What is the best advice for a jobless university graduate?
It’s heart breaking to find yourself jobless while your friends are driving big cars, living in elegant apartments, going for holiday to Dubai as you move from one office to the other in search of employment. While in this dilemma, your mind is only fixed on employment. I understand this is the situation many university graduates find themselves upon graduating with flying colours.What to do next is totally not in their mind. Below we reveal what the most successful graduates did to secure employment.
Identify a business opportunity
The best advice for a graduate is to identify a viable business opportunity and commit his resources into the business.
What you may not understand, your primary reason you went to school is to open your mind, sight and vision so that you can be aware of the many opportunities available on this earth. Employment is one of the many opportunities, but when this opportunity closes its doors, you definitely move to the next available opportunity, and business is the one.
Time is important, which is why instead of wasting time waiting for employment, start a small business that would keep you busy.
Professional CV
One of the many reasons why most graduates never get employed is because the use poorly written CVs.In job search process, a professional CV is very essential.
One day, a job seeker asked this question: “I did bachelor of Finance, graduated with an MBA and later pursued CPA.My grades are colourful and I believe I have all it takes to secure employment. Three years after graduating from college, I am still jobless”. I asked him, “let me go through your CV”.What I discovered shocked me; it was a 10 page CV that was written like a novel. I told him, “no wonder you are jobless”.
It’s important to spend some cash to make an appealing CV,so that even if you failed your course, the employer will spare some time to go through your CV.
Networking
Networking is the best job hunting skill majority of successful job seekers employ.Where exactly do you find these networks? Here is a list of places to find the right networks:
- Career seminars
- Church
- Golf clubs
- Campus mates
- High School and primary class mates
- Relatives
- Friends
- Online platforms like LinkedIn and Facebook
- Your lecturers
The easiest way to network is speaking out about your plight, but in a clever way, then presenting your CV.
Always make sure the person you are targeting get used to you first before you start talking about personal matters.
Never over rely on relatives
Relatives can be misleading. I personally faced a serious challenge when I was desperately searching for employment. This is what happened.
Few years ago,I had graduated with a masters degree. After my graduation, I thought it was time to move to a relative’s house in the city. Since the relative was well connected, he promised to inform his friends about my case.
Immediately I settled in the city, my relative asked for my CV.I gave him knowing good news could knock on my door almost instant. I waited for six months and nothing was forthcoming. I decided to move out-that was when I was employed. If I put all my hopes on the relative, I could be jobless until today.
What I know is that relatives can misuse you, especially when they know you are jobless.
Nobody cares about your problems
Sometimes it’s better to keep quiet when you know you immediate population won’t help anyway. The more you share your painful story the more people laugh at you. As a job seeker, it’s wise you keep quiet and only talk to people you believe can help. While you are quiet, make an effort of doing blind job applications both online and physically dropping applications to potential employers.
Make use of job blogs
There are thousands of blogs that list available job opportunities. These blogs are the primary source of jobs and sometimes advertise jobs not available in print media. When you are a job seeker, your work is to scroll through various blogs to identify suitable opportunities. If you ignore online blogs, you may find yourself jobless forever.
Never make a mistake of giving up
While we acknowledge the fact that employment is not easy to come, giving up is not the best option. There are millions people who secure employment after decades of joblessness. These people never gave up despite being frustrated a thousand times. Giving up is more painful than continue trying.