Would You Pay $10,000 For A Great Job?
By Bob Roth
How many college students would be willing to pay $10,000 for
a great job?
Now, isn’t that an interesting question. However,
before everyone starts to check their empty wallets, I want to let
you all in on a secret. The fact is that there is a price that
you must pay if you want to land good job, but the currency
isn’t dollars. The real currency is the time you spend
on research, planning and preparation.
There is absolutely no reason why serious college students
can’t land good jobs with respected employers, jobs that
offer decent starting salaries and future growth
opportunities. To start, let’s get you pointed in the
right direction. You must first answer these four
questions:
- What is your field of
interest?
- Within that field, what jobs are of
interest to you?
- Which employers offer those
jobs?
- What do those employers require of
the students they hire?
Importantly, every college student should try to answer these
questions in his/her freshman year or certainly as soon as
possible. Once those questions are answered, students can
begin to develop a plan that will lead to their goal.
The plan should include steps that will enable them to
achieve all of the employer requirements, as well as the elements
of an effective job hunting strategy. It would normally
include:
- The majors and minors those
employers prefer
- Specific courses that are
required
- The grades and CUM they
require
- On-campus clubs and activities that
align with your goal
- Job-related experience gained
through part-time and summer jobs
- Community service
activities
- Projects with/for a respected
professor
- Significant accomplishments in
campus, work and community activities
- An outstanding resume
- A broad network of
contacts
- Exceptional interviewing
skills
- A list of desirable employers, web
sites, employment agencies, etc.
- Leadership, communication and
people skills
- A way to differentiate yourself
from other good candidates
- Exceptional references
- A thorough and comprehensive job
search
Yes, that is a lot. However, the best approach is to
break all of these things into small, manageable pieces. With
the pieces defined, you can prepare a plan and a timeline that will
lead to a great job.
Importantly, don’t underestimate the number of employers
that your will have to contact. In tough times, you may very
well have to send out hundreds of resumes and take many interviews,
before you are offered a job. Therefore, if by the time you
begin the second semester of your senior year you don’t have
a job offer, you should quickly ramp up your job search
campaign. Otherwise, you may graduate without any job offers
at all.
This kind of preparation for the job search takes a long
time. That’s why I say that “the senior year job
search actually starts in the freshman year.”
No matter how you look at it, you will come to the conclusion
that much time, effort and planning will be required before you
find success.
At $12.50/hr., that $10,000 represents 800 hours or about a
half hour a day, while you are in college. That is the amount
of time that you should devote to research, planning, preparation
and conducting your senior year job search.
Students who choose not to spend the equivalent of one half
hour a day in preparing for their job search are very likely to end
up in a low paying job with a mediocre employer.
