Goodbye, college!

Congratulations, you did it! After shedding the usual blood, sweat, and tears, you finally finished your thesis. As you’re being handed one of the most valuable pieces of paper in your life, you start wondering: what’s life going to be like after graduation? In this article, we’ll analyze your current situation step by step to give you a head start to get your career going.

Even after graduation day, there are still plenty of graduates who only have a vague idea of where they’re headed next. So, if you belong to that group, do realize you are far from alone. Ideally, the wise approach would be to start thinking about your first serious job as early as in high school. We’ll cut to the chase: the majority of students do not look that far ahead at such a young age, according to a recently published study by Forbes. Assuming you belong to the aforementioned majority, let’s start from scratch and guide you towards landing your first real job. Luckily, you can follow the whole process by using one insightful platform: CareerAnalytics.

Time for self-assessment

One thing you can do, if you’re just getting started, is to just mindlessly browse through the endless stream of job platforms and just casually apply for jobs that sound interesting. We recommend you reconsider and shift your focus, by analyzing yourself and by setting up a LinkedIn profile first (if you haven’t done so yet), which serves as your digital business card. To find out more about your wants and needs, CareerAnalytics is a very clever tool to discover where you currently stand, and it will help you make the most out of yourself so you’re fully prepared to enter the job market. When you upload your LinkedIn profile, you will get a ‘Career Score’, which is a rough estimation of how desirable you are to recruiters and automated applicant tracking systems (ATS) based on your profile. The best thing is that after receiving your score you will already get some pointers on how to instantly improve your score, LinkedIn profile, and resume. To get to know yourself even better, you can also consider taking one of the many psychometric tests the platform has to offer. These tests will help you learn more about yourself and what kind of company cultures suit you best, to give you a refreshing perspective on your career goals.

Explore the job market

Once you’ve optimized your profile by performing recommended actions, you can also map out what skills you currently possess, and what skills are in high demand for your desired career path. Keep in mind that there’s a big difference between ‘hard skills’ and ‘soft skills’. Hard skills are basically all the skills obtained through learning, like the courses you took in college. They are teachable and measurable skills such as writing, reading, or the ability to use computer programs. Soft skills, however, are personal traits that make you a valuable employee such as communication skills and the ability to work together with others. If you go to the ‘demand insights’ page on CareerAnalytics, you can see what skills are in demand for the field you’re thinking of entering. After carefully weighing your options, you might apply for extra courses first if you think that’s helpful to land better matching opportunities. Once you’re ready to hit the job market, you’ll be able to browse through potential matches based on your profile and you can even apply directly. Who said preparing for the first step in your career would be a struggle? Sign up today and CareerAnalytics will sort you out!