As your are reading this , there is a probable chance that soon you will have a fresh out of school graduate living in your house….again! This article will help you with some practical advice for helping your recent grad’s career bloom or at least help them get their first job in this very tough economy.
As a parent, you can help launch your graduate’s career by:
1. Helping them figure out the right avenue to commence their job search.
2. Support them in their career search
So what is the first topic to do?
Today we are in one of the worst recessions for job seekers, and it is specially severe for those who just graduated. The new grad today is going into the workforce with a 10% unemployment rate and when under employment (people who have taken other positions or part time work) is factored in , the rate is closer to 20%.
That means your graduate is not only competing with every other new grad but also 20% of the Americans, who are actively seeking employment . Many of these people have degrees and years of experience and are willing to take the same salary as a first year college graduate .
Furthermore, imagine that hiring and human resource directors are inundated with resumes. They are acquiring resumes from in-house, the web , job boards, executive recruiters, career fairs and eventually getting them by the US Postal Service .
So before we talk about tips on how to interview for the job or interview preparation, let’s first see how we can get your resume in front of the hiring manager.
For the sake of argument, let us say that on average each career opening receives 100 resumes. The recruiter spends no more than 2 minutes perusing over each resume to decide which ones, if any, they will call to discuss .
Remember, the majority of the resumes are not even looked at by the hiring manager. First they are looked at by somebody from Human Resources, who may be working on 10 to 30 different jobs. So that individual may have to sort through up to 3000 resumes. Some companies have the hiring manager’s admin read through the resumes and he/she is given specific key words to look for. So you may be qualified , but if you use different words than what the assistant is programmed to look for, your resume may just get thrown out with the other “Not A Match” resumes.
One way that I know that your resume will be looked at by the hiring manager is to do this. Picture yourself when you get mail. Say you have letters, bills, postcards and one large FedEx (UPS, DHL, USPS) letter. Which one do you open first?
Hiring Manager are no different. They get their mail and open up the packages first!
What to put in the letter package is a whole other article.
The information from this article comes from “The Interview Success Report” by http://www.TheCareerProfessor.com. Anyone can download this report free of charge.