As I graduated college three weeks ago, I anxiously feared my most impossible task yet: finding a job. My stepfather had told me that the hardest part of a job is simply finding one and with the economy being what it is, I could tell I was going to have a heck of a time. I did not have a million internships or a degree in anything applicable to the jobs I was applying for; although being an English major does have some perks. To my surprise, a few days after sending out my resume, I had five interviews lined up, and, that Friday, I got a job. I think part of what happened was that I was lucky; the job I got needed to be filled quickly and I was available to start as soon as possible. But, the bigger part of it was that I was meticulous.
When I started my job, I realized that over 200 people had applied, and over twenty of them had landed interviews. So, what made me special? A few things…
1. I focused on my educational achievements. Since I did not have too much job experience, I tried to emphasize my education by putting my GPA on my resume, which is something that not everyone thinks of doing. If it is good, (I would say 3.5 or above) might as well slap that baby on there!
2. I was real. The guy who hired me at my job told me that, even though I did not have a lot of experience, he really liked my personality. After looking over all kinds of things to do and not do at an interview, I decided to just be myself. If an employer is looking at a bunch of people, being a robot is not going to make you stand out and land a job. On the other hand, if you are funny, or charming, or smart, or even a little silly, an employer will see you as a person and relate to you. And, if they don’t like what they see, then you probably would not be happy working there anyway.
3. I was careful. Looking over the resumes that were submitted after I landed my job, I saw a common theme: people were just being plain careless. Some people had submitted resumes with objectives that were irrelevant; obviously they had sent that same resume to a million jobs and were just changing a line and forgot to change their objective. Others had forwarded the same email to a bunch of different people. Still others made careless errors in their resumes themselves and obviously who would want to hire someone who cannot even look over their resume?
While I might have been an exception to the horrors of the job search, you can certainly be leaps and bounds ahead of the competition if you just pay attention to how you are presenting yourself. If you have something that makes you stand out, emphasize it. Maybe even try a few different resumes or cover letters to see which ones help you land more interviews. And, as always, be yourself–it really does pay off and there really is no point in getting a job you are just going to be miserable in.
-Emily S
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