Job Search Tips for Recent Graduates

When I was 22 years old there weren’t enough teaching jobs for the amount of education majors that the colleges were releasing. I wound up being a full time substitute teacher and while I liked it, my heart told me that it wasn’t what I was supposed to be doing. The next year I went to work for a major department store where the human resources folks decided that my teaching degree was needed for a new point of sale training program that they were rolling out. They offered to make me a trainer and I gladly accepted because the position offered a tiny bit more money and it sounded interesting (how different could teaching adults be than teaching kids?). It was the start of a learning and development career that continues to this very day.

Lately, I’ve been writing resumes and coaching recent college graduates. When we sit down to talk, I’ve noticed that had they generally need help preparing a resume and getting through the interviewing process. Here are a few tips that I've shared with them. I wish someone had shared these with me when I was 22 years old.

• Don’t do what everyone else is doing. There are thousands of others looking for work along with you and you need to get there faster than them. How are you going to do that?

a.    Read the daily trending articles about the Top 100 Companies to Work For or the Top Companies for Recent Grads or the Fastest Growing Industries. Go to the career sections of each of the companies mentioned and apply.

b.    Use your college placement office. Just because someone may have said that it didn’t help them doesn’t mean it won’t help you.

c.     Ask your parents for some help. Even though you might want to do it all on your own, they know people who know people.

• Send thank you notes. Send several thank you notes. Send them after interviews and send them to the networking contacts that your new networking contacts. Don't make them all the same either; personalize them.

• Make sure that your resume and cover letter are thorough, free of mistakes and represent your accomplishments. Take the extra steps to find out the details of your former positions so that you can add them to your resume. By information I mean type of software and hardware you used, type of business, number of customers, any certifications. Search your former company name and go to the company website. Use their language or jargon.Yes- you can do this for your part-time or summer jobs.
• Create a list of thought provoking questions to ask the interviewer. Never, ever ask about money, benefits or time off.
• Go to Glassdoor.com and research the company. Read all you can about the company, the feedback and the salaries.
• Create a complete LinkedIn profile. Attach your resume and samples of your work.
• Follow job boards designed for recent graduates. Google niche job boards in your field.
• As you prepare for an interview, review the job description and come up with real examples of your past experiences that support these. Think of school, work or volunteering examples.
• When asked about your strengths and weaknesses, be honest. When it comes to weaknesses, it’s not so much that something didn’t work out well; it’s more how you handled it and what you learned.
• Look for articles written by the company's management. They may give you an idea about the company culture.

Happy Graduation!