Career Connection

Within minutes, area alumni responded with job hunting tips, links to listings and job boards, and offers to chat. One post, from Deb Roby, b’93, of Alexandria, Virginia, was particularly helpful: Roby suggested Guardiola speak with Beverley Segel, managing director of direct hire legal placements at Palmer Legal Staffing in Washington, D.C. Guardiola found the woman’s contact information online and emailed her, which quickly led to a phone call.

“Beverley mentioned they had gotten a position that day to work for this huge law firm doing immigration law,” says Guardiola, who had worked for two years as a legal assistant at Treviño Law Office, an immigration law firm in Lawrence. “She checked my references, and I had an interview with Mayer Brown the following day to be a temporary paralegal. They liked me and gave me a second interview, then hired me.”

Though Guardiola had heard about the Jayhawk Career Network and the power of KU connections—especially when searching for internships and jobs—she was genuinely surprised by the response and support she received from her Facebook post. “I wasn’t sure what to expect,” she says. “But it was a good surprise, like people have my back and they’re here to help me. I felt like a lot of people were very understanding, because they had been in my shoes before and also moved to D.C. without a job. They remembered what it was like when they graduated from KU 10, 20 years ago.”

Guardiola not only made a valuable career connection through the network’s Facebook group, but she also met several Jayhawks during an Alumni Association virtual happy hour and learned about KU and Kansas City Chiefs watch parties organized by Kyle Peterson, ’14, the Washington, D.C., network leader. “I just moved to a new city during a pandemic, so it’s pretty hard to meet people,” she says. “But posting on those network-specific pages is such a good go-to that maybe some people don’t think about. That’s been a really good way to meet people who went to KU and understand the culture.”