What the hey, I'm gonna post the article!
How to Move Up? The Sorority Track
By RUTH LA FERLA
In "Legally Blonde 2," now in theaters, Reese Witherspoon stars as the relentlessly perky Elle Woods, campaigning in Washington for animal rights. After days of fruitless lobbying, Elle seeks respite at a fancy hair salon, where the woman in the chair next to hers is the very congresswoman whose support she needs to get a hearing for her bill.
When her candied banter fails to snare the old dragon's attention, a detail catches her eye. On the woman's ring finger is the gold and purple emblem of Delta Nu, Elle's beloved sorority. Elle promptly invokes the sisterhood's incantation: "When was the last time you wore the yellow tea roses?" she asks sweetly, and her words turn the steely legislator soft as custard. In an instant, the two are doing a ritual hand-clap, hip-bumping and plotting Elle's campaign.
It is a moment sure to resonate with thousands of young American women eagerly exploiting their own old-school sorority ties to jump-start their careers. A phenomenon all but unknown a generation ago, professional networking through college sororities has gained momentum in recent years, fueled by a rise in the number of women in management and professional positions who have influence over hiring — 21.4 million in 2002, compared with 14.7 million a decade ago, according to the Labor Department. The trend has been given further impetus by a tight job market that has many women employing every means to gain an edge.
"The guys have had this down for years," said Karen Chevalier, vice president for program development for Pi Beta Phi, a sorority founded in the Midwest more than a hundred years ago. "But it is only now that women are learning to use those connections."
They are indeed. Ask Feona Sharhran Huff. Ms. Huff, a member of Delta Sigma Theta, a prestigious 90-year-old sorority for black women, moved to Manhattan in the late 1990's, two weeks after graduating from Norfolk State University in Virginia. Within days she was introduced to a sorority sister, who arranged an interview for her at Essence magazine.
"The networking was unbelievable," Ms. Huff recalled.
Daphne Johnson, another Delta Sigma Theta, who was then the magazine's production editor, informed her of two available internships. Ms. Huff secured one. "Being a member of the same sorority definitely put me in a great position to be at a magazine I always dreamed of working on," she said.
Two months ago, Ms. Huff, who is an assistant editor at College Bound, an advice magazine for high school students and who publishes SingleMomz Magazine, offered a similar boost to another sorority sister, Angela Bledsoe, a financial consultant in New York City. When Ms. Bledsoe, a Delta Sigma Theta who graduated from Florida A&M University in Tallahassee in 1997, sent Ms. Huff an e-mail message asking for a writing position at SingleMomz, she was promptly signed as a contributor.
"She had the qualifications," Ms. Huff explained. "But my satisfaction was even greater because she was one of my own."
A generation ago, such relationships were rare. "A lot of people who got out of college in the 70's, the way I did, were so busy making their way they might not have had time to give new alumnae a hand," said Linda Urben Peterson, a retired advertising executive who was a president of New York Women in Advertising. An alumna of Pi Beta Phi, Ms. Peterson, who lives in Santa Fe, N.M., advises younger alumnae on résumé-writing and interview preparation.
The opportunity to trade on school ties may well have contributed to a recent surge in pledges at sororities. "Our membership is booming," said Sally Grant, chairwoman of the National Panhellenic Conference that represents 26 sororities nationwide. It reported a gain of about 80,000 members in 2001, a 9-percent increase from 1999.
"We certainly have noticed a greater reliance by women on these kinds of informal networks," said Sheila Wellington, the president of Catalyst, a nonprofit organization in New York that advances women in business. "That sort of relationship-building can be critical to career advancement."
The power of sisterhood was slow to dawn on Emily Blumenthal, a handbag designer in New York. In her senior year at the University of Michigan in 1995, Ms. Blumenthal became disenchanted with Sigma Delta Tau, the popular Jewish sorority she had joined. She considered quitting — until she learned that the organization had arranged for her to interview for an internship at Young & Rubicam, the advertising agency, in New York.
Her interviewer in the human resources department took a cursory glance at her résumé. "But when she saw I was an S.D.T., her eyes welled up and there was a heavy pause," Ms. Blumenthal recalled. "It turned out she had started the S.D.T. chapter at her own school."
Ms. Blumenthal's sorority sister introduced her to several senior executives, and even though Ms. Blumenthal was not hired, she credits her sorority sister with giving her a much-needed push. "Without that connection in my job search I wouldn't have had a talking point," she said. She eventually landed a job at Ogilvy & Mather Worldwide in New York.
