I Graduated. Now What?
From diploma to real life
There are plenty of coaches and counselors to get you into college, and lots of resources to help you shape your career once you’re a few years into it. However, there’s a void when it comes to guiding the recent grad. Here are some tips to get you started.
Step 1
The first step is figuring out what you want to do with your life. If you already know, skip to Step 2. If you don’t, there are plenty of online resources to help you hone in on your life’s purpose (or at least your first job title). You can also contact a career coach that specializes in new grads, such as Shannon Philip of ShineBrite. She has a program specifically tailored to you! (Tell her I sent you).
Step 2
The Basics:
1. Define your Personal Branding Statement — come up with a few lines that represent who you are and what you do. This is basically what makes you unique, and is your ‘personal brand’. How To tips here.
2. Do a great resume (which reps your brand). How To tips here.
3. Do a greater Linkedin Profile (which also reps your brand). How To tips here.
4. Build your LinkedIn network — connect with everyone you know — your parents and their friends, family, your friends, your professors, any alumni in your city that will connect with you, former coworkers and bosses, etc
Finding the Jobs:
1. Use a job search aggregator like Indeed to do keyword saved searches to get daily emails of opportunities.
2. Get an internship. In California, internships either have to offer college credit, or they have to pay at least minimum wage. This is a great entrée point to a company, and if you do well, there is a good chance you’ll land a full time job offer at the end of the internship. Try Internships.com and Monster has an internships section. Your university’s alumni career board might have options as well.
3. Ask your parent’s friends — I guarantee many of them work at companies that could hire you. Do it!
Getting Your Foot in The Door:
1. Once you find a job or internship that looks good, do not, I repeat, do not submit your resume through the job posting itself. I lovingly call that The Black Hole. Use it as a last resort after you have tried the following:
● If you see a role that is interesting, go to Linkedin, and see if you have any 1st degree connections you can hit up. Even if it’s not someone in the same discipline as you, they can forward your info along to the right person (either the hiring manager or someone in Human Resources/Recruiting) and at least you know your info will be considered. If that doesn’t work, and you see a 1st connection of yours that is a 1st connection of someone at the company, ask them for an intro. Don’t cry wolf. I get hit up for intros in my network about a hundred jillion times a day. Happy to do it within reason, but I’m very protective of my network and others are the same with theirs.
● You can pay for aggregators like ContactOut, Connectifier, Zoominfo and others — they will pull whatever contact information they have, and often spit out an email address. Be brave, and send a direct email to an Exec at the company.
● Guess at the email address. There are only so many formats. Worst case, you get a bunch of bounce backs.
A Few Final Random Pointers
● If someone makes an introduction for you, follow up on it immediately. No longer than 24 hours after the intro is made. It’s not cool to ask for the intro, have the person do it, and then respond with radio silence. In addition to its not-coolness, you will never get another intro from that person.
● Most importantly, if you land in a job or company you don’t like, there are infinite alternatives. Recent grads seem to think if they don’t make the perfect choice right out of the gate, their careers are doomed. Not true. You can pivot and refine until you get it right (and I have experience here, being on my third career).
Related posts you may want to check out:
· Creating a Great LinkedIn Profile
· Creating Your Personal Brand
