Hard to believe fall is coming! Whether you’re a college senior gearing up for that first job search or surfacing from the summer doldrums anxious to restart your career, here are five articles with important lessons to get you started.
From College to Career: Her First Job After Graduation
Learn from friends who are already working.
One of the keys to a successful post-college job search is setting realistic expectations. This article shares first job stories from recent women grads, but its lessons are relevant for guys, too, of course. Talk to recent alums to learn about the obstacles they faced and how they overcame them.
Will Your Lose Your Job to a Robot?
Do research on how computers are changing jobs.
You will be in a much stronger position if you understand the career opportunities and dead ends created by technology changes. Lots of jobs are going away in the next decade because of new technology applications. Working for a daily newspaper, for example, is increasingly tenuous. But opportunities for data analysts who can make sense out of terabytes of computer data will grow dramatically. Start educating yourself about the big picture changes.
Where Did All the Entry Level Jobs Go?
Realistically evaluate your experience base. Then do something to get more! A key take away from this Wall Street Journal article is how employers are placing a much higher value on the prior experience of entry-level workers. This reinforces how important your internships are. Where do you already have work experience that can work in your favor? Where do you need to be getting more to put you in a stronger position?
Why Taking a Job You Hate Right Out of College Is The Best Career Move You Can Make
Don’t worry about making a mistake. You may hate this advice, but it’s worth considering if you’re feeling paralyzed about how to move forward with your career. Crummy first jobs can be awesome learning experiences. (And they make for great stories later on!) Ultimately, you learn and make new connections by being out in the work world, not by sitting on your parents’ couch watching reruns of The Bachelorette.
The Top Ten Intern Mistakes
Maximize the value of your internships. Whether you’ll be doing more internships as a student, or taking on a post-grad internship to build your resume, you must maximize the value of this time. Here are 10 things you don’t want to mess up. And here is a bonus tip from my recent post on “How to get a killer recommendation.”