Land a job
Elarie Consulting is back this month with some tips for job searching and land a job as a recent college grad. Take notes!
Ask anyone that has interacted with college students and they may tell you a common sentiment is, “I just can’t wait until graduation!”
However, with an economy full of uncertainty, many students are dreading entering into the “real world” without any plan or job lined up.
So what can you do as a recent grad to land a job?
1. Prepare Yourself
Start getting together your resume and cover letters. Warning: This is not the resume you threw together in your creative writing class to coast with a 2.5 GPA.
While the job market is very competitive for employers right now, recruiters are skill looking for the best candidates. Every candidate they present is a representation of themselves, so they are looking for people that take the needed time crafting their resume and preparing for the interview process.
2. Understand Your Transferable Skills & Experience
This is one of the most important aspects of building a resume with little to no work experience. Many job seekers underestimate the value that their educational and volunteer experiences bring to their resume. At Elarie, we define transferable skills as abilities that you may develop and use across various jobs or industries. For example, by working on group projects you may have developed communication or team building skills.
Likewise, by managing your course load with extracurricular activities or a college job, you may have developed your time management skills. Don’t be afraid to use these to your advantage, but be sure to demonstrate how you used these on your resume in a creative way.
3. Build Your Career Brand
One of the first things we tell clients that are committed to the hunt is to update or set up their LinkedIn profile. LinkedIn even has a special portal for college students that helps to outline the key takeaways and skills they have built from the classes they take in college. Additionally, nearly every employer we have spoken to at job fairs and worked for have active recruitment presence on LinkedIn.
If you’re seeking employment in a creative field you may also want to develop a website with the elements of your portfolio if you have not done so already.
Ask for help
4. Reach Out to Your College Career Center
In recent years, many public and private colleges have implemented a robust career services department and website that students can use to find a job. Websites such as Handshake are used to connect colleges to students and those students to real jobs and real employers. They may also point you to employers they know of that are currently hiring.
5. Reach Your Network
Remember all of those people you met in class? All of those groups of people you worked with to complete harsh project deadlines with an ambiguous assignment description and rubric? Connect with them on social media (especially LinkedIn!) to see where they may be working. Some of them may even work for companies where they can recommend you directly for a specific position.
++After the thousands of resumes recruiters and talent acquisition see, sometimes it is a great relief to be handed a solid recommendation from a trusted employee.
So are you ready to land your first real job? Have additional questions we can answer?
Comment below and let us know!
++ Check out other Elarie Consulting blog posts, here & here
