iStock | Rattankun Thongbun
History repeats itself. College grads who are facing a daunting job market are not alone. A tough job market has a million publicists. Focus on the task at hand and tune out the noise. The noise is not there to help you. With that said, the data is in and it’s not great. It’s not terrible, but it’s not great.
The percentage of hires who are recent graduates is down. That is a fact that The New York Times, NBC News, and Axios made official in recent pieces. Regardless of whatever you’ve done during your student days, you’re navigating the real-world job minefield for the first time. It’s proving impersonal and unforgiving and it’s causing ever-increasing levels of stress. The last thing you need to do is read data-heavy articles from the I-Still-Do-Not-Have-A-Job-A-Sphere to confirm what you already know. You need a job and nobody is going to knock on your door and hand one to you. You have to get out there and claim it.
Here are five tips for recent grads to decompress and get out there and claim it:
1. Enjoy it. You are young. You have your whole life in front of you and minimum responsibilities. There are legions of people who would trade places with you in a heartbeat no matter how unemployed you think you are. Get your face out of your phone, look at your actual surroundings, and enjoy it. You will only be young once but you’ll probably be unemployed a bunch of times. It’s a normal part of the process. Of course, it’s hard. You’re asking strangers to legally agree to give you a bunch of money after they’ve met you a couple of times. That’s crazy when you think about it. So calm down, relax. Your first job is out there waiting for you to find it, so meanwhile, enjoy life.
2. Be flexible. There are jobs to pay the bills and there are career jobs. You may need a couple of the pay-the-bills jobs while you land your first career job. If you have the circumstances, resources, and good fortune to be patient and picky, then, by all means, hold out for that first dream job. If you need money now, and the only way you’re going to have it is to get a job, then suck it up, take one of those jobs, and double your efforts to get the job you want. Think of it like the oxygen masks that allegedly fall from the ceiling in an airplane if it loses oxygen. You’re instructed to put the mask on yourself before you administer help to others. The short-term, pay-your-bills job is like the first mask. You need that oxygen to help the person next to you, who, in this analogy, is also you, get the “real” job.
3. Be flexible, Part 2. There’s the ideal career job and there’s the other ones. If you’re facing a constrained market, you may not get everything you want. Your desires may not match up with employer offers. That’s when negotiating begins and whoever has the leverage will dictate terms. Recent graduates have declining leverage right now. That hybrid schedule? Maybe not quite yet. Relocation allowance? Don’t dismiss it entirely, but don’t count on it either. When employers don’t need compromise and perks to attract new talent, they’re uncompromising and stingy. There is nothing you can do about it except play the hand you’re given. By all means, ask for everything and the moon in a glass box you can carry around in your pocket. Just don’t expect to get all of it. Or any of it, maybe.
4. Be the islands in the stream. This is a toughie. You may not believe it because there is a vast digital void between you and the people hiring, but they empathize with you. They want to help you because everybody has been in your predicament (and more times than you). You have to believe that and you should because it’s true. That’s the first step towards developing the diligence and patience you need to effectively conduct a difficult job search. Somebody on the other side is looking for you just as hard as you are looking for them. Eventually, you will find each other. Trust the process and accept you’re not in control. Events will unfold as they are meant to. And proofread your resume again.
5. Do the work. You think updating your resume and writing a LinkedIn profile is work. Wait until you get a job! Consider the extra effort required to get your first job in a challenging and unpredictable job market to be on-the-job training for every job you will ever do. This stuff gets harder, not easier. When your first deadline is hurtling towards you like an intercontinental ballistic missile, you will pine for the days when you anguished over your LinkedIn headline. Finding a job is a job, and when you do a good job, you end up with a new job! Keep things in perspective. Focus.
Philip Roufail contributed to this article.
Scott Singer is the President and Founder of Insider Career Strategies Resume Writing & Career Coaching, a firm dedicated to guiding job seekers and companies through the job search and hiring process. Insider Career Strategies provides resume writing, LinkedIn profile development, career coaching services, and outplacement services. You can email Scott Singer at scott.singer@insidercs.com, or via the website, www.insidercs.com.