Some prospective employers look askance at sorority networking. Since the late 1960's, sororities have been intermittently viewed with skepticism, if not disdain, their members derided as airheads with no goal more absorbing than matching their pedicure to the color of their sandals. Moreover, some critics view such old-girl networks in the workplace as no better than old-boy networks — an impediment to hiring and promotion based on merit.
Barbara Rabinovitz, a partner at RabinTate, an executive search firm in West Orange, N.J., advocates some sorority networking, but said that hiring on the basis of such affiliations is "elitist without question." She said listing one's membership on a résumé could backfire if an employer perceived the applicant as a lightweight — "it's kind of like saying that you were a debutante."
And some alumnae are self-conscious about their pedigrees. In her job search, Jessica Rausch, a New Yorker who hopes to work in fashion, has been discouraged from advertising her membership in Delta Delta Delta, a sorority with old roots in the South. "I've actually had friends in the fashion industry tell me, `You may want to consider removing the Tri-Delt from your résumé," Ms. Rausch said. "Sorority girls are thought of as conformists, and that's not how you want to come across when you're looking for a job in fashion."
But other employers make a point of hiring Greeks, even those outside their own sororities. They stress the leadership and social skills that sororities are thought to promote. Kate Allen, an executive at Harrison & Shriftman, a public relations and events planning company based in New York, gives special consideration to sorority women from the University of Texas in Austin, where Ms. Allen was an Alpha Delta Phi. "We usually go after the social directors," said Ms. Allen, a former social director herself. "They have experience in events planning that we consider invaluable."
Her intern, Kourtney Kachler, 21, listed her fund-raising and recruitment experience as a Kappa Alpha Theta at the University of Texas on her résumé. "I considered they were social activities that maybe would help me if someone where I applied for a job was also in a sorority," she said.
Credentials like those of Ms. Kachler can help dispel the perception that sorority members are party girls, light on ambition and good sense. Ms. Allen, for one, maintains that women active in sororities tend to be active in other campus organizations. "It's a leadership thing," she said.
Some sororities are redoubling efforts to stress these more serious facets of membership. Last year, Pi Beta Phi commissioned a survey of its members. In the study, by Prince Market Research with Dye, Van Mol & Lawrence, a marketing firm, 83 percent of respondents cited opportunities for networking as a primary reason for joining and remaining active in their sorority.
"You need to sell this networking component" to prospective members, said Rachel Cohen, a regional president of Pi Beta Phi in New York. Ms. Cohen, who works in marketing and public relations for Straightline, a branding company, was herself sponsored earlier in her career. Ms. Peterson, the former advertising executive, helped Ms. Cohen land an entry-level advertising job in a package-design company her husband owned at the time.
Other groups stress future networking opportunities during recruitment, as rush is sometimes known. "We tell rushees that being in our sorority will look good on their résumé," said Marina Albright, a Kappa Kappa Gamma at Pepperdine University in Malibu, Calif. "With the job market being so awful, they know that can be especially important," she said.
In fields traditionally dominated by men, such associations can be critical. As an investment banker with J. P. Morgan Chase, Ms. Bledsoe, the financial consultant, met colleagues who were sorority sisters from Delta Sigma Theta, among them several Chase vice presidents.
"We served as a support group for one another," she recalled. The more senior officials would "tell us how to negotiate larger bonuses for ourselves, whom to cultivate in the company hierarchy, and how to cover ourselves," Ms. Bledsoe said. "They were sharing many of the challenges we faced that they had already conquered, so we knew we weren't alone."
Fresh out of school four years ago, Stacey Gish, who manages information technology consultants for J. P. Morgan Chase, applied for a job at MetLife, the insurance company, in New York. As Ms. Gish told it, Rickey Palkovitz, an executive with the company, studied her résumé, then met her eye. " `So,' she said to me, `You're from Long Island; I'm from Long Island,' " Ms. Gish recalled. " `You went to school in the Midwest; I went to school in the Midwest. You were an A.E. Phi. I was an A.E. Phi.' When we finished the interview she told me, `I'd like you to come and work for me.' "
Ms. Palkovitz, who has remained friends with Ms. Gish, described what had moved her in the first place. "The fact that we came from similar backgrounds was almost a pre-screening mechanism," she said. "It showed we had an intellectually and culturally similar view of the world."
"It was definitely an indicator that we would be on the same page," she said.
I knew that if I listed my high school first and my sorority, it was the only way to have credibility in my hometown. It opened doors for me, but I think mine is an extreme case.
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