5 Tips for Finding Your First Entry-Level Job - CareerAlley

5 Tips for Finding Your First Entry-Level Job - CareerAlley We may receive compensation when you click on links to products from our partners. Dont rule out working with your hands. It does not preclude using your head. Andy Rooney In this economy, finding work can be extremely difficult and time-consuming. But if you are a recent college graduate with only an inkling of what you want to do with your life, finding work can seem practically impossible. I know this, because for four months including my final two months of college my life was consumed by the job search. I sent out resumes, scheduled informational interviews to get practice, worked connections I barely knew, and even tried recruiting agencies. Finally, I found a job, and if I can do it, then you can too. Here are some tips I think helped me eventually land my gig. Get organized and stay organized When I started applying to jobs, I learned quickly that my typical method of functional disorganization would never work. Work applications vary wildly. Some ask for just a resume and cover letter. Others ask for writing samples and references and critical thinking questions. In order to handle all of the confusion, I created a spreadsheet with each job I applied to and a checklist to make sure I had met all of the application requirements for each one. Some of you might not need a spreadsheet to keep them organized, but whatever your method of organization is, make sure you use it freely; otherwise you will end up with cover letters addressed to the wrong company or an application sent out with four writing samples and no resume. Those arent hypothetical situations either, those actually happened to me. Keep your nose to the grindstone Some of you just read that piece of advice, shook your head, and wondered how this column made it into the boring clich portion of the advice already. I understand, but this is one clich that needs to be restated over and over. You can apply to five jobs, turn off your computer, and start watching television thinking you are all set. But that probably wont land you a job. You need to be applying to dozens of jobs per week, and you can never rest on your laurels. If you throw enough darts at the dartboard, eventually one of them has to hit the bulls-eye. Selling yourself can be uncomfortabledo it anyway This was the hardest piece of advice for me to follow through on. I am not lacking in self-confidence, but I am acutely aware of how ridiculous it sounds when I start talking about myself like I am some sort of automaton sent to Earth for the sole purpose of landing this job and crushing the work involved. In a social situation, bragging about you is arrogant and self-centered. But if you are trying to find a job, you should start learning how to brag about yourself, because everyone else applying for that same job is doing it. Employers are looking for the best candidate; it is your job to make yourself look like that candidate by painting yourself in the best possible light. Dont be afraid of the informational interview While I was looking, I used connections to set up what essentially became interviews conducted by me over lunch. The people I had lunch with were in the field that I wanted to enter, but none of them had jobs to offer. This was disappointing at first; I didnt see the point in going to these interviews if it wasnt going to help me get a job. But thats where I was wrong, it did help. Not only did I learn a lot about what prospective employers were looking for and what questions they would ask, but the people I had lunch with usually liked me, and were willing to shop my resume around to other friends in the industry. I didnt get my job through a connection from an informational interview, but I did turn two informational interviews into actual interviews with other firms. Interviews that dont result in jobs are practice, and practice makes perfect. Dont get discouraged and dont take it personally At the height of my employment search, I bet I was sending out 15 or 20 resumes per week. What did I get for all of that hard work? Mostly radio silence. It got to the point where I would have been happy if the prospective employer wrote a rejection e-mail back because at least it meant someone had seen my resume. I would estimate that 90 percent of the applications I sent out, I never heard back from. I started taking a defeatist attitude and wondered whether it was something about my resume that people hated or were turned off by. What I learned is that hundreds if not thousands of candidates were applying to the same job I was, so these companies had no way of reading every resume, so they dealt with whom they could. It had nothing to do with my qualifications and everything to do with the fact that finding a job is a rat race. Sometimes it doesnt matter if you are the best candidate if you were the first candidate to apply. If all else fails and you cant find the job you want, you can always go back to school and aim higher with one of the many schools that offer cost-effective executive MBA programs. Book Corner [easyazon_link asin=1598695479 locale=US new_window=default nofollow=default tag=caree07-20 add_to_cart=default cloaking=default localization=default popups=default]College Grad Job Hunter: Insider Techniques and Tactics for Finding A Top-Paying Entry-level Job[/easyazon_link] Mike Lemaire is an education content editor who also runs a blog about online schooling. This is a Guest post. We are always eager to hear from our readers. Please feel free to contact us if you have any questions or suggestions regarding CareerAlley content. Good luck in your search,Joey Google+ what where job title, keywords or company city, state or zip jobs by