5 Career Tips for College Students & Recent Graduates

If you are a college student or recent graduate seeking an internship or a job, there's no need to go it alone. As a career coach who has advised hundreds of college students and recent graduates, here are some key actions to help you save time and stand out from the crowd as you work to launch your career.

What if I’m job searching during an economic downturn?

Even during economic downturns, many organizations are still seeking interns and employees. While some industries and organizations are taking a big hit, others are experiencing growth. During recessions, it becomes all the more important for you to develop clarity about what’s important to you, what type of environment and role you want to be in, and what you have to offer.

During hard economic times, it's also especially important for you to leverage your network and have excellent, tailored application materials and strong interview skills so that you increase your chances of connecting with and securing opportunities.

Read on for 5 tips to help you save time, clarify your goals, and increase your effectiveness.

1. Develop focus while cultivating adaptability

It is common for college students to be overwhelmed by their options, while simultaneously unaware of what they are. Think about what drives you and what makes your face light up. Go toward what you are passionate about. In order to be adaptable, consider pursuing a couple of different interests simultaneously. As you consider narrowing down your options to a manageable number, think about:

• Geography: what are my top 2-3 location choices (e.g., Chicago)?
• Issues/topics: what 2-3 issues do I care most about? What problems am I passionate about working to address?
• Skill sets: what are my top 3-5 skills and what skills do I most enjoy using?

It is advisable to create a table where you list each of these so you can keep track of them and use them as a road map to help you maintain your focus.

We have different chapters in our lives. It is perfectly acceptable and realistic to change your focus area throughout your life. Don’t feel that the decision you make as a college student or recent graduate will be what you have to stick with for the rest of your life.

2. Know and build your skills

To be a strong candidate for an internship or job, it is valuable for you to understand your strengths as well as which areas could use your attention. At some point in your life you will likely seek to pivot from one field or function to another and it will serve you well to have a strong understanding of your transferable skills (skills you used in one setting that are relevant/useful/necessary for another setting).

Tips for focusing on your strengths

1. Familiarize yourself with the Top 10 Key Competencies.
2. Choose 2-3 key competencies where you believe you are already strong.

• Develop some short, specific examples to convey these competencies. Can you develop a portfolio that demonstrates you have these competencies? Perhaps those are materials you can post on your own website and/or LinkedIn profile.
• Choose 2 key competencies where you have the most room for improvement.

• Develop a plan for how to enhance these competencies. Volunteering for a nonprofit or a political campaign that is aligned with your values can be a great way to gain experience in a number of areas, and help you build your competencies. There are always political campaigns that are seeking volunteers, whether on the local, state, or federal level. This work can be done from home. There are candidates seeking assistance and there are organizations such as the Environmental Voter Project , which focus on voter mobilization.

In addition to building skills and increasing your awareness of societal issues, this type of experience enables you to form relationships. If you are reliable, produce quality work, and are pleasant to work with, you may connect with some mentors and sponsors who will be supportive and helpful throughout your life. So, whether it's full-time or just a few hours per month, find a project, a volunteer role, or an internship to help you learn, grow, and contribute.

What to do when you feel you don't have enough work experience

If a job listing calls for 2-3 years of experience and you have relevant experience through part-time jobs, volunteer roles, internships, and the like, you can count that time. Experience is experience, regardless of whether you received compensation. If you can demonstrate through your portfolio, application materials, and interviews that you possess the experiences, skills, and traits the role calls for, you will be able to be a strong candidate.

If there is a position you are excited about and you meet approximately 60+% of the qualifications, submit a tailored application and see what happens.

3. Identify your target organizations

To avoid feeling overwhelmed, it is beneficial to identify a few target organizations that are highly interesting to you (government agencies, nonprofit organizations, and/or companies).

Tips to hone in on organizations of interest

1. Conduct online searches to identify 5 organizations that sound interesting to you (when you read about their work, you think to yourself, “That sounds like someplace I think I’d like to work”). Reading news articles or listening to podcasts on topics of interest can help you identify organizations that are doing work you might be interested in. To explore nonprofit organizations, use Guidestar to do some keyword searches for topics and locations you're interested in. (If you set up a free account, you can access more search filters.) Save time by setting up a spreadsheet to keep track of your organizations of interest. I provide my career coaching clients with a template.
2. Familiarize yourself with organizations by following them on LinkedIn and social media platforms, subscribing to their newsletter, and reading materials on their website such as their annual report. By digging into organizations of interest, you can learn valuable information that will help you be a stronger job applicant, for example:

• key issues, products, or services the organization is focused on
• communication style (pay attention to wording and visuals)
• key players at their organization and in their industry
• organizational structure
• clues about organizational culture.

1. Use your familiarity with the organizations to help you submit highly tailored job applications and form connections with key individuals. Even if the organizations do not have any jobs listed right now, through strategies such as informational interviews you can establish a rapport and lay the groundwork for referrals when opportunities do become available.
2. Once you've followed these steps for 5 organizations, repeat with 5 more organizations. By using this approach, you will increase your awareness bit by bit and avoid feeling overwhelmed.

4. Nurture & expand relationships

Much of the time, people connect with and secure job opportunities through their networks, not through online job boards. It is still worthwhile to use internship/job boards such as Handshake (one of the top internship and job sites for college students), but don’t limit yourself to the listings you come across. Think of job boards as a research tool to learn about some of the organizations and options that exist.

Remember, you are not limited to direct connections - 2nd and 3rd degree connections are also valuable. LinkedIn helps you see not only who you are connected to, but who your direct connections are connected to. Leverage that.

People are more likely to hire people they know, like, trust, respect, and think highly of as compared with a stranger who can be seen as a wild card. Nurture your existing relationships by keeping in contact with people you already know and introducing people with mutual interests to each other. Form new relationships by reaching out to people of interest.

Tips for growing your network

• Interview someone of interest to you and publish the article you produce (via a website and/or your LinkedIn profile). Make sure it is well-written, accurate, interesting, and visually engaging. This experience will help you learn more about the field, the organization, and the individual, while also demonstrating your listening, writing, follow-up, and marketing skills. It will also help you build your portfolio. Share the article with the interviewee and inform them of your work interest; if you have impressed them with your professionalism, they will be more likely to help and/or hire you as compared with a stranger. Credit to Eban Goodstein for this excellent suggestion, which my career coaching clients have had success with.
• When participating in a webinar/video call, follow on LinkedIn any of the speakers you found interesting. Also, keep a list of the other participants and then follow up with a few of them, for instance by sending them personalized LinkedIn invitations to connect. The fact that you were on the same call means you probably share some interests, so you can build on that.

5. Build your personal brand

Make sure your LinkedIn profile is up-to-date and aligned with your goals and desired image. For specific tips, read my article, "How to Use LinkedIn to Build Your Personal Brand ."

This is a great step-by-step roadmap for optimizing and enhancing LinkedIn toward better personal brand management. Excellently done and thank you for sharing!" - Charlotte R.        

Additional Career Resources

Check out my favorite career books. I'm constantly talking with other career professionals and learning about more books to add to the list.