“I’ll be long gone before some smart person ever figures out what happened inside this Oval Office.” – George Bush
You are at yet another interview. Summer is but a fond memory (and school even a fonder memory), it is early October. You’ve gone through the usual questions without any problems and you think you have a pretty good chance at landing this job.
“I see you graduated in May, what have you been doing with yourself?” “What have I been doing?” you think. “I’ve been looking for job.” you say. “Looking for a job since May?, don’t you think you could have been putting your time to use?” the interviewer asks. “What are my options, what should I have been doing with my time?”
Have you thought about volunteering? Volunteering?? Doesn’t seem to be much of a career in that you say? No, I’m not joking. About now, many potential employers are going to wonder what you’ve been doing in your spare time since you graduated from school last May. “Looking for a job” sounds like a logical answer, but you know what? It’s not going to fly five months after you graduated.
Volunteering gives you an opportunity to gain some valuable experience, while giving back to the community. But it also tells potential employers that you are ambitious and not just sitting on your hands. Yes, you should still be looking for a job every waking hour, but you also need to get yourself out there. After all, who knows who you will meet?
Today’s post covers a variety of topics (plus, of course, volunteering) to help you in your job search.
Volunteering for College Grads:
- Volunteer work for college grads benefits from Serve America Act – A short article from National Student News Service about some of the benefits (some of them financial) of volunteering. Take a look.
- Volunteering Up Among College Grads – Another short article, this one from Jobmonkey.com, supports the premise that volunteering is becoming more popular for college grads. Also take a look at Jobmonkey’s Volunteering Abroad link.
- VolunteerMatch – This site provides resources for finding volunteer jobs. The center top of the page has the main search engine where you can search by location and keywords. At the top of the site are a few tabs for Search, Volunteers, non-profits and more.
Career Fairs:
- The Ten Keys to Success at Job and Career Fairs – This article, by QuintCareers.com, provides excellent advice on preparing for career fairs. This article will help both College Students preparing for College Career Fairs as well as experienced hires preparing for professional career fairs.
- CareerFairs.com – This site allows Job Seekers, Universities and Employers to coordinate the job fair process via a searchable database. You can search for upcoming job fairs and employers can pre-screen students.
- Mosaic Career Fairs – This career fair, organized by the American Advertising Federation (AAF), gives College students the chance to meet with representatives from Advertising, Marketing and Communications companies. The site provides the dates of upcoming fairs as well as registration forms. There is also a link to the AAF Job Bank.
- Job Fair Directory & Employment Resources – This directory, provided by www.carouselexpo.com, allows you to search for job fairs by State. Click a State, and scroll down to see when there will be a career fair near you.
Job Search:
- CampusCareerCenter.com – “Jobs, Guidance, Networking . . . Options” – the tag line for this site. The site leads with who’s hiring, with several employers listed on the main page. There is a wealth of resource links on the first page as well – Interships, Cover Letters, Prepare for your Interview and more. There are tools and resources down the left-hand side of the page including research companies and job search. Click the “Post Resume” tab at the top to register, post your resume and get started. Looks like you must register to use the job search.
- CollegeJobBoard.com -The main page of this site lists featured employers, with job categories listed down the right hand side of the page. There are related article links as well as a resource center (which is a little light on content). The job seeker home link is restricted to registered users only. Overall, this site seems light on content and resources.
- Center for Career Opportunities – This is a Purdue University site and is designed to provide additional sources of information and job leads. The right-hand side of the page lists a number of databases to help in your job search. This is primarily a list of resources so you will need to explore the resources to help in your search.
- Groovejob.com – This is a pretty neat site. The site focuses on Teen Jobs, Student Jobs and Summer Jobs. The site lists featured employers in the main section of the screen. There are a number of resources as well – Resumes, Career Assessment, Interview tips, Student Resources and more. Most of the jobs appear to be part time, but I did not register on the site to see the full functionality.
Good luck in your search.
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