Okay, so for any of you that haven’t seen this episode of South Park, I apologize for the reference, and hopefully I’ve brought at least a hint of humor to those of you that have seen it. But I digress…let’s talk jobs.I have written thus far mostly about my experiences entering the real world, and at this moment it’s about 7:00am from a satellite office in Washington DC, where I will be working on a project for the next few months. Pretty exciting stuff, but I’ll have plenty of time to tell you what business travel is all about.
In this entry, I wanted to talk about what, in the business world, are called “Best Practices”. These are the steps that lead you to accomplish whatever it is your undertaking in the highest performing fashion and hopefully end in you achieving your goal. As good of a month as October is for drinking too much Oktoberfest, it is the time you need to start thinking about finding your job or internship for next summer.
Whoa…seriously? 7-8 months in advance? Talk about an over-achiever. I know it sounds ridiculous, and I say this without any formal documentation to back it up, but I would bet from experience about 85% of the best companies have already started looking. By Christmas most of those companies will have their entire lineup of internships or new-hires in stone. Don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of companies that will still be hiring in the spring, but you will be very much limiting yourself by not beginning to look now.
So what steps should you be taking right now to find that right job? Sure there are lots of career fairs that help a great number of Fox students get jobs, but don’t be afraid to be active in your pursuit. There are thousands of companies hiring across the country for every type of job you could imagine. From my time at Temple, from talking to friends at other schools, and from emails I get daily about professional development, the problem I see most is that people get so stressed out. The key is to own this part of your life. You have worked hard (or not worked hard…) to get to where you are, and now is the time to present yourself and get a job that wont leave you comatose for the next XX number of years.
Take some time, and think about what you want to do. Spend an hour a day for a week brainstorming what your dream companies are. This is truly as simple as creating a list in Microsoft Word. Think about interests, locations, values, company size, industry, and past experiences to help you come up with ideas. When I did this at the beginning of my senior year, I came up with 127 companies that I could see myself working for. I didn’t do much research, but rather just off-the-cuff notions. I had a lot of companies in the music industry, outdoors industry, entertainment industry, fashion industry, consulting world, technology….I had every aspect of my interests covered. I kept this list open and still added to it and crossed things out up until I signed my offer letter.
Once you have your dream list prepared, spend some time going through them once again. You might reevaluate some, cross some off, add a few more, and all of that is okay. At this point the serious work starts. Make sure your resume is up to date and flawless, and then draft a general cover letter. There are examples on the CSPD website you can use as a basis. The key to a cover letter is making it relevant to the employer. So start going down your list of companies and visit their website, read about them in the news, and see what job opportunities there are for you. In a lot of cases you will be able to apply right on the website. I was always weary of this process, so sometimes you need to get creative. I would print my cover letter and resume and sometimes just mail it to a senior marketing figure or the head of HR if I could find the contact information. You never know what could come out of going the extra step. With each company, pick out what they are looking for in job candidates or what specific positions are requiring. Incorporate your relevant skill sets or experiences in your cover letter to tell them you’d be a good fit.
This takes serious dedication but it pays off. I remember spending every waking moment doing this, it was a full time job on top of my school work and internship, but it paid off. Whenever you have free time (or just make the free time…this is your career after all) try to pump 5-10 of these out. Just when you think nothing is coming through, you’ll begin hearing back. If you continue doing this in addition to attending Temple and Philly job fairs you are taking the right steps. Next thing I knew I was scheduling trips to NYC, Boston, and San Francisco. Never give up, if you’ve worked hard things will pay off for you. It is just a matter of getting yourself out there, jobs hardly ever come to you.
If you have any questions about this or anything else, feel free to email me at Andrew.J.Hagerman@gmail.com and I’d be glad to help.
Tags: , job search
Jena joined the CSPD as the Assistant Director of Recruitment and Professional Development with over 4 years career services experience including a background in corporate recruiting. She is excited to work collaboratively with the Fox School students regarding career search strategies and hopes students gain some additional insight into the job search through “Opportunity Knocks”.
Kel is an undergrad majoring in Management Information Systems, graduating in 2010. He is very involved and hopes to share some of his experiences with other students. His goal is to motivate others to do their best. He believes that with a little inspiration you can get where you want to be. Through this blog, he wants to show you that opportunities are out there.