When School and Work Collide/ How to Juggle School and Your Job Search
Students in a job search need to juggle academics and the search. You should go to company presentations to practice your networking. Career fairs are great for industry research even if you decide not to apply to the companies that specifically attend. Your Career Services Office is probably loading up on the workshops for all its on-campus candidates, so take advantage of those too.
Unlike school, with a job search you have the added burden of having to manage yourself without the exam and project deadlines holding you accountable. It will be easier for you to stop your job search and focus exclusively on school at this busy time. Big mistake. A job search is not like a course where you can cram for the final or stay up all night to write the paper. You cannot cram building relationships. And relationships are the driving force behind a successful job search.
A proactive jobseeker isn’t someone who applies to jobs that happen to be posted. A proactive jobseeker finds the right jobs for him/ her and targets those specifically. This means building relationships within the industries and companies where your target jobs are. This means continual research, continual updates on the current events and emerging trends affecting your target sector, continual networking and follow-up. You don’t stop for mid-terms. You don’t stop for finals. You don’t stop for winter break. Yes, you take time off periodically to refresh and reflect, but you never stop your job search entirely.
The toughest part of a successful search is the momentum. Once you lose that, you’re back to where you started. Think about pushing a heavy boulder. Once it finally starts to roll, do you really want it to get back to a standstill where you will need to start it rolling again? When school and work collide, don’t pull back. Keep pushing.
Article by, Caroline Ceniza-Levine, co-founder of SixFigureStart, a career coaching firm that specializes in working with Gen Y young professionals. Formerly in corporate HR and retained search, Caroline most recently headed campus recruiting for Time Inc and has also recruited for Accenture, Citibank, Disney ABC, and others.
Article courtesy of the Recruiting Blogswap, a content exchange service sponsored by CollegeRecruiter.com, a leading site for college students looking for internships and recent graduates seeking entry-level jobs and other career opportunities.
Article originally posted on Daily Career Connection
