Who needs employment experience?

When you’re in school, you’re told that you need to attend college to get a good job. You are faced with College Prep trainings, ACT’s and the long college selection process. Its a long road, but in the end it’ll all be worth it, right?

Well not in all cases. Many graduates face a common hurdle in their post-graduate job search: finding that first job. Too many companies just ask too much from applicants, while some companies aren’t specific enough with their requirements for the job. As a result graduates turn to internships or referrals from relatives to find a job, but many graduates end up working for less money than they could make working full time at McDonald’s. While this can be annoying, the job search after college doesn’t have to be a failure.

Take Sarah, for example. She went to college for 5 years. She has two degrees in Marketing and Business. She has some experience from a summer internship, but not a lot. She graduated last spring, and has sent her resume out to hundreds of employers in the past few months. She’s taken classes on job preparation and resume writing. She has even consulted with the career counselors at her school to ensure shed be prepared to enter the working world when the time comes. Still, she hasn’t gotten a single response from anyone who wants to hire her.

This is annoying for her because she worked so hard to be prepared for a career and to succeed in the real world. Its also stressing to her because her brother works in the Electronics Department at a big store and makes almost $50,000 a year, with no education. She cant even find an entry level office job for $20,000 where she can work her way up the ladder. What is she doing that is so wrong?

To begin with, she is sending the same resume to every job. Additionally, she has a generic cover letter that accompanies her resume. She fits what a position would require in her resume and cover letter, but she isn’t targeting her words to each employer.

Employers need to know what you can do for them and every job listing is different. As a result it is essential that you customize your resume writing and cover letter to reflect each job opening that you apply for. She needs to focus on buzzwords that are in the job announcements and use them in her resume writing. She also needs to look specifically for entry-level positions, because she only has a few internships under her belt.

Another thing she can do is using her inexperience to her advantage. By this, we simply mean she can take the time to make light of her lack of real work experience, and give it a positive spin. For example, because of her lack of experience, shes completely able to be trained to a company’s specific needs. Shes not set in her ways, and has no routine that has to be broken. That sounds much better than “Ive never worked on this before.”

Resume writing can be a challenging endeavor, as can the post-college job search be. However, as long as you provide a unique resume that stands out from the crowd, you shouldn’t have too much trouble landing a job.