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Campus to Career: Still Searching?
Safeguarding
Your Search | Your Public Self | Still
Searching?
Pre-Employment Testing | Success on the Job
| Business Protocol
After meticulously preparing your application
materials, you send them to carefully selected organizations that you
are sure would like to hire you. You even get a few job interviews. But
you either do not hear from the organization at all or get frustrating
return correspondence: “Thanks, but no thanks.”
It is easy to begin to dread the “BIG NO” so much that you stop pursuing additional opportunities, thereby shutting off future possibilities. Remember, fear of rejection doesn’t have to paralyze your job search efforts. If you have the job search “blues” then read UCS’ Eight Guidelines to Ward Off Rejection.
Studies have shown that only 15 percent of available jobs are ever advertised. It takes much more than merely perusing the classifieds. By employing a number of methods, you increase your chances of landing a job:
- Networking
The most effective way to meet potential employers and learn about possible jobs is to tap into your personal network of contacts. Don't be afraid to inform others of your career interests and let them know that you are looking for work. - Informational interviewing
The purpose of these interviews is to meet professionals, gather career information and investigate career options, get advice on job search techniques and get referrals to other professionals. When setting up these interviews, either by phone or letter, make it clear to the employer that you have no job expectations and are seeking information only. Interviewing also familiarizes you to employers, and you may be remembered when a company has a vacant position. - UCS job
listings and resume referral
Be sure to check the UCS online job listings several times a week and be sure that you have a resume on file with UCS with your current graduation date, email, address, and phone information . UCS sends resumes daily to employers who list positions. - Temporary work
Temporary workers can explore various jobs and get an inside look at different companies without the commitment of a permanent job. If an employer decides to make a position permanent, "temps" that have made good impressions often are given first consideration. - Persistence
This is the key to cracking the hidden job market. Attend meetings of professional associations and become an active member. After you begin the above processes, and your network base expands, your search will be made easier. Employers will appreciate your resourcefulness and view you as a viable candidate.
After meticulously preparing your cover letters and resumes, you send them to carefully selected companies that you are sure would like to hire you. You even get a few job interviews. But all of your return correspondence is the same: “Thanks, but no thanks.” Your self-confidence melts and you begin to question your value to an employer.
Sometimes, we begin to dread the BIG NO so much that we stop pursuing additional interviews, thereby shutting off our pipeline to the future. We confirm that we couldn’t get a job because we stop looking. Remember, fear of rejection doesn’t have to paralyze your job search efforts. Let that fear fuel your determination; make it your ally and you’ll learn a lot.
- Depersonalize the interview.
Employers may get as many as 500 resumes for one job opening. How can you, I and the other 498 of us be no good? - Don’t make it all or nothing.
Don’t set yourself up for a letdown: “If I don’t get this job, I’m a failure.” Tell yourself, “It could be mine. It’s a good possibility. It’s certainly not an impossibility.” - Don’t blame the interviewer.
Realize interviewers aren’t in a hurry to thing and behave our way. Blame your turndown on a stone-hearted interviewer who didn’t flatter you with beautiful compliments, and you will learn nothing. - Don’t live in the past.
When you dredge up past failures, your nervous system kicks in and you experience all the feelings that go with failure. Unwittingly, you overestimate the dangers facing you and underestimate yourself. - Don’t get mad at the system.
Does anything less pleasurable exist than hunting for a job? Still, you must adjust to the world rather than make the world adjust to you. The easiest thing is to conform, to do what 400,000 other people are doing. When you sit down to play bridge or poker or drive a car, do you complain about the rules? - Take the spotlight off yourself.
Sell your skills, not yourself. Concentrate on what you’re there for: to find out the interviewer’s problems and to show how you can work together to solve them. - See yourself in a new role.
Form a mental picture of the positive self you’d like to become in job interviews, rather than focusing on what scares you. All therapists agree on this: Before a person can effect changes, he must really “see” himself in the new role. Just for fun, play with the idea. - Keep your sense of humor.
Nobody yet has contracted an incurable disease from a job interview.
Written by Rosanne Lidle Bensley, Placement and Career Services, New
Mexico State University.
Questions, comments? Email us
at ucs@unc.edu
919-962-6507
Campus Recruiting & Job Listings
Networking: It's Easier than You Think
Diversity in the Career Search: Resources for Specific Populations
