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Your final semester game plan

However, that does not mean you should just sit back and relax in the meantime. In a recent interview with Jeanine Tanner “J.T.” O’Donnell, a career coach, workplace consultant and founder of Careerealism, she offered six things students should be doing right now.

 

1. Complete a career research project. Identify several career paths that you are interested in, and set up informational interviews with three alumni, friends or family members in each one. You should imagine you had to write a detailed paper on the career. Identify in advance all the questions you'd need to ask in order to get a good sense of what a day-in-the-life someone in this profession is like. 

 

This process will help you determine which of the careers is most appealing to you so that when it comes time to job search, you can target companies that hire for this position. Better still, you'll sound more knowledgeable in interviews because you'll actually understand what the job entails. Many students make the mistake of looking ill-prepared and misinformed in interviews because they don't really understand the position for which they are interviewing. Some prep work in advance ensures you don't make a rookie mistake of sounding ignorant regarding the basics of the job.

 

If you aren't on Twitter following people in the fields you are researching, you should be! Twitter is the best way to learn about a profession and gain valuable knowledge and insight from its thought leaders. There is no better or easier way to get instant mentors than to sign up and follow people on Twitter. Ask those you meet with who are the thought leaders in their profession. Then, look these individuals up on Twitter, and follow them if they have an account. 

 

2. Update your online personal brand. Almost all employers these days say they check out the online presence of a candidate. That includes LinkedIn, Facebook, MySpace and any information contained in a Google search on their name. You need to make sure that what comes up sends the right message. Update your accounts to reflect the professional persona you want to convey. 

 

For example, even if you lock your Facebook account, did you know that your profile shows both your profile picture and the pictures of some of your friends? So, while your picture might be nice and professional, the pictures of your friends doing body shots on spring break don't help your persona. Guilty by association. It shows your maturity level. For those who say, "That's not fair," I say, "No, it isn't, but the hiring process isn't fair. So why hurt your chances of getting hired?"

 

3. Choose where you want to live. This sounds simple, but it's very important to decide in advance. Otherwise, you won't be able to focus your job search. In job search, casting a wide net doesn't work as well as casting a smaller one that can go deep. When you focus your efforts, you can get more out of your contacts and networking efforts which enables you to find more undiscovered opportunities. 

 

Also, all too often, students decide they'll move home and then look for a job remotely. While remote job searches can be done, they are hard and lonely. Many young people realize being away from the campus career center, their school and friends makes it hard to stay motivated and get their career questions answered so they can find work. It's a Catch 22 – move home and save money but be forced to take a job in the town that you don't like because there aren't any jobs related to your field of interest. Or, identify a place to live that has the lifestyle and careers you want to pursue, find a way to move there, maybe even go into debt a bit. Then, take a job to pay the bills and actively look for the job you want. Given the current economy, many grads will be forced to move home, so the more you can do now, while still in school to build your search in the location you ultimately want to live, the better.

 

4. Create your “Interview Bucket List.” Identify at least five to 10 companies that really impress you. You should be able to answer two questions about each one:

By identifying this about each company, you are in essence doing your homework on them so you can craft a strong, compelling cover letter that explains why you want to work for them. Cover letters shouldn't be about you, they should be about the employer and how you connect with what they do and how they do it. By developing an Interview Bucket List, you now can use this information to reach out to these companies proactively about jobs as you get closer to graduation. 

 

More importantly, you can share this list with all of your networking contacts (friends, family, professors, career advisers) and let them know who you've set your sights on to work for. In doing so, you are helping them to see how they can help you connect with these employers. Telling a contact where you want to work is much smarter than just saying, "I want a job in finance." The latter is weak and results in most contacts not wanting to spend that much time thinking about how to help you. But, if you give them your Interview Bucket List, they can immediately think of contacts within their own networking circle that might be able to help you.

 

5. Proof read and perfect your résumé, cover letters and e-mail pitch. In the words of Sandra Dee "People hear what they see." Never underestimate the power of a well-designed, well-formatted, accurate, typo-free résumé and cover letter. 

 

Résumés should be one page and highlight effectively your strongest experience and skills. They should also get saved and sent as a PDF file to make sure the formatting doesn't get compromised in the transfer. You don't want your résumé to open up and look poor because the tabs got moved around. 

 

Cover letters should be flawless too. And please don't forget to write an effective short e-mail when attaching résumés and cover letters and sending them off. There is nothing more impersonal or careless than an e-mail that says, "To whom it may concern, see my résumé and cover letter attached." 

 

And, it bears repeating, proof everything several times. In this economy, hiring managers are getting thousands of résumés. In order to narrow the list, they throw in to the circular file (a.k.a., the trash can) anything that has the slightest typo or looks sloppy. Again, it's not fair, but hiring isn't fair. It's discrimination at its most basic form. So, don't weaken your chances of getting hired even further by sending in a badly designed set of credentials.

 

6. Prepare for interviews! Behavioral interviewing is a common technique used in HR to help the hiring manager really get a sense of a candidate's knowledge and potential fit for the company. It involves asking questions that require the interviewee to answer in the form of a story. "Tell me about a time when..." or "Share with me an example of when you..." Students aren't familiar with this and thus aren't always prepared to think on their feet to answer these. This can be avoided by taking the time to review a list of comprehensive questions, and then come up with answers that demonstrate your knowledge and skills by sharing stories from your experience to support your answers. 

 

At the same time, most college students don't know what questions to ask (and NOT to ask) during interviews. Having good prepared questions makes a strong impression on an employer.

 

Join me and J.T. O'Donnell, a caeer coach, workplace consultant and founder of Careerealism, for a free, live, online chat about crafting winning cover letter and résumés for internship and entry-level job candidates. The chat will begin at 4 p.m. EST / 1 p.m. PST on Sunday, February 8, 2009. Click here to register.