Black Collegian Career Center

You have bad news to report! Despite your best efforts to land the job you wanted, graduation came and went and you didn't get an offer. Most of your classmates were lucky enough to get offers and are happily on their way to building successful careers. You're left disappointed, frustrated and depressed at the thought of starting your job search again. You know looking for a job is hard work. Especially when times are tough and it appears there are more people looking for work and employers are taking their time to make hiring decisions.

Well, here's our advice. All is not lost. Keep your head up! If you don't have a job offer by graduation, you'll find some helpful tips in this article to help you begin again. How? Our answer is: It's time to refocus your efforts. Let's get started.

Step 1: Review your prior job search strategy. In doing so, ask yourself some key questions. These questions primarily have to do with assessing, evaluating and preparing yourself. Our first question and an important one: Did you have a job search strategy? If so, was it written? Exactly what steps did it entail? What parts of your strategy worked? Which parts didn't?

Let's turn to interviews, job fairs and your career planning and placement office. How many interviews did you receive? How did you perform in your job interviews? How many job fairs did you attend? Did you take advantage of the services of your career planning and placement office?

Now let's turn to your job search objectives. Have you accurately assessed your skills and interests? Take a look at them again. What is the exact job that you're looking for? In what industry? What's the current industry trend? Is it up or down? Do your individual interests and abilities directly relate to the industry you've chosen? By reviewing your strategy you are able to look for holes that you may need to plug as you begin your new search.

Step 2: Examine your resume and other job search correspondence. Your resume is one of your most important job search tools. It's important that you understand its purpose: to help you get your foot in the door and to get as many interviews as possible.

For a moment, let's talk about the role of the employer and the company in today's economy. Employers are struggling to find enough good workers. They are concerned not just that too many college graduates possibly haven't mastered the academic basics to their satisfaction, but that most students haven't acquired the employability skills they need to succeed in today's changing workplace.

This includes the ability to make decisions, solve problems, use current technology, visualize concepts, work as part of a team, and learn on the job. They want graduates who understand the realities of the work world, who are committed to their career choices, and who are completely prepared to contribute to the organization.

With this information in mind ask yourself this question: How do you stack up? Does your resume accurately reflect your current knowledge, skills and abilities? What are your marketable skills? Have you listed all of your part-time or full-time work experience so that you show the employer you have real work experience? What about extra curricular activities? Awards, honors and/or community responsibilities? Personal hobbies and interests? Technology skills (for example, Excel, PowerPoint, Web site design)? By reviewing these questions and looking at your resume with a focus to refresh it, remember to polish it so that you stand out when recruiters are screening resumes.

At this point, you will also need to review your cover letters to ensure that when they are sent with your resume, they reflect the proper information. Review some of the job search periodicals in your public library or visit your career planning and placement office to review the various formats that are recommended. Don't forget other written materials like follow-up thank you letters and notes.

Step 3: Figure out exactly how you plan to approach your job search. How do you plan to structure your time during the period while you are still searching? Your search effectiveness depends on selecting target organizations. As a starting point, develop a well-researched list of organizations. Start with 25 organizations and build from there. Because of all of this activity, you can see that time management skills are essential. It's easy to blow off the time because you're not as up as you'd like to be. Consider how you can be as proactive with your job search as possible. Here are some suggestions to consider.

Set some ground rules and decide the basics of how you will remain flexible but focused. This includes understanding the current marketplace, revving up your network to help them assist you with leads, responding to advertisements, using employment agencies, if necessary, and considering whether to take temporary employment.

Do you think it would be helpful for you to consider taking whatever job you can until the right one comes along? There are real jobs out there for real people. You just have to remain confident that there's one with your name on it, even if sometimes you don't feel like this is really true. Remember to plan your day and work your plan. Stay motivated and on track.

Step 4: Overcome any anxieties you have about letting our network know that you are still looking. Locate and talk to as many people as possible. This will be the heart of your renewed search efforts. The more conversations you have with different people, companies and recruiters, the more likely you will have potential leads surface. What you will be talking with a wide range of contacts about is whether they have any information about the organizations that you have targeted or new information to help you with your search efforts.

As you can see, networking activities are very important when it comes to mining for job leads. Approach your old contacts, develop new contacts, schedule informational meetings and interviews and stay in touch with your network and connections so that they know how you are progressing. Your network includes families, friends, neighbors, colleagues and other who might be interested in helping you.

How long is your network list? Write your contacts down and remember to include the name of the person, nature of the relationship or how they were referred to you, their telephone numbers, addresses as well as e-mail address. Log your contacts and the outcomes from your contacts with them.

Step 5: Consider the time that you are searching again as though you are in a campaign and running for office. This will give you a new perspective. What do candidates do when they are running for election? They spread the word: they communicate with all who can help them get the votes. We have covered some of this in Step #4 and want to re-emphasize it with the suggestion that you consider how you are going to launch your our own personal marketing plan. This includes preparing for and getting additional interviews and handling interview questions which we cover below.

Step 6: Understand the importance of interview preparation and the various interview techniques you encountered during your prior interviews. It is important for you to prepare for and get interviews as well as handle interview questions with ease. After you graduate, you can still use the services of your career planning and placement office as an alumni. It might be helpful to return to have some mock interviews or to have yourself videotaped so that you can see how you perform during an interview. Also check their job bank to see what leads they have for the career objective you have chosen.

Step 7: Start the search process over again by integrating all of the above in your new strategy and action plan. While we've provided some suggestions, the strategy that is appropriate for you depends on your specific goals and your needs. Develop a game plan and define your mission and goals. Don't forget to include some time to work on yourself. Make sure that your mood, health and overall spirit remain in balance and as up as possible.

Set some benchmarks and evaluate your progress. Keep score of how you are doing so that it motivates you to win. Keep up with the deadlines for the completion of the various tasks and achievement of goals. Hold yourself accountable for your projects by monitoring how timely you are in accomplishing them. Continuously evaluate your progress to determine what's working, to see what might need revising and celebrate your wins and applaud yourself when you produce positive results. Remember that the 21st century economy is driven by minds and information. Good luck!

Chris Bardwell is the CEO of The Career Connection, a human resources and career development consulting firm in Chicago.