of the following, would you tell me if you feel it is an occupation of very great prestige, considerable prestige, some prestige or hardly any prestige at all?”

** In earlier surveys Harris used the words “policeman” (now changed to “police officer”) and businessman (now changed to “business executive”) which may account for the changes from 2001 to 2002.

* * *

Trend for “very great prestige” from 1977 to 2002

NA not asked

** Questions contain reference to “man” in these profession titles reflecting how they were originally asked. They remain the same in order not to disrupt the trending of the data related to these professions.

* * *

Methodology: This poll was conducted via telephone between Aug. 15 and 19, among a nationwide cross section of 1,011 adults. Figures for age, sex, race, education, number of adults and number of voice/telephone lines in the household were weighted where necessary to align with population proportions. Harris Interactive estimates the results have a statistical precision of plus or minus three percentage points compared to results if the entire adult population had been polled with complete accuracy.

Do you long for the glamour and excitement of the high-powered, jet-setting business traveler? Well, consider for a moment the peacefulness you feel in the airport departure lounge as you await your vacation flight to some interesting or exotic destination, anticipating the relaxation and the fun that lies ahead.

Then think of the guilty pleasure you feel when you emerge briefly from your reverie to notice the harried businessmen and businesswomen scurrying through the terminal as they rush to make their flights to Toledo, Tulsa, Tallahassee, or some other mundane metropolis.

For some, business travel is the spice that makes a job intriguing. But for many others, it’s a burden to be endured, a necessary evil that disrupts family life and grinds down both body and mind. Jet lag. Connecting flights. Shaky commuter planes. Airline food. Weatherwoes. Miserable airport traffic that can cause you to be late for your appointment or your flight. It’s enough to make some frequent fliers long for the moment they can plant their feet firmly on the ground and their seats firmly behind a desk.

This is not to say that business travel always is a drag — far from it. A handful of trips a year can offer a welcome break from the monotony of the workaday office. In addition, business travelers meet new colleagues, make new friends — and often establish a network of contacts that can be valuable in a future job search. The willingness to travel often is a sign to the employer that you’ll “pay your dues” to the company; some bosses see it as a test of loyalty and commitment.

Business travel also can benefit your private life. Most corporate travelers accumulate frequent flier miles on their individual accounts, a perk that can pay off down the road with free airline tickets, rental cars, and hotel rooms that can be applied to personal vacations (if there ever is time for a vacation). For those enterprising or flexible enough, business travel schedules sometimes can be reworked to allow for visits with far-off family and friends, or a little sightseeing. For instance, instead of forcing a worker to fly out Friday morning and returning later that night, many bosses will allow you to stay in town a few weekend days, if you so desire, and perhaps fly back on Sunday — although the employee likely will have to foot the bill for expenses incurred beyond those related to business.

A welcome trend in the business world is the growing popularity of destination resorts that cater to conventions and large corporate gatherings. Savvy executives know that holding the annual branch managers’ meeting in Aspen or Palm Springs — rather than at corporate headquarters in, say, Pittsburgh — can be a big morale boost. There’s nothing like a little skiing or golf to lift spirits and liven up those boring seminars.

More often, however, business travel leaves little time to experience the ambiance and take in the special sights of particular destinations. Marathon meetings with clients can leave executives with a desire to do little other than head back to the hotel, order up room service, and hit the sack early. What’s more, the growing world-wide popularity of office complexes near large airports means that on a three-day trip to “Munich,” you might never get closer than 20 miles from the Bavarian delights of that colorful city. Looking for local color at one of those small, quaint hotels? Given the international expansion of the big hotel chains — and the barter deals companies increasingly are negotiating with such chains — your room in suburban London might look an awful lot like the bland digs on your last trip to Chicago or Charlotte. The best most business travelers can do is sample a restaurant or two; the normal itinerary — back and forth from airport to hotel to office to airport — usually won’t give you a real feel for a city or a region.

Business travel comes in a wide range of styles — from road trips in one’s own car, with sleepovers at the roadside budget motel, to first-class airline and hotel accommodations with service staff that pampers the traveler and goodies that flow freely. But even the beneficiaries of the most luxurious business travel — for instance, professional athletes, who fly on chartered or team-owned planes and stay in four-star hotels — can grow weary of the grind. A rookie NBA player probably will revel in the attention lavished on him by obsequious hotel staffers and flight attendants on the team’s private jet. He’ll probably love the nice per diems for meals, and he likely will enjoy sampling the nightlife in each city he visits. On the other hand, veterans who have seen and done it all usually grow jaded in regard to the fast lane of life on the road, and long to get back home to their families.

The jobs discussed on this list are meant to serve as a representative selection, not as a comprehensive list of careers that involve travel. Obviously, the individual circumstances will dictate whether a particular employment situation involves travel. Indeed, even positions you wouldn’t expect to entail taking a trip or two can offer that opportunity. For instance, waiters and waitresses aren’t normally counted among the globe-trotters of the working world — but it’s certainly not unusual for a large, specialty chain that is launching a new restaurant in another city to send experienced staffers from an established location to the new site on a temporary basis, to help train personnel and get things organized for the opening.

So take a look at this list to get an overall feel for the nature of business travel. You may not find the particular field you are considering; if not, try to find a similar one, which in some cases may approximate the travel opportunities.

You may be someone who loves to fly and to stay in hotels; on the other hand, you may despise traveling or be unwilling to risk the loss of family time business excursions often require. Whatever the field, however, the guiding principle of business travel is: smaller doses usually are better.