Black Collegian Career Center

Unless you plan on attending graduate or professional school immediately following graduation, your focus will likely be on finding gainful employment in your field of study and starting work as soon as possible. Even though the economy is on the rebound and companies are planning to add to their payrolls, finding a suitable, well-paying job is not always an easy task.

Given the keen competition even for entry-level positions, what is the best approach to job-hunting? There is  no simple, clear-cut pathway to finding that ideal job leading to fame and fortune. However, having a multi-faceted search strategy can result in your obtaining a job that you can be proud of—one that is challenging, financially rewarding, and offering advancement potential.

The key to landing a good job is to be creative and persistent in developing a multi-pronged approach to investigating employment opportunities. Some specific suggestions for doing this follow.

Define your employment goals.

Before beginning a comprehensive job search, you must answer a number of key questions:

• What are your relocation parameters? The ideal job may not be down the street or in a neighboring town. Relocation might involve moving out of state or across the country. Before exploring job opportunities that require a major relocation move, think carefully of the impact this decision will have on you, your family, and whatever plans you have for marriage and starting your own family.

• Do you plan to pursue a post-baccalaureate degree? If your career growth depends on attaining additional education—such as earning a master's degree—or receiving professional certification, include that important goal in your job-search plans. In particular, targeting companies that fully support professional development is a wise decision—such as firms that pay for employees to earn an MBA or other advanced degrees.

• What are your most important job-related goals? Obviously, earning a comfortable salary, with a good benefits package, tops the list. But aside from that, think of the importance you attach to such job features as opportunity to travel, well-defined mentoring, advancement potential, and management grooming. Most young professionals would agree: It's important to focus on opportunities that can propel your career, not just offer an adequate starting income.

Once you have established clear-cut parameters and goals related to job hunting, your next step is to devise the search strategies that will enable you to attain your professional objectives.

Make effective use of college placement resources.

The starting point for any well-designed job-search strategy is to make proper use of the resources offered by your office of career services. After all, career-services officers work full time assisting students in preparing to launch their careers following graduation. Here are some specific tips for making the most of career- services resources:

Get to know the career-services officials before your senior year. Too often, students wait until their last year in college to get serious about finding suitable employment. Almost in a state of panic, they introduce themselves to their career-services officials and practically plead for assistance. A smarter approach is to introduce yourself to them earlier in your academic career (once you have decided on a major) and familiarize yourself with the resources they offer. This may include workshops on resume preparation, dress-for-success, interview tips, salary negotiation, and so on. As you take advantage of such resources, develop your own "career library" of handout material, recruitment literature, and on-line information on the kind of companies by which you would like to be employed.

Take advantage of interview sign-ups. Most career services offices allow only juniors and seniors to sign up to speak with campus recruiters. If you're in that category, then take advantage of interviewing with companies that would likely have an interest in your background. On the other hand, if you're a freshman or sophomore, take note of the employers that schedule campus visits and learn as much as you can about them prior to interviewing with them in the future. Also pay attention to new employers that are beginning to visit your campus. They may be employers experiencing exceptional organizational growth, offering tremendous ground-floor opportunities for college grads.

Learn all you can about prospective employers. As mentioned, a great deal of information about prospective employers is available on the Internet. In addition, career-services offices have files of information on companies that regularly schedule campus visits. Make sure that before you interview with campus recruiters, you carefully review all the information provided on the career opportunities they offer new college grads. By learning as much as you can about a prospective employer, you can better sell yourself as someone that they need to hire.

Selectively respond to employment ads.

An obvious and very beneficial job search strategy is to respond to employment ads targeting recent college grads. Magazines such as The Black Collegian include employment notices posted by some of the country's leading corporate and government employers. These are organizations that value workplace diversity and offer career-track positions for well-prepared, ambitious graduates.

It's wise to include as part of this strategy careful review of specialty publications produced by professional associations, large metropolitan newspapers, magazines targeting ethnic and religious audiences, and any other quality periodicals offering employment leads and job-hunting tips. To broaden your prospects, review past as well as current issues of these publications. Although corporate advertisers might focus on certain academic disciplines in current ads, they may also have hiring needs in other areas, as described in previously published employment notices.

Bear in mind, hundreds or thousands of interested readers respond to enticing employment ads in newspapers and magazines. When you do so, make sure that your resume and cover letter are as impressive as you can make them—and that they reach the proper decision-makers.

