You don’t need me to tell you that applying for a job – any job – is a long and stressful process, especially when that process is being fitted in around other priorities, deadlines, exams, work and extracurriculars. It’s a process that can feel intimidating or entirely overwhelming at times. But finding that first post-graduation job is something that every college grad has to go through, and it’s important to remember that things will work out. Maybe not perfectly at first, or in the way that you always imagined that they would, but there will always be opportunities and avenues to follow that will bring you closer toward that career goal. The most important thing to remember is to not let a fixation with finding that ‘perfect’ first job become paralyzing; keep yourself open to opportunities as they come, whether that means applying to a job that sounds interesting but doesn’t fall exactly in line with your planned career track, or taking the time to learn more about companies or options that seem to be outside of your chosen field.
1. Building Experience
If you’re a soon-to-be-graduated senior with a resume full of internship, research, volunteer or part-time job experience, skip ahead! You’ve already been through all this, and probably read all the advice you’ll ever need to know about landing a summer internship or finding the perfect school/work balance.
For younger collegiettes, having at least some practical experience to highlight for potential employers is important. It doesn’t necessarily all have to be in one specific field to be relevant, so don’t be afraid to try out different areas and potential careers to see if they would work for you. As a Writing Seminars and English major, I wasn’t quite sure what I wanted from a career, so I tried out journalism, marketing, book publishing, and even interned in fashion at a teen magazine. I’ll be working for a law firm after graduation. Overwhelmingly, the skills that you learn simply by being in a work environment – no matter what that environment is – are transferable, and most employers hiring for entry-level positions are more interested in people who can prove that they’re good workers and fast learners than anything super specific.
2. Seeing What’s Out There
Once you’ve gotten some experience, done some thinking, and kind of figured out what direction you want your job search to move in, the best thing to do is take a look at what’s available. Look at companies, look at jobs – I personally found it helpful to sign up for huge job boards like Indeed.com, Monster.com and Milkround, as well as databases that are more industry specific, like Bookjobs.com for book publishing positions. It’s also not at all silly to simply Google the industry that you’re interested in and take a look at the top companies in the field; in fact, it can be a great way to get a feel for who the big players are, and see what opportunities they have available in their careers listings.
Most importantly, looking at tons of listings and bookmarking the ones that you’re most interested in will give you a good idea of what you’re qualified for, what skills you should be looking to highlight on your resume, and what kind of language these employers are using.
3. Polishing Your Resume and Cover Letter
Before you submit you first application, though, it’s always worth making a trip to the Career Center or reaching out to your friends and/or parents to have somebody look over your application materials. You might have old versions of resumes and cover letters that you’ve used previously for internship applications, but what you’ll probably find is that what you want to showcase in your job search might be different – the way that you want to present your skills and experiences might be different, or you might simply have become a better writer in the year since you’ve looked at your old stuff and realize that it could use an overhaul.
While you’re at the Career Center or even just chatting with your family and friends, it’s always worth mentioning the positions you’ve been looking at to see if you can make any connections with people in the same field or even at a specific company.
4. Applying!
You’ve done the prep work, your resume is golden, your cover letter is perfectly tailored for every job, and you’ve spent hours/days/weeks crafting email after email and working your way through the pile of bookmarked listings on your browser. You probably have twenty different windows open on your computer at any given time. In fact, you’re afraid to restart your computer because you’ve got so much going on. You’ve applied to so many jobs that you start to forget some of them (most of them).
Through all of this, you remain enthusiastic. You know that some of these emails are being sent into a black hole, but you’re confident that out of the fifty-something applications that you’ve sent, you’ll at least get a couple of bites.
5. The Waiting Game (aka Total Panic)
It’s been weeks, maybe months since you’ve heard back about any of the positions that you applied for – or maybe you’ve gotten a couple of interviews but nothing’s panned out yet. Panic is starting to set in. By this point, unless you’re one of the lucky few, it’s probably second semester and graduation is looming. You’ve followed up on every single one of your applications, and you don’t know what more you can do – except to keep applying, for job after job. You’re seeing all of your friends get jobs, and that’s causing even more panic. What are you going to be doing after May?! You have no idea.
This stage of the process is absolutely terrifying. There’s no other way to put it. This is the stage when you start to lose faith in yourself and your abilities – when you begin to lose focus on yourself and your goals, and instead focus on comparing yourself with others. It’s easy to become stressed, embarrassed or resentful when what you think you see is absolutely everybody getting a job but you. At this point, what’s most important to remember is what you don’t see: everybody else who’s right at this stage with you. At Hopkins alone, there are hundreds of soon-to-be-graduates who are smart and capable and will go on to be extremely successful who haven’t yet found their first job. Some of them – and maybe you – will get an offer within the next week; some won’t hear back until the day after graduation; some may take a couple more months after that to find their first job. But, in the end, it will work out.
6. A Job?!
One thing to remember and be prepared for is that when you do get that first job offer, it’ll be fast. You’ll go in for an interview and within the next couple of days – or even hours – you’ll have a job. Congratulations! That thing that you spent an entire year stressing and panicking about will be over sooner than you know it.
Until three years from now, when you decide it’s time for a career change and you get to start the process all over again…
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