“How can college students land their FIRST job or internship? #JobSearch #InternshipHunt
Are you struggling to gain experience for your first job or internship? You’re not alone! Here are some tips to help you navigate the process and avoid getting ghosted:
Networking and Connections:
– Reach out to alumni, professors, or professionals in your field for advice and potential opportunities.
– Attend career fairs, workshops, and networking events to make connections and learn about job/internship openings.
Internship Opportunities:
– Look for internships that offer valuable hands-on experience in your field of study.
– Consider virtual internships or part-time positions to gain experience while balancing your academic workload.
Resume Building:
– Highlight relevant coursework, projects, skills, and extracurricular activities on your resume.
– Utilize online resources, career services, or peer reviews to enhance your resume and make it stand out to employers.
Professional Development:
– Invest in workshops, online courses, or certifications to build skills and increase your marketability.
– Seek feedback from mentors, career advisors, or industry professionals to improve your job/internship application strategy.
Don’t feel discouraged if you lack previous experience outside of school. Remember, everyone has to start somewhere, and with persistence, determination, and a tailored approach to your job/internship search, you can increase your chances of landing that first opportunity! #CareerAdvice #JobHunt“
volunteer experience and persistent resume dropping helped me. Also look around you for any places that help students get jobs like organizations and such. Good luck
What did your guidance counselor suggest?
I’ve been asking this myself for 10 years.
There is no answer.
Hiring managers are lazy, incompetent or stupid.
They use computer software to “weed out” resumes that don’t match their qualifications (read: the words on your resume that they’re looking for. Is it “computer science” or “Netscape”. Or is it just “the”? They don’t tell you and they don’t know themselves either).
Then they also farm it out to recruiters who have even LESS of an idea of what the team needs, and they’re about as good as a copy machine that has copied a fax 20 different times, and they’ll gladly set you up at a company run by people who are so awful that the reason WHY they’re in need of “new talent” is because they’re even worse than their hiring managers. They get paid for filling jobs, not for finding a good fit. Or even a company that is competently run.
On the off chance you do get a hiring manager that, you know, actually DOES THEIR JOB, they’ll waste your time with gluttonous, and mostly pointless interviews. Including a last round with their Grim Reaper, whose job it is to find a reason NOT to hire you. Everyone knows that one or two interviews is valid, but many do six or seven. For the record, the President has three debates, which if you think about it are job interviews. So yeah, these people are so arrogant and blindly devoted to their employers that they actually believe that the position they’re trying to fill is more important than the President of the United States.
Oh and even after all that, you’re going to get a video chat where you believe that they’re offering you the position (cause…video chat) only to find that they’re offering to someone else who knew the hiring manager before they knew them.
Then they’ll write PR on LinkedIn and whatever on how they can’t attract or keep talent, even though their job application websites are so badly run that it can take hours just to fucking apply.
So yeah. Until hiring managers get some self awareness and realize that they actually need to know the job they’re looking to fill, you’re just as screwed as the rest of us.
Welcome to post-1990s, where being overworked and underpaid isn’t just a badge of honor. It’s reality.
You’re probably better off going to job fairs and speaking to people in person. I’m not sure what industry you’re looking to go into, but you may have to get a job in an adjacent industry and after some experience in it you will look more qualified and fair better in applying to jobs that you want.
But yeah, people typically get their first job when they’re 16. That’s why you’re probably getting ghosted, your peers have already had multiple years of working experience on top of a degree. I get that it’s frustrating, but unfortunately that’s how it is.
My first job was Walmart, pretty easy, just work at a restaurant or grocery store
What are your qualifications? Do you have a bachelors degree? What’s your criminal record?
Walk into a military recruiting office
Nepotism, friends, informational interviews, job boards at your college, …
Ask your friends that are working if the places they work out are hiring. I got my first job at a store my best friend worked at, and she was able to put in a good word for me.
apply at some pet stores. not just the chains. they have aquariums and critters that need care. yeah it’s not Marine biology. but it will show that you could be counted on to show up to work on time everyday, and care for and learn about critters. plus; theres critters. I mean that’s a hard thing to top.
Most colleges have work study programs. You may not get in your field yet because you are just a freshman, but work is work.
its the issue with the job market atm everyone wants experience people and dont want to risk taking on a new person……its not going to change untill people start protesting for that but we all to busy protesting about things outside of our country instead of the issues within go figure
Lowered my standards.
They want you to have xxxx amount experience with a certification/degree/license, but yet how do you have experience if nobody willing to give you a chance to gain that experience and earn money to pay your living cost while to obtaining the degree/certification/license? it doesn’t make sense lol These companies are so weird. Only way for people to gain experience is for people to work in that FIELD as part of their training as they obtain their license/certification/degree.
Its hard out there, and without some job experience and/or unique skillsets you will be up for stiff competition.
I got my first job at my current company just this January. Due to having been a foreign student in the past, I had no chance of internship or Co-op in undergrad. I immediately started my MS and PhD in food science, during which I worked on various company contract projects in my lab (also got a permanent resident status in the middle, allowing me to work at any companies). I specialize in novel ingredient development, and my current manager was looking for very specific skillsets, so I got the job after a month interview.
Maybe you can still apply for camp counselor jobs for this summer, or jobs in the camp cafeteria or maintenance.
I suppose it varies between career fields but I went to school for Aviation Maintenance.
Not long before I graduated, I posted my resume to JSFirm. That’s a well known site for people in my line of work to post their resumes. I ended up getting a call from a recruiter for a position at a smaller cargo airline. I worked there for just shy of 2 years before getting hired on as a contractor for Delta Air Lines.
Unfortunately, this was in the beginning stages of Covid (March 2020). A week and a half after starting, every single contractor was laid off. 2 weeks later, I applied to a 3M plant as a Maintenance Technician. My A&P allowed me to be considered for that position. A month later I was hired on.
Just shy of 2 years later (April 2022), I reapplied at Delta. The very next day, I was invited to take their mechanical assessment and passed. A couple months later, I had my first day back there as a contractor (June 2022). On December 12 of that year, I was hired on direct.