Graduation might be the first day of the rest of their lives, but for some new graduates, summer signals a time to work toward securing a job for the fall. Career counselor Daniel Klamm at the Syracuse University Center for Career Services offered some tips on how those who didn’t land a job can use this summer to take strides toward their dream occupations.

The Daily Orange: What’s the first step that new graduates looking for a job should take?

Klamm: The most important thing to do is to network with professionals in the industry that you want to go into. There are more than 230,000 SU alumni in many different fields, and students can use resources like LinkedIn to network themselves. A lot of times it’s not about applying for jobs online, but knowing someone that is in the field you want to work in and directly linking yourself with the Syracuse network is really beneficial.

How can they go about searching for jobs in the summer?

Just keep networking and using social media, like Twitter and even Facebook, to put yourself out there. It’s also good to keep talking to your family, friends, classmates, and even sorority sisters or fraternity brothers. There’s a chance that someone will know someone working in your dream field that might be able to help you out.

Can you name someways they can build their resumes?

It all depends on the field, but working at internships while still searching for a job is useful, as is doing freelance work, especially for students in the advertising or graphic design fields. Some job applications require you to have a portfolio, so anything you can do to boost your portfolio, either on your own or as part of an internship, will help in the long run.

What advice would you give those who didn’t get the job they wanted or may not love the job they landed?

Odds are that they didn’t land the dream job they thought they might get. But it’s good to remember that it’s only their first job, and it’s a good test to see if it’s the field they really want to do, or to use it as a way to eventually get into their dream job. If any student is going right from graduating into his or her dream job, he or she must have gotten pretty lucky.

How can new graduates avoid feeling overwhelmed after starting a new job right after graduating?

Graduates should definitely stay in contact with their college friends as a support system. Most of them will be entering the same kind of unusual nine-to-five job situation, so they will know what others are going through and just staying in touch is a way to overcome that overwhelming feeling of jumping right into the real world after graduation.

ervanrhe@syr.edu

Published on May 10, 2011 at 12:00 pm

Contact Erik: ervanrhe@syr.edu | @therealvandyman