A Plan of Attack for the College Graduate

A Plan of Attack for the College Graduate
Solving: The "No Experience Dilemma"

by Rollin Shoemaker

In just a few weeks many of you college seniors will experience one of the most tremendous days of your entire life. . . your college graduation. Receiving your diploma from the president of your college will invoke an awesome feeling. Unfortunately, you may also be having some other awesome feelings, or awful feelings about the prospects of conducting your job search.

Face it - having to enter the working world is a reality you have to deal with. It can cause you to despair at times, like when you scour the Sunday classifieds circling any and every ad that you could possibly reply to which then leads you to conclude that working at the "mall" might not be so bad. At least you’d have money. However that’s not what you went to college for; you want a "real" job, a job mom and dad can brag to the relatives about. But how do you get a "real" job when every ad says EXPERIENCE NECESSARY (or don’t even think of applying!). Isn’t two to five years of college experience enough to get you that job? NO WAY.

What can you do to counter this "no experience dilemma"? The answer is simple. Create an internship for yourself. Many of you may already be familiar with the internship idea, but for those of you who aren’t or for those of you who still need more experience, here’s how it works:

1. Use the newspaper, yellow pages, your local library, or any other resource to locate companies that could use your college background. Think carefully about what you plan to do as a graduate.

2. Write, call, or best, go in person, to these companies to see if they could use an intern. Explain that you are looking for experience.

3. If you find an interested company, offer your time - FOR FREE - to them for as many hours a week, and for as long as you can to GET THE EXPERIENCE IN YOUR FIELD YOU NEED!

4. Ask them if, in return for offering your free time, you could put their company on your resume AND if they would write you a solid letter of recommendation for your portfolio.

5. Do this with as many companies as you can, and get so much experience that prospective employers couldn’t refuse you if they wanted to!

Remember that you, as an individual, will surely benefit far greater from the internship experience than they will as a company. Make sure, going in, that you understand the relationship you are forging. You will be working for them, for free, to gain valuable knowledge in their field of business.

Don’t be shy in trying to create a unique internship that fits the needs and skills you want to improve. You definitely don’t want to intern in a position that has absolutely nothing to do with your personal and professional goals, (watch out for telemarketing internships, yuck!)

Who knows, maybe when you’re done with your internship they’ll be so impressed that they’ll offer you a job! It has happened. No matter what, you’ve got EXPERIENCE now - and you can go apply for those "good" jobs with confidence!