How to Get Hired When Youre Just Starting Your Career

How to Get Hired When Youre Just Starting Your CareerHow to Get Hired When Youre Just Starting Your CareerJob searches are never much fun, but when youre just starting out and dont have much or any experience, its often hard to know where to start. How can you position yourself to get hired when youre brand new to the workforce?1. If your rsum is sparse, think creatively about what experience you can include. While work experience is best, you can also add volunteer work, extracurricular leadership positions, community involvement, blogging and other activities that demonstrate your work ethic and skills.2. Add to your experience even though you dont have a job. Volunteering doesnt just help out organizations in need. It also expands your network, adds something to your rsum and puts you in contact with loads of new people who will now want to help you. You might also find other ways to be productive Start a blog in your field, take on a leadership role in a professional organizati on or otherwise use your time in ways that will flesh out your rsum and show youve kept building your skills.3. Learn how to job search and dont just wing it. Dont be one of the hordes of inexperienced job searchers who send out terrible application packages and make inadvertent missteps, like not preparing for common interview questions or forgetting to prep their references. There are plenty of resources for job seekers online, covering everything from writing a strong rsum to how to ace an interview. Read as much as you can find.4. Go beyond just cleaning up your online profile. By now, youve probably heard plenty about how important it is to make sure that employers Googling you wont find photos of you engaged in drunken antics or any other professional turn-offs. But go beyond eliminating anything problematic and proactively work to build a positive online presence. That could mean anything from a website portfolio of your work to a track record of smart and thoughtful comments on industry blogs. When employers Googles you, let them be impressed by what they find.5. Write an amazing cover letter. Dont fall into the trap of using your cover letter merely to summarize your rsum thats a waste of a whole page of your application. Instead, youll stand out if you write about why you want this particular job (not just a job) and why youll excel at it. And dont be stiff or dry show some personality so that employers can get a feel for who you are.6. Connect with alumni. Think you dont know anyone in your field? There are almost certainly people in the field youd like to go into among your schools alumni. Get in spur with your alma mater and ask to be put into contact with alumni in your field. You might be surprised by how willing fellow alumni are to help you out, whether its talking with you informally about their career path and what you can expect within the industry or helping you connect with hiring managers in your field. (But make sure you do your researc h beforehand and come prepared with specific questions. Most people are more willing to help you if its clear that youve done your homework.)7. Get on LinkedIn. It doesnt matter if you dont have much of a professional profile to advertise there yet fill out what you can, but more importantly, add connections from all areas of your life. That way, youll be able to see who in your network might know someone who works at a company where youd like to apply or whose company might be hiring. Plus, LinkedIn has thousands of alumni, industry and professional groups, which might help build your knowledge and give you access to industry experts.8. Get over any fears of networking. If you feel pushy or awkward reaching out about your job search to past co-workers, your parents friends and other people you know, its time to get over it. The people you reach out to wont think youre doing anything odd networking is normal and most people want to help if they can. So dont let the fact that its new or nerve-wracking stop you from doing it.Alison Green writes the popular Ask a Manager blog, where she dispenses advice on career, job search, and management issues. Shes also the co-author of Managing to Change the World The Nonprofit Managers Guide to Getting Results, and former chief of staff of a successful nonprofit organization, where she oversaw day-to-day staff management, hiring, firing, and employee development.