Hey it's Paul here! Thanks for coming to the site - as you can see we've had multiple authors already introduce themselves and their goals. I guess it's my turn now?
I am also another graduate from a top tier university. I graduated with a degree in Finance and Biology, two entirely different majors but hopefully it'll come to use later in life. So finding a job in this economy is tough, especially when you make mistakes like I did. I decided on my major towards the beginning of Junior year and basically left no time for an internship which would've given me real world experience. So, what to do now? Well, since graduation I have been keeping myself busy. The first thing I did was to write down a list of goals. What did I want to do with my degree? I created a list of jobs that I thought were interesting. They ranged from financial analyst to credit analyst to underwriting specialist to just about everything that required a financial degree. When that was finished, I decided on how to obtain a position of that nature and what the job prospects were. The best source of information I found for this was through the Bureau of Labor Statistics using their Occupational Outlook handbook. Linked here. This is a very powerful resource for finding which fields are growing the fastest and what requirements are necessary for each position. From there I tailored my resume to fit these positions (more on that during later posts). Following that I used a wide variety of websites to find jobs. The most useful has been monster.com. I put up my resume on there as well as filled out the long and tedious (though maybe useful) profile. From there I was able to obtain daily feeds on new jobs that fit what I wanted. Also another source of jobs that I have been using is USAjobs.gov. This website contains all the government jobs available in the country. All bureaus must place their jobs here first, so this is the largest and most up-to-date website for all government jobs. Considering that the government is the largest employer in the country, this may be a great place to start. I will go through a more detailed overview of Usajobs later, as I feel that it takes a lot of effort to apply to jobs through this site and it is very tricky. I have also been using my school career site. Each school has one and each school updates theirs with internships as well as full-time positions. Your school's career site may be the best bet, as alumni connections can help a lot with landing your first job out of college. I myself have received interviews via this resource - though unsuccessful, it is a proven source of job opportunities. There are many more websites that I have been using, but those listed here are the best ones for possible positions.
Now, besides looking for jobs, what else have I been doing? Well, as soon as I got back from school the most important thing was to get a job - any job. I needed something that would give me disposable income and fill my resume. As one of my professors mentioned to me right before I graduated, there's nothing worse on a resume than a blank spot on your resume. So what did I do? I did what many other Americans in my position have been doing. I started looking for part time work. I did this by literally visiting every single store near me and filling out applications. As time went on, I realized that this may not have been the most effective way of getting jobs. I began to realize that unless I talked to the manager directly, my chances of being hired were basically slim to none. There were many more people looking for jobs as well and it was really difficult to stand out. Luckily, I found a great website tailored specifically to part-time jobs called snagajob.com. This site works just like monster, but it's only for hourly employment. It not only tracks every single opening in your area, but it also offers to help you apply for them. Through this and applying to company websites, I was finally able to obtain a job at Macy's. I work there part-time and it's great. Though I'm not happy with the fact that my first job out of college is working retail, I am grateful that I was able to avoid a gap in my resume.
So to summarize, find out what your goals are and find out what employers are looking for in that position. Finding jobs is tough because so many companies are in a hiring freeze right now, so the best thing to do is keep your skills fresh by constantly using/updating them and fill the time by being productive. Working part-time at Macy's with a finance degree is better than doing nothing with a finance degree. Good luck and always, if you have advice that you'd like to contribute to the blog, send it to jobhuntard@gmail.com! I'll make sure it's added and you are credited.
-Paulz
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