A Brookie Guide to Selecting Host Institutions
Image: Amy Huynh
In a way, picking an employer is kind of like picking a college or university: there are lots of options out there, it’s hard to know for sure who will want you the most, and it can be a challenge to see past the glossy brochures and professional websites to get a real feel for what it’s really like to be there. What’s more, just like in a college, the experience may actually be quite different across different departments or different campuses of the same college. But nevertheless, it’s valuable to put some real time and some real thought into trying to figure out which employers would suit you best.
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For our Class of 2021, we are thrilled to have 35 of the coolest, most inspiring, and most exciting aerospace institutions in the world signed up to employ a Brookie or two. They run the gamut from government facilities to established companies to startups to non-profits. Some have 10,000 employees, some have something closer to 10. Some have been around for a century, others are brand new. What’s more, some of them are looking for engineers, some for scientists, some for policy experts, or business experts, or storytellers, or any of a number of other important roles.
On the Brooke Owens Fellowship application, we ask you to list out three of our thirty-five host institutions that are particularly appealing to you. For students who are new to the aerospace industry, and particularly for those who may not have family or school connections who work in the industry, it can be quite difficult to make those choices. Well, read on, new friend: we’ve got tips for you!
A Reminder: You’ll Be Considered for All of our Hosts, Not Just Three
Hopefully this takes a bit of the pressure off! All of our applicants are considered as potential matches for all of our host institutions. Unless you've specifically called a host out as a place you'd be unwilling to work, you'll be considered for all positions.
More often than not, candidates who are selected as Finalists get paired with one or more hosts that weren’t on their original list. That doesn’t mean that you didn’t earn the shot for that position or anything negative like that. Indeed, the only thing it means is that we take lots of things into account when making matches between finalists and prospective hosts. We will absolutely consider the companies you've told us interest you the most, but we will also consider the attributes you've told us you are looking for in your summer work experience, the specific job functions our hosts have told us they are interested in filling, and insights gleaned from your telephone interview. In the past, we've had many of our top ranked candidates not pair with any of their originally requested hosts; and some of our favorite success stories have happened when we placed a Fellow with a company they'd never considered working for before.
Review and Carefully Consider the Host Table on our Website
Every year, we ask us to tell us about what kind of candidates they want to talk to this time around. There’s a handy, sortable table at the bottom of our application page that lists each host and tells you a little bit about the specific openings they have this year. You’ll see the likely geographical location, the job disciplines, and the citizenship restrictions that apply to each employer for this specific year.
Pay careful attention to this! If you ignore this table, you are missing an opportunity. For example, NASA employs some of the world’s best scientists and engineers — but the specific openings we have for Brookies at NASA in our Class of 2021 are for jobs in communications and education; so if you tell us you only want to work in as an engineer and that NASA is your top choice, you haven’t told us anything meaningful. If anything, you’ve told us that you don’t pay close attention to details — which is probably not the message you want to send!
You Can Eliminate Hosts from Consideration — But Think Carefully Before You Do So
In addition to asking you to name three hosts that especially appeal to you, we also provide you the option to eliminate hosts from consideration. If there’s a place that you don’t want to work, tell us about it — we will absolutely listen to that, and ensure that you don’t get matched there. The reasons for that are entirely up to you, and you don’t even have to tell us about them: maybe you’ve already worked there and want a new experience, maybe you don’t like the type of work the company does, maybe you just don’t like the part of the world where they are located. It’s all up to you! Our only advice is don’t let preconceived notions steer you away from a company. Make sure to do your research! (We’ll talk about this in the next section).
Don’t forget, for every host you list on this section of the application, you’ve just eliminated one potential match — and in a sense, you’ve just reduced your likelihood of being selected by 1/35th (~3%). If you are totally sure that you want to spend Summer 2021 in, say, Florida, you can have us eliminate all hosts who don’t have openings in the Sunshine State — but don’t lose sight of the fact that you’ve just eliminated ~89% of your possible matches!
Look Past the Name
We’re honored to count many of the most famous aerospace institutions in the world among our host institutions. We truly believe these are excellent places to work, full of good people doing incredible things — otherwise, we wouldn’t have them in the program. If your dream job is at one of these companies, we will be thrilled to hear that!
But be sure to look a little deeper — don’t be so dazzled by the name that you don’t look into the actual workplace environment, or that you don’t look into some of the names you don’t recognize. Afterall, even the best company or best government agency in the world isn’t the right fit for every person in our industry! Each of us has our own preferences and tastes; each of us does our best work and learns the most in a different type of situation.
The questions on our application are designed to get you thinking deeply about what you’d value in an employer. Does their mission statement and values align with yours? But don’t stop there — keep digging deeper. Do you tend to thrive in small groups or in big ones? Do you like to hone in on one project at a time, or do you like to have multiple active projects to fill your plate? Do you want to deepen the skills you’ve already acquired, or do you want to expand your knowledge base in new directions? All of these questions can help steer you towards the employers that would work best for you.
Don’t Stop Learning After You Apply
When you send in your files and get that magic confirmation email, you’ll have earned a celebration and a break. But once you’ve soaked that in, keep learning! Applicants who are selected as semi-finalists will discover that a good chunk of their telephone interview is used to help learn even more about which hosts might be a good fit. You’ll have more opportunities — both within this program and beyond it — to continue to refine your understanding of what would be the ideal next step in your professional life. Don’t miss out on a chance to learn and to steer the course of your future career!