Without a doubt, getting your first job is an important milestone in your life. This marks the start of your career and add value to your organization as well.
That being said, learning the best practice to effortlessly land your first job is important to your success.
Consider the fact that according to TopResume, 75 percent of resumes are rejected before they even reach the hiring manager. On the other hand, it also states that a professionally written resume can enhance your earning potential by as much as 7 percent.
Opportunities for young talents and new professionals are nowhere near short and are soaring high..
Take Australia for example, which indicates the percentage of openings for freshers pertaining to each sector.
Source: https://www.ielts-mentor.com/writing-sample/academic-writing-task-1/2777-new-job-opportunities-for-different-professional-groups-in-australia
It is evident that there are no shortages of openings, even for freshers. So what can you do?
You can be more organized and follow some steps to represent yourself in the best way to land your first job..
In this article, we are going to focus specifically on getting jobs for freshers and people who are new to the work environment. We will look at some challenges, ways to counter them, and the methods you can resort to achieving that.
Key Points
- What are the challenges and expectations for a first job?
- How do you overcome these challenges?
- How to establish your credibility?
- Which are some channels to look for your first job?
- Which are a few technologies you can adopt?
- How much time is required to establish your credibility?
- Want to learn more?
What are the challenges and expectations for a first job?
First, let’s define what a first job is to have you on the same page.
Our definition of a first job applies to students trying to get the first job in their field of study.
It also includes experienced professionals looking to change jobs at some point in their career after acquiring a new skill through a course or some other means. For example, a nurse looking to become a paralegal or a teacher looking to become a quality assurance professional.
Most organizations allocate a percentage of hiring to students coming out of college for their first job and to folks from other industries. The main reason for this strategy is to bring in a diversity of thinking in the workplace which leads to innovation and higher efficiency, both of which are very good for an organization.
But hiring managers tend to have high levels of anxiety and uncertainty while hiring people for first jobs. It is due to three main reasons:
- Do they have foundational skills to learn additional skills on the job to be fully productive?
- Do they have soft skills to be productive in a corporate environment?
- How have they performed in an environment similar to this job? For example, as an intern, trainee, or different role in a different company?
How do you overcome these challenges?
Most candidates looking for a first job have challenges in demonstrating these challenges even though they may have the skills.
To make things difficult the number of candidates applying for a first job is significantly higher than candidates looking for lateral jobs like their current role.
The most important element here is to establish your “Credibility”.
Everyone you talk to will say credibility is very important, however, they may not give a direct and simple answer on how to establish your credentials.
Why is establishing your credentials complex and time-consuming? It is because credentials are dependent on the opinion of those who understand your skills and the people you work and interact with. People take time to develop an opinion and consistency is key to developing a stronger opinion.
How to Establish Your credibility?
You may be a little confused or concerned by now that it may be hard to establish your credibility. However, it is quite simple and easy if you follow some steps.
To get started you need to identify the following two:
- Skills (foundation and actual skills) that are important for the first job that you are looking for.
- Identify people whose endorsement will be valuable. In most cases it will be the following:
- Working professionals – Manager, 2nd level manager, peers, customers, partners, employees reporting to you
- Students – Professors, Mentors, Peer students, colleagues at an internship in a corporate and so on
The next step is to engage with them continuously (biweekly or monthly depending on your job role) to get their feedback and document it for use in your first job.
Which are some channels to look for for your first job?
There are many places to look for your first job. These are websites and other media that orient job search specifically for people looking to start off their careers. Let us take a look at a few.
- LinkedIn - LinkedIn is the most popular job searching network in the world. It houses profiles of big companies and employees of those companies. For freshers, creating a profile lets you see where others are placed and employment opportunities. You can directly approach employees of firms you want to get in or consider directly approaching the firm. You also engage in communication as it is a networking site oriented towards jobs.
- University or College Placement Cells - Campus placements are the most common route for freshers to land a safe and good job. Every university ties up with some companies to fetch new talent as they complete their study, like taking cookies fresh out of the oven. Campus placements also let you give a choice as to where to work, as long as you have what it takes to crack it.
- Indeed - Indeed, arguably being the largest job finder website, provides a space for people looking for their first job. It borrows job listings from the respective job sites, as well as other websites. As long as you know what job you are looking for, Indeed lets you focus specifically on those areas for your job search. Furthermore, you can filter your job search to locations you are looking for, or even search for remote works.
Now the other critical challenge that remains is the ability to present this information in a user-friendly way to a hiring manager.
The technologies that can be adopted to make this task very simple are discussed in the next section.
Which are a few technologies you can adopt?
There are two options available, described in the table below:
getCREDIBLE platform
getCREDIBLE is a ready to use platform designed to establish a professional's capability. It allows you to do the following:
- Build your professional ecosystem
- Post milestone on a biweekly or monthly basis
- Get feedback from your professional ecosystem
- Present credibility information in a digital format
getCREDIBLE platform uses an ML and AI engine behind the scenes and integrations with popular email servers which make the above task easy. In most cases, you can get started in minutes to start building your credibility. It is free to use and you can get started right away without any downsides.>/p>
Excel
Performing the above tasks in excel is possible. Although most of the activities will be manual and will require good knowledge on the use of excel to combine the information coming from different sources.
How much time is required to establish your credibility?
getCREDIBLE platform
The time required to establish your credibility will fall under these categories:
- Initial time (one time) – In general, establishing credibility takes time as human beings extensively analyze the quality of deliverables and consistency to form an opinion. Typically it takes three months.
- Periodic time – On an ongoing basis, candidates will have to spend some time posting accomplishments and getting feedback. On a platform like getCREDIBLE, since most of these tasks are simplified and automated, they can be completed within 1 hour. So periodic time will be around 15 mins per week or 1 hour per month.
getCREDIBLE platform provides a feature to cut down the initial downtime by allowing every candidate to get backdated feedback once to build the initial provisional credibility rating. This will help first job seekers to quickly establish their credibility.
Excel
It is generally viewed to be very time consuming, as it involves greater efforts from our side. This would include updating the sheet to new information, uploading attachments as links and managing this from time to time.Preparing yourself to land your first job
To wrap up, the getCREDIBLE platform helps first-time job seekers to quickly establish their credibility and provide a digital version of a resume called Slate. Slate presents this information to recruiters and hiring managers.
getCREDIBLE platform along with Slate will give job seekers a headstart and advantage in the job search process.
We will not cover the features of Slate in this article as there is a separate blog for that.
Do give getCREDIBLE a try and good luck in your job hunt!