For my first blog post, I want to tell you the truth. The truth is that you’ve been lied to (and quite a lot) about the job search process. These lies may not have been intentional, these lies may have been those we have been conditioned to believe, or these lies may have been things that were once truths, but through the passage of time have become lies.
Lie Number 1 - It is Impossible to Get a Job on Indeed
A lot of people are under the impression that by applying for a role through Indeed, that they have zero chance of landing a role. That could not be further from the truth. Indeed is the world’s largest jobsite for a reason, with over 250 million unique viewers every month. However, it is right to say that the stakes can be high when you have zero strategy in terms of approaching your applications on Indeed. An approach of sending your CV to tens of postings aimlessly, will very likely not result in you securing the role. There’s more about this to come, but if you’d like to learn more about beating statistics and landing a role on Indeed, you can check out my e-book here.
Lie Number 2 - Working Part-Time During University is a Waste of Time
There are divided opinions on this but to conclusively call working part-time during university a “waste of time”, even if it is working in your local corner shop, is quite a stretch. First, let’s look at the benefits: building up your commercial awareness, learning how to deal with unfamiliar situations on your own (ie without the instruction of a teacher or parent), demonstrating to future employers that you're committed to developing your career..
However, it is important that when making the decision to work during university, you consider other avenues that may not have immediately come to mind. For example, working part-time in a professional space (for example, a computer science student working in product support part-time), working a suitable amount of hours (don’t overload your schedule or miss classes because of work), realising that this is not an all or nothing affair (if you work part-time alongside your first and second year of university, it does not necessarily mean that you must work part-time during your third and fourth year of university).
Lie Number 3 - LinkedIn Doesn’t Matter For Students
Yikes.
When you believe in comments like this, you put yourself far behind students who do leverage LinkedIn to zoom ahead of the competition. There are students who use LinkedIn to build a reputation before they even enter interviews, who get offered interviews without formally applying for a role, who use referrals to have an edge, students who use LinkedIn to have a superior understanding of their target companies and a lot more…
Sure, if your LinkedIn strategy as a student is just clicking the “connect” button day in, day out, it won’t matter. That’s on you and your approach however, not on LinkedIn. I would really urge you to work on making LinkedIn work for you.
P.S Once a client of mine got asked to go kayaking with her future employer, just because she got into the habit of leveraging LinkedIn
Final Thoughts
It’s very important to vet who gives you certain pieces of advice. Do they have experience in recruitment? Certifications in Career Counselling? Direct success in securing competitive roles? Definitely research before you implement advice, test to see if it has been working for you and understand why certain approaches work and don’t…
Until Next Time,
Demi
For more bite-sized content, don’t forget to subscribe to this blog and visit The Demi Strategy on Instagram, Twitter & LinkedIn