Whether you’re currently a junior or a senior in college, graduation is in sight. Your main focus right now is probably just getting through this last bit of school, and you may be feeling burnt out and overwhelmed. The thought of adding more to your list of worries sounds impossible, but there is one big thing you need to be thinking about: life after college. According to a survey of college students, only 34 percent of students feel ready to graduate and enter the workforce, leaving two-thirds of students feeling less than prepared. This is a troubling statistic, but you don’t have to be one of the unprepared.
There is so much you can do while you’re still in school to ensure that you are ready for life after graduation. Here are some ideas on how to prepare yourself for the working world.
Meet With a Career Counselor
Hopefully by your junior year, you have settled on a major and have a general idea of what kind of work you’d like to do after college. It’s great to have a career goal in mind, but it’s also helpful to know what other kind of jobs you can land with the degree you have chosen. This is where a career counselor can be incredibly helpful.
Meeting with a career counselor can give you valuable information on how to get started in your career of choice, and also let you in on some backup jobs to keep in mind. They can also help guide you if you’ve chosen a major you love but aren’t sure what type of work you can get with that degree. Once you have some jobs in mind that you’d like to apply to, career counselors can also assist you in putting together the correct documents for applying and help you to craft them in ways that will help you to stand out from other applicants.
Become a Club Officer
If you’re a junior and you participate in a school club or organization, put yourself out there and run for an officer position for your senior year. Being a club officer gives you valuable experience that can be applied to nearly any job and will look great on a resume or CV. As a club officer, you will develop leadership and interpersonal skills that can be utilized in nearly every career imaginable. Having this experience on your resume or CV is sure to give you a leg up when applying for jobs.
Get an Internship
One of the big caveats when entering the job force is that many companies are requiring previous experience to be eligible for their open positions. This can make it hard to find a job right out of college when you can’t get the relevant experience without first getting hired somewhere. It’s a vicious cycle of frustration that leaves many to seeking jobs where they are underemployed and underpaid.
The best way to combat this is to get an internship while you are still in school. In this day and age, doing an internship should just be a part of the college experience. Participating in an internship program in college not only gives you important work experience that you can list on a resume or CV, but you can also get college credit towards graduation. Internships also offer excellent opportunities for networking, and sometimes businesses who offer internships go on to hire their interns after they graduate.
Do Some Research
Before graduating, you need to take some time to research today’s job market. Even if you’ve had part-time service or retail jobs before, entering the full-time workforce is a whole different arena and must be approached with extra consideration. The working world is continually changing, and you need to be informed about current workplace trends to know what sort of businesses and work culture you would like to seek out.
You also need to know how to apply and get the jobs you want when you find openings. Unfortunately these days, positions that are both desirable and pay well are far and few between, and therefore are highly competitive. Things that can help you out are networking with the right people and honing your interview skills. There are countless resources on the internet that you can learn from, and you should also utilize your university career center.
Graduating and going out into the real world can be scary, but you don’t have to go unprepared. Take steps in your final years of college to ready yourself by taking on leadership roles at school, participating in an internship program, and utilizing the resources available to you on the internet and at school. You will graduate college with your best foot forward and ready to succeed.
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Mila Sanchez is a writer with a BA in English Linguistics. Her ambitions include traveling the world, studying languages, and taking pictures of her dog, Baymax. Connect with her on Twitter and Instagram!
