There are three things that I would do as a new college grad who's trying to look for a job in this crazy job market. As a 20-year career coaching veteran, I help recent college grads get jobs every single year, and you must do these three things if you want to stand out to employers and land that first job out of school.
1. Create An Interview Bucket List
The first thing you need to do as a recent college grad is create an interview bucket list. This is a list of companies that you respect and admire not because you heard they're a great place to work or you think they'll hire your skill set. You simply want to look at what you admire and respect about them. Is it their products or their services? How they work with their customers? This is called brand affinity or brand connection, and you're going to need that in order to stand out.
When you create an interview bucket list, you'll see patterns in your results. There will be clear patterns with the 10 or 20 companies you put on this list, and we use those to help you identify jobs and companies that you would love to work for. That brand connection is going to make you stand out when you talk to those employers, and that's what they're looking for because they know you don't have the experience. But what they need to see is a deep internal motivation to want to work for them, and that's called your connection story. And the only way we can pull that out of you is if you can identify companies/brands that you feel connected to.
2. Get A Professional Strengths Assessment
The second thing you should do as a recent college grad is get a professional strengths assessment. All of the recent college grads I work with take two free quizzes:
- Communication Style Quiz (ISAT)
- Workplace Personas Quiz (Career Decoder)
When put together, your results from these quizzes can help us figure out what types of jobs you would excel in. This is important because you have no experience, but you also have no bad habits. When we identify jobs that you'd be a good fit for and we put you in the right environment, it's explosive. The college grads that I work with catapult their careers and outperform others in the first couple of years. This is how you put your career on a fast track, and if that's your goal, these quizzes are going to help you with that.
3. Watch The "My First Job" Webinar
The final thing you should do as a recent college grad is watch the "My First Job" webinar. This is a 45-minute live session for recent college grads that shows you how to use your personality and your passions to get that first job—specifically what to do to connect with alumni and hiring managers at companies to stand out against the three million college grads that are hitting the job market this year. It is more competitive than ever out there, and this webinar is going to show you how to find the right job for you.
Now, the best part is if you sign up, I'm also going to send you a free "My First Job" workbook. If you can't attend live, that's okay. Sign up anyway and I'll send you the recording. I promise you, this is the information you need in order to land that first job and move ahead in your career.
Good luck, my recent college grads. Congratulations! Go get 'em.
