Milestones for Fresh Graduates (Or Final Year Students Who Are Afraid of Being Unemployed)
First of all, let me introduce myself. My name is Rizca and I’m a Recruiter/HR at a Malaysian HR IT Company that expanded to Indonesia a while ago. I have been working here for almost 2 years now and during those 2 years I have been learning a lot; hard and soft skills, even learning about myself as human and professional too.
The reason why I’m writing this is that after almost 2 years of getting to know talents and candidates, from fresh graduates to senior professionals, I think I have met so many potential fresh graduates yet they have very minimum of experiences (as in organizations or other useful activities; not necessarily professional experiences). It is very unfortunate how undergraduates don’t have enough information about the real work world that after they graduate, they don’t really have much to offer or know what to offer/self-branding themselves. Believe me, it is very relatable for me because it was the reason why I got into this job in the first place; afraid of being not good enough and end up unemployed for a long time. Though, I hate to spill it to you that I haven’t actually graduated haha but I’m not regretting it because I finally have overcome my fear about work and I know what to do with my final thesis.
Okay, so let’s start to the real topic: Milestones for Fresh Graduates!
What is Milestones, you may ask? According to Cambridge dictionary, Milestone means a stone or post at the side of the road that shows the distance to various places, especially to the nearest large town or in another way it means an important event in the development or history of something or in someone’s life and on this case, Milestones means events or important points for fresh graduates before or to help jumping into the real work world.
Here’s from my perspective as final year student and recruiter at the same time:
Organizations, Events or Projects!
When your lecturers say “don’t just study and go home!” they are actually right! There is a lot of organizations inside and outside of your university that you can participate in. Usually, students always think of Student Associations (HIMA) or Executive Council of Student (BEM) which they are good as well, but what if you hate politics? There are other options as well like Arts, Sports or Language Student Unit. Or if you like music, you can join concert committee or social volunteering. Just do something besides studying. Apply that critical thinking that your university tries to train you with at other places. Even better you can hold a few responsibilities and titles; it’s like the simulation of working and it will train you on how to communicate with other people, discuss important matters, manage conflicts and set goals and reach them. Those soft skills will come in handy later at the workplace. The objective is how you think, see problems and solve them (soft skills).
Besides that, if you are from a creative background (IT is considered a creative industry too by the way) you can try to make small projects to build up your portfolio. It doesn’t have to be very big at the beginning, small ones will do. This means you’re progressing and if you have plenty of projects, you can curate them to the best ones. The objective is how you train your hard skills and build them.
Remember, this milestone will also expand your connections. Try to maintain a good relationship with everyone too. You don’t have to be best friends with them. Just be a good person and have a decent attitude. You don’t know if later in life you will work with them.
Internship
An internship is very important for your experience! I’m not talking about the internship that the university forces you to apply to but it only requires you to be a dead robot who copies papers and makes cups of coffee for the employees, no. I’m talking about the real internship which in some cases the responsibility is very close to a fulltime employee. For a fresh graduate or final year student who doesn’t have professional experience, this one will save you and add significant value for your job application later on, especially if your internship is aligned with the job you’re applying to. But I must remind you that what you are looking for is experience, not money. That’s why it’s called an internship, not a full-time job. Although, good thing for now some companies pay the intern very decently, which is good and it’s a bonus, not your main objective!!!
A little bit of a story, I started my career from an internship. I was way too scared of being unemployed after I graduate because I felt I knew nothing so that I was being denial to my thesis (please don’t be like this lol) and looked for an internship to work on my hard and soft skills. Long story short I got accepted in my current company and after I finished my internship I was offered a full-time position which I couldn’t resist, though, it comes as a result I still have to struggle with my thesis up until now. 😁
So, it is very okay for you who just graduated to apply for an internship, it is totally okay. Don’t be embarrassed. Your pride won’t feed you. Because you will have the possibility to be offered as a full-time employee after that. But on the other side, you also need to do your research about the job you will do during the internship to avoid false internship. Here are some tips:
- Research the company: make sure the company does exist, even better it’s a prestigious company (but the competition is higher, obviously. Just prepare better, 10x better — the first milestone will help you!). Google their name, their achievements, Linkedin, Instagram, and observe their culture and what they thrive for. Find a place that you feel you can grow, okay? Can grow! Not luxury or comfort but growth! You will want to work with people that will develop your skills and mentor you. If you look for comfort you can just sleep at home, easy.
- Where to apply: since internships aren’t as many as job vacancies, looking for one is less easy but it isn’t impossible! You just have to open so many websites or looking for the info a bit deeper on google. Here are some job platforms that usually provide internship information: Internsheeps (if you are looking for an internship in Malaysia), Techinasia (usually it’s IT company, it's also where I found 2 information for HR Internship), Urbanhire (I found few interns here), Glints, or you can just simple google X Internship. You can also try to expand your connection on Linkedin by adding recruiters there and try to open the company’s page and website to find some information about the internship. Remember how you apply also affects your chance! Different medium, different approaches. Especially through email, at least you have to fill in the Subject, Email Body and Closing.
- Learn the job desc: see if that job desc is something you want to work on, learn about and go extra miles for. Make sure if it’s something will add values to you and your CV. It doesn’t have to be something you already know, that’s not the point of the internship. The internship is where you can learn in the field with real problems and real solutions. So, make sure it’s something, again, can grow you. But, a little googling won’t hurt. If you don’t understand a few things you can learn it beforehand for the general idea so that it will increase the chance in the interview.
- Cover letter: I was pretty lucky I didn’t have to write a cover letter because Techinasia didn't require me to, but I can tell you I was worried I wouldn’t be called because the cover letter is such a bonus point. Why so? In the cover letter, you can express your interest in the company, the values you have that might help the company reach its goals and how you can see yourself working with them. For more tips on doing cover letter you can check on Maukerja Indonesia’s Instagram, they have discussed it a few times now.
Remember, what you are looking for is experience and growth! Money and other benefits are bonus.
Self-Development
Self-development is actually concludes everything. It’s something you will need forever until you become a very senior professional or even CEO. Or even if you decide to retire early, you will always need this trait. Since self-development is wide, I’m gonna talk about specifically work-related. Although you are still a fresh graduate or final year student, you need to keep developing yourself from soft skills to hard skills. Your willingness to learn about new things will help you in life. Never feel enough, be thirsty for new knowledge even it seems scary to learn about. Know what you need, fill it, and improve it. Nowadays it’s very easy to access information, even proper university-level kind of knowledge and information. Add your value by keep studying new things. Here’s some platform you can try:
http://udemy.com — http://udacity.com — http://medium.com — http://khanacademy.org — http://coursera.org
Conclusion: the real world may seem scary but if we prepare right, we will get through it just fine! Just add values to yourself and believe in yourself. The rest will follow, including the job offer!
Okay, so that’s a glimpse of milestones for fresh graduates from my experience as a student and recruiter at the same time. Thank you for reading up to this point and good luck! Actually there is a lot of things we can discuss this matter because it’s very general. Some industries have different approaches like the Health Industry, Government, Manufacturing, etc. If you are interested to know more, you can visit Maukerja Indonesia website, it provides a platform to discuss with HR around Indonesia with variety of industry backgrounds and expertise, including me as Recruiter in IT Company/Startup!
