In the current job market, getting a job can be very difficult in any industry. Here are a few tips from my experiences that helped me land various job roles.
Internships:
Over the past few years, I’ve worked three separate internships within my field in various positions. I hope to end up in the Marketing industry, so I spent a lot of time researching and finding the roles I think would suit me best, and I found internship opportunities for all of them. I’ve worked as the Marketing and Communications intern for two different companies, one focused on social media-based marketing, and the other on internal video marketing. Plus, I’ve also worked as a Video Production intern working on YouTube content which ended up landing a full-time position for.
These internships provided me with hands-on experience that I can not only add to my resume to make me more marketable, but also allowed me to experience the job first-hand to see if it’s what I’d like to do for the rest of my career. Through these internships, I worked to the best of my ability, showed that I was always eager to learn and take on new challenges, and proved myself as a hard worker. Ultimately, I ended up being offered a job at two of them. I was not offered a job for the third because I was still in high school at the time.
When looking for a job, starting out in an intern position is almost always a great option. If you know you’re a hard worker and can prove yourself to your employer, they’ll almost always end up offering a job because it saves them time and money training a new person, rather than hiring someone who has already been trained and has acclimated to the work environment. However, if you end up disliking the position or not receiving a job offer, you still leave the internship with an abundance of knowledge and experience you can add to your resume.Â
Networking Events:
Networking events are super underrated in my opinion. Although they can be super nerve-racking and even boring sometimes, they are a great opportunity to meet with people and expand your network. Once, I went to a networking event with my sister as moral support and ended up leaving with a small photography gig for my side business.
People who attend networking events are usually either employers who can provide you opportunities, or they’re people in the same boat as you struggling to find a job. Regardless, everyone at these events is willing to help you out in some way. If you find that the search is coming up dry, I recommend researching networking events in your area and going to a few with a stack of business cards and a resume on hand.
Take Initiative:
Lastly, my biggest tip for finding a job is to take the initiative to reach out to companies even if they don’t explicitly have a job opening listed. I received all three of my internships by simply sending an email and asking if they would be willing to take me on as an intern. I ended up leaving one of those internships with a full-time job before I even graduated college. Drafting and sending an email or even making a phone call only takes 10 minutes max and can lead to an entire career. Take the initiative to send a couple of emails or make a few calls and you will most likely find yourself on the right path in no time.