What’s next? Effective Career Plan after Graduation
What’s the next step? These exact four words circle the young minds of new graduates the moment they step foot into the thin line that divides students in their last few days of college and young adults who are eager to seek suitable career options and professional development for themselves.
What comes next? The same question acts like a blast of an alarm ringing, waking recent college graduates up from deep slumber, only this time it can be a bit more intense – perhaps mixed with a reasonable amount of thrill, excitement, confusion, and fear.
What is the career plan? An introspection that lingers through students’ minds as they realize that the last four years of striving and thriving through paperwork, deadlines, academic stress, and last-minute cramming have come to an end.
What comes next after graduation? A question that can only be answered by actions.
After years of dealing with unsolved math problems and mystery words you can’t seem to familiarize yourself with, the day has finally come when you stand in front of a crowd and receive your diplomas.
After years of working out your goals, there are those who experience a sudden halt as they navigate their way into figuring out their next steps for their career plans. This article delves into top tips on how to plan your career after graduation and easily navigate that job search.
Starting from Point Zero
This may sound rough and uneasy, but no matter how prepared you think you are, life has ways of catching you off guard. Whether you have had a career plan and your future since the start of college, high school, or even elementary school, there is still a tendency for change in the process, look into several paths as you more opportunities, especially for recent college graduates.
Thus, don’t be afraid to start from point zero. Do you want to pursue higher education and acquire a post-graduate diploma? Do you want to start working right after graduation? Or do you feel like taking a month off before entering the working world? Set your career goals straight. Then focus on your long term career goals. A few days of reflecting on your next move will take little from you.
Let Go of Unnecessary Pressure
For most people, working on their careers starts after getting their bachelor’s degree. However, nowadays, students like to engage in different part-time jobs as their first job even before graduation, which becomes a stepping stone towards pursuing their ideal job.
Although applying for and working on various internships can jump-start your professional development, don’t put pressure on yourself by thinking that others have an edge in the job market because they have more experience pre-graduation.
Although experience is a good reference for someone when applying, remember that you can also progress at your own pace.
Acknowledge what you can and cannot handle at a given time, and learn not to put too much on yourself just because you see people doing something you don’t. Remember, being physically ready can take days or months, but restoring yourself from mental drainage can take years.
Thus, knowing how to limit things and acknowledging that you might need more time to rest and adjust is essential to stay motivated.
Build Your Portfolio and Find People in Your Niche
Are you finally ready to send in applications? One thing you can start doing as a recent graduate is building yourself a good resume and a great portfolio to show people your work. Develop a good network in the line of work you want to be in. Compile all your work from college up to the present. Indicate any job experience in your portfolio. Create tailored cvs based on your interests. When planning your next move, set expectations and do not be afraid to ask from advice from those you trust.
Are you an architecture graduate? Compile your best plates to show hiring managers what you can do. Also, when building a resume, identify and make sure that you only include the details that will tell hiring officers about your background, indicating that you are a good fit for the position and the company. Include your educational background, experiences, transferable skills, and technical proficiency.
Another thing you can do is research on career opportunities and network. Creating an account on social media like LinkedIn and job-seeking sites like Jobstreet, Indeed, Upwork, and Kalibrr can introduce you to currently available jobs.
Check on Job Seeking Sites
As you start applying, aside from social media and job postings, creating profiles on job-seeking sites will give you career options to asses yourself if you wish to pursue a specific role.
Subsequently, explore websites like LinkedIn are effective ways to network and connect with people. Do you want to have a career in human resource management? You can try looking for someone in the industry and study their roles to familiarize yourself.
Pursuing Career Options
There are a slew of career options you can consider, depending on your interest and graduate or postgraduate degree. If you have the right communication skills and are a mass communication or hotel management graduate, you can have a bright career in hospitality management.
There is also a huge demand for digital-related career options, such as mobile app development, digital marketing, business analytics, Google ads expert, digital marketing, programming languages, and SEM specialist.
If you are interested in technical work, you might want to consider interior design, software engineering, computer technology, information technology, implementation engineering, or QA test engineering.
Those who are good at analyzing numbers can look at eligibility criteria for audit manager, credit analyst, treasury manager, data science, data visualization, and the like.
Continue to Learn and Practice
As the saying goes, practice makes perfect; want to start a digital marketing career? Try looking for small businesses and offering to help them post-graduation; this is a great way to practice digital marketing. You might see yourself coming to work as a digital marketing manager.
If you want to pursue modeling as a career option, keep sending in your portfolio. If you are a writer, write. If you wish to be a photographer, keep taking photos.
Improving your technical skills is a crucial ingredient to career advancement. Remember that the only thing we can do to improve is practice and learn more about a craft. You don’t think you don’t cut on having a successful career in business administration because of your skills?
Then, the key is to learn more about the job and gain more practice and experience.
Build Your Confidence, Attend Seminars
Enroll in professional courses and attend seminars that will enrich your knowledge regarding your niche. There are a lot of great online seminars and online courses just a few clicks away, including data science, arts, marketing, machine learning, copywriting, and more.
It’s Never Too Late to Expand Your Knowledge
Aside from seminars to expand your expertise, there are also full-time courses you can enroll in online. Online courses can make things easier and more convenient if you continue your studies while working. Online courses are also great avenues to venture into other industries or career paths.
If you are an artist and wish to have a career as a digital marketer, online courses provide lessons and certificates that will surely help you.
Another thing you can consider investing your time in are courses that offer an opportunity to expand practical knowledge, such as handling finances, understanding insurance, business management, leadership seminars, and the like.
Courses that tackle these topics are beneficial for you regardless of your niche. Having a background in business leadership, management, marketing strategy, and finances can benefit you in the long run.
One great thing about seminars is that they usually feature professionals and experts. Wouldn’t it be great to hear investment managers discuss the importance of investment or Doctors talk about their specializations?
Online courses offer many opportunities, from expanding knowledge to acquiring new knowledge. Although some courses cost a couple of bucks, you can think of it as an investment – one that will surely boost your move to reach your dreams successfully.
Have Courage and Shoot Your Best Shot
As mentioned, the question of what comes next can only be answered by actions. We make all sorts of preparations and sacrifices, such as pushing through to get a degree, taking time to practice and expand our knowledge, all these to pursue the job we love and do the things we enjoy.
Having a fear of doing something for the first time is inevitable, so take a deep breath and shoot your best shot when you feel like you are ready enough to do so.
Once you have finally built your portfolio and updated your resume, slowly introduce yourself to the corporate sector and the idea of becoming a working adultby scrolling through job postings.
Head to your preferred job-seeking site and look for something that suits you, your skill set, and your ideal career path, and shoot your shot.
Remember, like in most things in life, everyone starts from point zero. Just like the process of knowing your likes, dislikes, and interests, your journey to your dream job and the right career path for you has to start with making a move.
So, enjoy each moment of your last days in school, celebrate, relax, and re-energize. The moment you step into the so-called real world, things might feel overwhelming but know that no matter how big or small the step is, you get much closer to the life your younger self has envisioned to live in.
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