I've been wanting to write about career-related topics for awhile now, but have never made the jump. My career is something that is extremely important to me and drives many of my life choices. I love attending events, networking, and reading more about business and entrepreneurship. I've learned a lot in the past few years of college, and even from when I was a teenager and had multiple businesses. So why not share this knowledge I've gained?
In this post I want to discuss the proper and improper ways of landing your first job out of college. Or landing a job even if you didn't attend college! The idea of graduating and moving right into a job can be daunting, and for most people it doesn't even work out that way. Many people are trying to scrap together interviews months after graduating, hoping some employer will hire them. I'm gonna give you some advice on how to avoid that rat race because I don't think anyone wants to graduate not knowing where they're going to be, what they're going to be doing, or, most importantly, how they are going to be surviving with minimal or no income.
I want to start off by saying something so important. YOU MAKE YOUR OWN OPPORTUNITIES. This is the biggest lesson I have learned throughout college and the beginning of my career. You can't just wait for people to come to you and hand you what you want. There are few people that are lucky enough to be recruited into companies, but for the most part you need to seek these companies out. By seeking companies out I don't mean simply hitting "submit" at the end of a job application and attaching your resume. This is the biggest mistake people make when trying to get hired. When you simply submit your resume on LinkedIn or a job-hunting site, your resume is getting lost in hundreds or thousands of applications. Nothing you do can or will stand out. You're leaving it up to an algorithm to parse through key words on your resume and possibly spit it back to HR, IF you're lucky. So if you want to have a job when you graduate, DO NOT depend on applying for jobs in this manner. Just don't do it.
The key to anything in your career is simple. It's networking. It's who you know and how you know them. After all, we are all humans and looking to form genuine relationships. For this reason, someone is more likely to hire you when they have a personal relationship with you and can put a face to a name. Your face and personality is more likely to be remembered than some random words squeezed onto a piece of paper. People want to hire people that they like and want to surround themselves with in a work environment. You really can't pick up on this through words written in Times New Roman font. So even if you submit a resume to a job posting and have everything that employer needs, that employer is more likely to hire someone they've met before and know they vibe with rather than someone they only know through a piece of paper.