As a practical tip, rather than send your credentials to "Human Resources," find out the name of the head of HR and direct your resume to that person. Taking the effort to personalize a cover letter in this way will score you some points as a prospective candidate.

A key ingredient in job hunting is to be appropriately aggressive. Simply sending your resume to employers who've placed want ads is not enough. Within a week, follow up by phone and try to schedule an interview. If you haven't heard from them within several additional weeks, make another courteous phone call to simply say that you're still interested in the position. The intent is not to be "pushy," but persistent in pursuing your job search.

Network with anyone who can provide job leads.

As you will learn throughout your career, the best jobs are not always advertised. Tapping "the hidden job market" is an extremely valuable strategy for landing an ideal job. Simply put, when companies seek to make quality hires, they oft times post job openings internally and welcome referrals from current employees. This hiring approach makes sense on several levels. Most people are very selective in who they refer, realizing that their credibility is on the line if that person is hired. When top-notch employees give a strong endorsement of someone as a prospective candidate, most employers are all the more comfortable and confident in hiring the individual referred.

The key to effective networking is to "throw out your net" in communicating with anyone who can point you in a helpful direction related to your job search. Stop and think of all the persons who might possibly know of a job opening in your field, or at least can put you in touch with someone who has such knowledge. Your list of contact people will probably be quite extensive:

• College alumni, such as former sportsteammates

• Fraternity brothers or sorority sisters

• Professors and administrators who have befriended you

• Religious acquaintances familiar with your career plans

• Family or friends working at desirable companies

• Professionals (doctors, dentists, bankers) who know of employers hiring.

As another key networking strategy, make contact with companies where you gained internship or cooperative work experience. They may, in fact, have openings that match your academic preparation and interests. Or at least they may be able to point you to other organizations that would have an interest in your background and qualifications. Being recommended by someone who is familiar with your job performance—i.e., previous supervisors—would certainly go a long way in opening doors of employment opportunity.

Effective networking not only can aid in your immediate job-search efforts, but also open doors of opportunity as you progress in your career. So make the most of this job-hunting strategy.

Launch an online job search.

Using the Internet creatively can be a highly beneficial search strategy. This topic was covered thoroughly in an article written by this author that appeared in a previous issue of The Black Collegian: "The Internet: the Indispensable Tool for Job Hunting" (second semester, 2004). A few salient points deserve to be underscored.

On-line job hunting makes it easy and convenient for job seekers to explore opportunities that they might not be aware of otherwise. With point-and-click simplicity, job seekers can access hundreds of websites that post updated employment information. In addition, viewers who are drawn to the job postings can submit their credentials electronically, communicate with company representatives through secure e-mail, and follow up with telephone and onsite interviewing. Being a "cyberspace candidate" can be an exciting way of gaining entry into the halls of corporate America.

Of even greater relevance, some corporations use their on-line recruitment efforts to specifically target minority college students. They tout their recruitment programs promoting workplace diversity and inclusion. By registering online with such companies, you can be apprised of corporate recruiters' campus visitation programs, participate in "virtual job fairs," and establish rapport with corporate officials responsible for Affirmative Action and Corporate Diversity.

Another approach to on-line job hunting (not discussed in the article mentioned above) is to create your own promotional website. A number of Internet Service Providers (ISP's) offer as part of their subscriber package technical assistance in creating a personal website. The content need not be elaborate or voluminous. Even a couple of well-designed pages that include your polished resume, current photo, brief biography and succinct narrative describing your professional goals can give you an important competitive edge in job hunting. Imagine talking to a corporate recruiter and asking her to check out your website for more information about you!

Additional advice.

The job-search strategies described above are avenues for exploring gainful employment. Following all of them can certainly speed up the process of your finding the ideal job for which you are suited. But identifying outstanding opportunities and actually receiving bona fide job offers are two different matters.

Specifically, it is critically important to put your best foot forward in creating and submitting a "winning" resume, interviewing confidently, looking the part (dressing for success), and selling yourself as an outstanding job candidate. Being appropriately persistent and following up in timely fashion after an interview are also important factors in landing the position you seek. These are topics regularly addressed in this publication and deserving your careful consideration.

Whether you're beginning your college career or nearing graduation, developing key job-hunting skills is essential to career development. After all, your first job after college won't be your last. Your career path may even take you in directions that you might not have previously envisioned. However, knowing how to conduct a successful job search will always increase your confidence and propel you in the right direction when it's time to make a career move.

Calvin Bruce is a regular contributor to The Black Collegian with 20 years experience in recruitment and career counseling.