Searching for a job is, perhaps, the most frustrating aspect of getting oneself employed. It often feels as if you have graduated college with a skill set no one needs or that all the employers are looking for ‘experienced’ people and it makes one wonder how anyone ever got ‘experienced’ if that is the only kind of person that is ever hired!
Do not feel badly. Where you are now there are countless others in the same place. You will not be in the same place in five years. You must learn to look at the whole picture, of employment opportunity, with different eyes. Here are a few tips:
1) Think with a broad mind.
For the sake of the example I will choose someone, who just graduated, who has an English degree. They have had their heart set, for many years, on being a teacher and they get the piece of paper that says they have mastered everything they need to know only to find out no one is looking for a teacher. They spent so much time focusing one thing they lost sight of other opportunities and they look at an employment roster now and see nothing in it they are qualified to do. They lose hope.
If you think with a broad mind you will start to see that you can be many things besides a teacher. You have to learn to accept every job opportunity as a challenge and accept that Life Itself will deal you some strange hands while everyone is playing the game. If you research you will find that an English major can also be hired as a tech writer. An English major can also go over-seas and teach in exotic places to people who have jobs for them. An English major can do content writing, for money, on the internet. Keep hope alive.
2) Consider internships and apprenticeships.
Sometimes, while you search for a job, you will find that a company is offering internships or apprenticeships to people so they can learn what it is like to work in that company. These internships/apprenticeships don’t always come with pay but they always come with the word that employers are looking for: ‘Experience’.
An internship/apprenticeships can be taken even if it isn’t in the field you have the degree! If those who are taking internees/apprentices agree to take you, you can add what you learn, as an internee/apprentice, to your skill set and make yourself more valuable to the job market. It can also allow you to answer “yes” to the question “Do you have work experience?”
3) Always be aware that you may have to spend some time doing a job you do not want to do while you are searching for the job you dream of.
Many business owners never dreamed they would become business owners. They got a job as a cook or a waiter at a restaurant because that was all there was to do in the city they lived in. They did not want to do this job but they did it anyway and they smiled while they did it. 30 years later they owned the original restaurant and had also bought new restaurants and soon had 130 restaurants in three regions. They had become the president of a fast food chain. Their life dream had been to be a builder and, because they were willing to consider a different life path and work very hard, they ended up rich and successful. So successful that they were able to send their children to school to learn architecture.
These three things can make you or break you in a job market that requires flexibility and a good attitude towards life no matter where life takes you.
“There is no bad data…only bad management.”