Tuesday, March 25, 2014

First Job Jitters

If you don’t want to ask “would you like fries with that” on your first fulltime job, here’s an article that will help you put your new degree to work. After all, you piled up (on average) $30,000 in debt to get that degree, right?


The strategies here aren’t rocket science or time-consuming, but some practical moves nevertheless.
  • Think laterally. 
You may have targeted a specific kind of writing in a specific industry… but is that all that’s out there? With some digging at NU’s Career Services, you might find opportunities in closely-related industries you didn’t even know existed. Or you might find job descriptions you had no idea sounded so appealing and aligned with your interests.
  • Your application is going to be screened by machine; get human. 
That’s a given these days; a single advertisement may get waaaaaaay too many responses for any sane human being to read. If you’re sure you’re a great match, reach out to a person. This article suggests phoning, but you might also consider networking on LinkedIn or other social venues.
  • Expand your info without expanding space on your letter, resume.
Finally, if your resume and letter must be short, sweet, to-the-point. But that means leaving some bits on the cutting-room floor. But you can set up a website, or even a blog, with additional information about you. After all, a shortened link (run through something like http://goo.gl/ or http://tinyurl.com/ —both very easy to use) takes up next to no space at all, and allows you to offer a wider range of your employability goodness for view.

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