The job market can be rough. It’s enough to make any college student nervous, from that freshman just starting out to the senior who sees graduation looming on the horizon. Recent college students have a lot on their plate already but when it comes to planning for that next phase of their life, the career stage, everyone has their take on the do’s and don’ts of how to approach it. Here are some useful tips that will come in handy for navigating the future ahead.
Believe in Yourself
It’s a cliché but then all the good ones are for a reason, because they’re true. Who else can you invest in but yourself? Having the confidence within to succeed is the first step to finding that success. That comes with knowing who you are and what you’re capable of accomplishing. If you don’t believe you can do what you’ve set your mind to, then how do you expect an employer or a grant committee, or anyone else for that matter to believe in you? Put forth a commitment of high self esteem and total confidence in yourself and others will think the same of you.
Know What You Want, but it’s Okay if You Don’t
Plenty of students attend college with an eye towards their long-term goals. But not all of them are so well-prepared for the future in that regard. Some of them haven’t the faintest idea what they want to do with the rest of their lives. That’s perfectly fine and it might be the best thing possible for some students. If you’re one of the former who had everything thought out even before they showed up to their first day at Marylhurst University, then you’re well on your way to achieving those goals in your chosen major and/or minor. You may even be ahead of the game having located the appropriate internships or part time positions within your chosen field.
If you are among the latter, however, then you have a whole range of options ahead of you. Try a little bit of everything. You don’t need to have your career path mapped out already, go take some classes in different backgrounds, check out some internships in fields that sound interesting, seek out some on-campus organizations, try volunteering, enjoy the rich buffet of choices before you at school and even after you graduate. It’s possible you’ll have a couple of different jobs in various fields before you find the one that is just right. You never know what position you’ll fall into that provides the basis for the rest of your life’s work.
Set a Plan…and Some Contingencies Too
You may know what you want your career path to look like and that’s a good thing. However, coming up with a smart plan for what this means in the future will go a long way towards making your goals a reality. That plan entails defining those goals with more clarity and figuring out what the alternatives and compromises will be in the event you don’t quite get there as fast as you’d hoped. So decide on what your ideal job would be and go after it with all of the ambition and gusto you can possibly muster.
You will also want to identify some back-up ideas, jobs that might be more realistic that you can do while you’re working towards your ultimate goal. You may even want to define some “safety” gigs, the ones you’ll do to put food on your table and keep the lights on while you’re pursuing that ultimate dream. You probably did the same thing when you applied to colleges in the first place. We all had that school we wanted to get into badly and we also identified our safety schools just in case we didn’t get into that ideal institution. Take the same approach to your job search.
