Opening Doors — Advice for the Highs and Lows of the Early Job Search

Approaching the final months of college feels exciting yet very intimidating. For a lot of us, it is the first time where we lack a clear and unanimous sense of “what’s next.” Before, the goal was to get through high school, get into college, get your degree, and then off to the “real world.” This is the time in our lives where a newfound sense of freedom allows us to work at a different pace. Personally, I am eager about joining the workforce upon graduation, but with that speed comes a pressure to understand what I want to do in a short amount of time. I know many of my peers feel the same way, and although we don’t have to have it all figured out at this very moment, the looming deadlines and circles of chatter can stall the excitement to graduate. However, throughout my search for an internship that fortunately landed me here at Skillsoft, I learned a lot about how to ease the internal pressures and the woes of the job search, so that I can get excited about my future without having an exact picture of what it will look like.

Entering my final year at my university, I feel fortunate to have opened many doors for myself, however I can’t help but feel like I’m standing in a long and ominous hallway full of doors with no clue which to open. It is time to utilize my toolkit of professional skills that I have built over years of schooling and extracurriculars.Letting go of this methodical routine of spelled out destinations and grasping onto a career that is determined by my decisions and my preferences feels wild. If you feel like this too, you are not alone. What will we do next, and how truly crucial is the first step?

There is a vast range of factors that determine what careers a person may decide to pursue. For me, I know that I want to do something that I am passionate about and that excites me. I want to wake up in the morning looking forward to work and feel fulfilled by my career’s contributions as a part of my life. Don’t we all? I was surprised to learn that this is not the case for everyone. Some people are driven by other motivators and personal interests. The hardest part, for me, has been to avoid wavering from my personal path and ambitions just because what I want may be perceived as less prestigious or successful. I got my first taste of the challenges in these differences when hunting for an internship this spring.

Going into your early career search, I would determine your set of values in the initial stages. If you haven’t yet, I would recommend reading Designing Your Life by Bill Burnett and Dave Evans. In the self-help story, the authors write a whole section about value alignment and career exploration. For example, if you preach environmental safety, then going to work for a large manufacturing company that relies on heavy plastic use might not be for you. Maybe you have specific passions that you would like to see come to life in your work, it might be worthwhile to search for companies with emphasis on their Employee Resource Groups (ERGs). Maybe your compensation and benefits are of primary importance to you and you’re looking for longevity at a company that values you. Although different, these are all very reasonable values to use as guidance in deciding where and how to jumpstart your career. Knowing your values will help narrow down the pool of organizations and positions that you consider, so that when it comes down to a hallway full of open doors, you feel more equipped to choose the right one.

I also advise that you determine what makes you different before you start parsing the web for job openings. Have a chat with yourself and determine what about you makes you proud. What is your competitive advantage? What makes you stand out? It doesn’t have to be your Dean’s List award or extensive professional experience. It can be something small. For me, I am most proud of my dedication and ability to form meaningful friendships. That pride helped me realize that I have strong people skills and loyalty, which then translated into advantages and clarity in my job search. Having confidence is huge at this step in our careers. Knowing what makes you proud of yourself enables authentic confidence. By understanding the little things that make you you, you are sure to have a better view of why and how to pursue what you want.

For those of us that have narrowed down our search and want to pursue a career in marketing, deciding which door to open first gets even fuzzier. A career in marketing can mean so many different things: a brand manager, strategist, product marketer, digital specialist, etc. Somehow you must choose one of these titles, but still manage to be them all at the same time. Starting out in marketing, there seems to be this pressure to know exactly where you want to end up. However, no matter your position, you will come to find that being a good marketer relies on your understanding of all the facets of marketing. If you are struggling to decide which department is the one for you, do not fret. Get started with where you feel most excited and comfortable. Then, if you eventually feel like pivoting, all of the skills that you learned within your department will help you down the line.

Then comes the closed and locked doors. The ones you can’t open, even if you really want to. Dealing with rejection this early on in a career is heartbreaking. With so many decisions to make, it is hard to let go of any opportunity that could bring us closer to the ultimate future we design for ourselves. Rejection can also be detrimental to confidence and assurance of choice. When applying and interviewing for internships in the spring, every email about considering other candidates sent a pit to my stomach. However, my advice is to try and pull lessons from these rejections. Reflecting on the rejections, they were often a saving grace rather than a final sentence. Clouded by “should be” and “could be,” I applied to tons of different internship positions, many of which were certainly not the right positions for me. Despite putting my best foot forward, if you are not where you are supposed to be, the recruiters will see that too. Although I strayed from my initial path, the process pulled me right back where I was supposed to be. Finding that silver lining in the rejection and acceptance process was very special for me and ultimately helped narrow my decision making process.

If I can leave you with one final piece of advice, that is to trust the process. If you have any understanding of what is important to you, what makes you different, and then you put your best foot forward, what goes around will certainly come back around.