Getting from College to Career: 90 Things to Do Before You Join the Real World
Getting from College to Career: 90 Things to Do Before You Join the Real World
How do you get a job without experience and get experience without a job? It’s the question virtually every college student or recent graduate faces. In Getting from College to Career, Lindsey Pollak offers the first definitive guide to building the experience, skills, and confidence you need before starting your first major job search. Her 90 action-oriented tips include strategies ranging from the simple to the expert, including:
- Avoid the biggest mistake in career prep and job hunting
- Subscribe to a daily newspaper
- E-mail like a professional
- Make every event a networking success
- Practice the eight essentials of internship achievement
- Perform five minutes of stand-up
- Overprepare for interviews
- Persist
Getting from College to Career gives you the essential information and guidance you need to get your foot in the door of the real world. Don’t start your first job search without it!
User Ratings and Reviews
5 Stars Advice that transcends generations
While the book targets college students and recent grads, the advice transcends generations! Lindsey acknowledges her “obsession with taking action, trying new things, meeting new people and having a wide variety of experiences” to enhance a job hunt. She notes (and I agree) that you can’t plan your career by sitting around and “thinking really hard.”
Her first tip - “Start Wherever You Are” - is a perfect opening for the job seeker who thinks he or she needs more - more information, more advice, more research, before REALLY starting a successful search. My first boss on Wall Street always said, “The perfect is the enemy of the good.” In other words, if you wait for all of the stars to align before starting something, you’ll never get off the ground. If you want to drive your own career bus, you first need to put the key in the ignition and turn it - no matter where you are parked!
Lindsey reminds her readers that “Action always yields rewards” and emphasizes the importance of taking action on behalf of your career every day. Make a call, write a note, send a follow-up email, attend a networking event…You can’t underestimate the value of every action you take to move your search forward.
How does Lindsey suggest you get organized for a job search?
Buy a notebook (with a cool cover) to record ideas and information.
Develop a filing system to keep all of the key paperwork that will pass through your hands.
Keep a calendar with ALL of your appointments to avoid double-booking.
Start a log or spreadsheet for all of your interactions with employers and networking contacts.
Create a database system to track everyone you meet along the way!
One of my favorite tips? #27 Relax. A Job Is Not a Soul Mate. The fact is, with workers expected to have 9 careers in a lifetime and an average of 3 jobs in each one (with 50% of those careers not even discovered yet), don’t think of a job as a marriage. If you make a mistake, you can take your transferable skills and move to another opportunity.
Getting from College to Career is a terrific resource, full of tips to guide job seekers along a successful path. I highly recommend it to anyone getting ready for a job hunt!
5 Stars Excellent resource for hapless college students or graduates
Throughout my time in college, I admit to espousing a fairly naïve and arrogant attitude about how one moves from education into the workplace, being fairly blind to my own sense of entitlement. I repeatedly spurned the advice that my friends and family tried to offer me, and as a result I made little progress when I finally graduated and expected my life to fall into place without my own involvement. Finally, after little success, I came to my senses and decided to seek help from an expert in order to gain some perspective. Lindsay Pollak’s Getting From College to Career had been recommended by various sources and seemed like a worthwhile read, and I am incredibly glad that I bought it.
My initial fear was that the book would just be a recapitulation of the normal tips for improving one’s résumé and cover letter and ensuring a solid interview. Pollak does address these topics (what kind of career-counselor would she be if she didn’t?), but what I really found valuable was the bevy of other minutiae of job-hunting that might not even occur to most people. Pollak, a reasonably young professional, is tuned into the technological advances that have somewhat altered the employment landscape, such as online job posts that have overshadowed the more antiquated newspaper classified ads. However, her age also allows her to use her wisdom to help the young, tech-savvy, and clueless students of today. For example, her point that one should customize his or her online appearance in order to avoid disclosing embarrassing character flaws or incriminating photos.
For those of us who have a hard time transitioning from reading a book to executing the recommendations provided therein, Pollack includes convenient checkboxes to mark once each task is accomplished. Some of these may take time, like setting up an interview, but others are quite simple, such as changing one’s outgoing voicemail message to sound more professional. Overall, I found that this layout gives the reader a feeling of progress while making his or her way through the different points.
Ultimately, I found Pollak’s book to be a total wake-up call in terms of my career. Learning that 70 - 80% of jobs are found through networking provided a motivating force to get me out into the world and work for what I wanted, rather than sitting passively at my computer and waiting for listings that somehow applied to me. Obviously, a 300-page paperback cannot address all the possible pieces of advice that one would need to land a dream job, but it comes pretty close, and Pollak lists references other materials to look up for more specialized areas. I would highly recommend this book to all college seniors, especially those from liberal-arts schools that are tragically remiss in offering substantive career guidance. It will prevent them from spending some depressingly long years living in their parents’ basement.
5 Stars Procrastinators, Rejoice!
When I first bought this book last year, I was having a sort of crisis about whether or not I chose the right college major (during my fourth year no less). So I got this book, ‘The Pathfinder’ and ‘Career Match’ since they were all highly rated on Amazon. At first, I focused on the other books and this one got pushed to the side. It didn’t grab my attention because the first 5 tips weren’t exactly actions to take. However, The Pathfinder has been lengthy and Career Match took about two seconds for me to get what I can out of it.
As I lost interest in the other books, this one has really proven to be the best investment. It has great advice, and the items are broken up so you can read just a few at a time. This is really helpful, especially if you are a procrastinator like me. Lindsey starts the book out by telling you it’s okay if you’ve put off your job search, networking, fine-tuning your resume, or even, ahem, figuring out what you want to do with your life. I wasn’t expecting this little book to help me out so much, but Lindsey’s voice feels more like a really knowledgeable friend than a parent, gently reminding you to do all the things you know you should be doing already. However, she breaks everything down into manageable chunks so you don’t have any excuse not to jump on your career. If you are even considering getting this book, do it NOW and try to do a few things each week. You will feel so satisfied to check things off the list, knowing each one brings you closer to your professional career!
3 Stars well written book
This book was really helpful for me after college. I really didn’t know where I was going or what I was going to do. They don’t really teach you how to find a job in college just what you need for it! Personally for me though this site http://www.EntryLevelCrossing.com was very helpful for me in finding a job due to the fact it shows you jobs from every job board and also every employer career page. Very helpful website and again great book.
4 Stars A Godsend for Parents of Unmotivated Teens
I liked this book so much I bought 3 copies for my college-age kids. (Of course, as a Type A parent, I read and highlighted the important sections first.) What I like about this book is the fact that it is simple and unpretentious. It serves up the advice so that it is easy for even an unmotivated teen to take some action. The reader can jump into the content at any point to get directions on a specific subject. The suggested actions are finite and free-standing. And low and behold, I have seen some of Lindsey’s suggestions being implemented without much haranguing on my part. Thanks, Lindsey. I’ll save my parental ranting for another topic.
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