Focusing on the Job Search

It’s hard to believe that for so many of us, senior year is here. It’s a time to be excited as we close our academic ventures and focus our attention on maximizing the memories and important relationships of our college experience. However, it is also a time of transition as we each decide on the next step after college. For many of us, jobs are in the near future and pursuing a job search may be a full year project.

For many of us applying for jobs, our industries have not started recruiting. Our finance and consulting peers are hitting the job search now and getting offers, but what should the rest of us be doing while we wait for jobs to open in our fields? On top of that, how do we deal with feeling inadequate or unprepared when pursuing the work force. Work may still feel like that distant entity that we only correlate with our parents and “real” adults. But how can we feel confident in pursuing a great job when there seems to be a lot of competition? How do we get excited about applying to jobs when the economy doesn’t seem promising? How can we be so sure that we want to work when we still can’t answer that enduring question: What do I want to be when I grow up? If you find yourself questioning and unsure like me, here are some suggestions that can help us get focused and make us feel more prepared for pursuing the job search.

1. Learn about yourself. In understanding what jobs fit us best, we need to first understand ourselves: our skills, our weaknesses, our passions, etc. You can achieve this through personal reflection. Keep a journal. Ask those close to you what your strengths and weaknesses are. Also take advantage of self assessments offered by the Career Center. Just walk in and ask the front desk. These assessments are particularly helpful with identifying your personality as a best fit within the job force.

2. Make yourself feel more comfortable with the industry that you think interests you. Read up on the industry first. Most importantly, get out there and meet people. Informational interviews are a great way to do this. Find out what kinds of skills are necessary, what your daily tasks may be. The great thing about this is that informational interviews are another great way to network. You’ll get your name out there and show others within the industry how interested and dedicated you are.

3. Finally, share your interests and ideas with those around you. Searching for a job can be very stressful. There’s no reason to hold it as a personal burden that you deal with by yourself. Talk to those around you. Express your concerns, fears, questions, excitement or whatever you’re feeling at the time. I’ve always been pleasantly surprised with where great advice, encouragement, or answers to prolonging questions came from.

These are just a few tips that can help us get started with the job search. It is a process. Hang in there and I’ll continue to keep you updated as I undergo the same challenge. Best of luck!

-Kimberly

Job Search: Start Now

Senior year is here and it’s hard to believe that in eight short months my title as “student” will be taken away and replaced with “alumnus”. I have to admit, this change of title scares me because I know what it means. It means that a chapter in my life that I have really enjoyed will come to an end. It also means that a new chapter will begin, and with it will come the time to get my first real job. AAAAAAAAAAAAH!

So to make the transition into real world a bit easier, I have set a goal for myself. I want to graduate Wash U. with a job already lined up. Although I still don’t know what I want to do with my majors, I do know that hiding from the future won’t get me anywhere. I have eight months to find a job, and I am starting now.

I have set aside time each week to work on my job search (here is a link to help you get started with your job search http://careers.wustl.edu/documents/job%20search.pdf). It’s much easier for me to do something in many small chunks, over a long period of time, than all at once. I usually try to get an hour or two in each week. What I have found is that the actual job search is not as daunting and scary as it seems. It’s really not that hard—the hard part is finding time to do it and actually doing it. It’s kind of like writing a term paper. You don’t want to do it—you’re tired and have a million other things to do—but once you start it’s not so bad. So, yes, I have chapters to read, tests to study for, and projects to work on, but I remind myself that I do all that because I hope that it will help me get a good job. And no matter how great my grades are, I know that the job won’t find me, I have to find it. So that’s why every week, even though there are other things I would rather be doing, I sit down and work on my job search.

So to my fellow job seekers, my message to you is be proactive and start your job searches now. You will thank yourself when it comes time to start that new chapter in your lives.

-Julia