Career Strategy for Recent Graduates: Your Ultimate Guide to Success

You’ve probably spent over $100,000 getting a college education and I can bet, you’ve probably never heard the phrase, “career strategy”.  Why is it that a majority of students spend their time focusing on getting good grades and very little of it focused on planning for their career?  A career strategy for recent graduates sounds like a foreign concept when in reality it should have been the focus of college.

What You’ll Learn from This Article:

·         What a career strategy is

·         Why a career strategy for recent graduates is important

·         A career strategy guide for recent graduates

What is a Career Strategy:

Simply put, a career strategy is a plan to achieve long-term professional goals by aligning skills and actions with career opportunities.

Before you go any further, read this article for a deep dive into what exactly a career strategy is.

Why A Career Strategy Is Important for Recent Graduates:

·         Direction and Focus: Helps graduates identify and pursue clear career goals.

·         Competitive Advantage: Enhances employability by aligning skills with market demands.

·         Effective Decision-Making: Guides choices about jobs, education, and networking.

·         Career Growth: Facilitates continuous development and advancement opportunities.

·         Adaptability: Prepares graduates to navigate changes and challenges in their career path.

Now that you know what exactly a career strategy is and why a career strategy for recent college graduates is important, you are ready for a guide on how to create your career strategy.

Career Strategy Guide for Recent Graduates:

Step 1: Set Clear Career Goals

Setting goals is something everyone knows they should do, but many people don’t do.  Do you want to know why?

It’s hard setting goals when you haven’t given yourself time to think and are just trying to dive head first into whatever you think you want to be doing.

If you are a recent college graduate who’s struggling to find a job, there are a few reasons why:

-          You didn’t start thinking about jobs until your final semester in college

-          The internship you had either was something you didn’t like, or the company didn’t hire their interns

-          You realized the major you finished didn’t have great job options.

It may seem like your life is falling apart because you didn’t get a job as soon as college finished, but here’s some good news, time is on your side!  Whether you’re 22 or 23, or even in your mid 20’s, you’re still in the early stages of a career.

Now is the time to slow down, take a step back and set goals for yourself.  Whether it takes a few days, or a week or even a month, I’ll say it again, you’re still young and time is on your side.

Now, this doesn’t mean you can tell your parents you’re “working on your goals” for 6 months while you hang out in the basement playing Super Mario and eating Doritos until 3am every night.

So how can you set goals for yourself?

Here’s 3 ways to set goals:

-          Start with SMART Goals: Set Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound objectives to guide your career.

-          Break Down Long-Term Goals: Divide larger career goals into smaller, manageable tasks to track progress and stay motivated.

-          Align Goals with Values: Ensure your career goals reflect your personal interests, strengths, and values for long-term fulfillment.          

Extra Bonus Tip:

-          Log into ChatGPT, start prompting and asking questions about the industry you’re in or want to be in and what type of goals you should set.

Lastly, for even more help on setting goals, check out this article about short and long-term goals or this one about how short-term goals can lead to long-term goals.

Step 2: Build a Strong Professional Network

If you’ve ever heard the saying “It takes a village to raise a child,” I’ll give you a saying for your career, “It takes 100 villages to help you throughout your career.”

What that means is, it’s extremely important to develop a professional network.  How can you develop a network?

Well, hopefully you’ve already been doing it without realizing during your past four years in college.  Hopefully you’ve made a few friends and left good enough impressions on people in your classes that they consider you at least an acquaintance and would be willing to help you at some point if you asked them to.

Don’t start panicking if you don’t have hundreds of people in your corner, you actually only need a few “ride or die” connections to help you navigate your path.

When I was in college, I made the mistake of trying to connect with everyone and didn’t spend enough time growing the relationships so once I graduated, those people didn’t really go to bat for me when I needed help.

So, if you only have a few in your network or don’t have a network, don’t worry, here are a few tips on how you can start and grow a professional network.

Tips for Starting and Growing a Professional Network:

-          Attend Industry Events: Go to conferences, workshops, and networking events to meet professionals in your field.

-          Leverage LinkedIn: Connect with classmates, professors, and industry professionals, and engage with their content regularly.

-          Follow Up: After meeting someone, send a quick follow-up message or email to maintain the connection and build a relationship.

Step 3: Gain Relevant Experience

You’ve figured out what you want to do and have a strong professional network, now it’s time to make sure you have the experience you need to build your career.

I know your next question will be, “How can I get experience when people hiring for jobs are looking for at least a few years of experience?”

If you don’t have any internship experience in the industry you want to be in, there’s an easy solution and it should make it an easy path to gaining experience.

One word: Volunteer

I know this means you won’t make any money.  Let me be clear, I’m not telling you to volunteer for 40 hours a week for the next 10 years, this should be a short-term deal.

Here’s how you do it:

Let’s say you graduated with a degree in Public Health, don’t want to be a doctor or anything in the medical field and decided you want to be a Personal Trainer and you have no experience working in a gym.

You can go down to your local fitness center, ask if you can volunteer while you get the certification you need.  It’s hard for someone to say no to free help, so your chances of getting something are pretty good.

You can leverage this into something paying for once you’ve put your time in and showed how valuable you are to the team.  Then once you become a Personal Trainer, you have a place to start training clients.

Remember, gaining experience is not going to be easy.  You’re going to have to put in the work to get on the path that you want to be on.

Step 4: Create a Targeted Resume

Resumes are a pain point for many job seekers, and if you’re a recent graduate with little work experience, you probably feel like your resume is well…naked.

Before we get into why you should have a targeted resume, it’s important to make sure you include enough information to get your resume close to a page.  Whether it’s volunteer experience, a summer job from your freshman or sophomore year of college or a part time job working for a family member, if it makes sense to include it, put it on there.

In my resume writing career, I’ve seen a number of college graduates with no resume at all and had to help them put one together.  Getting enough information out of them to fill a page was harder than trying to get my 5 year old dressed and out of the house for school.

Long way of saying, even if you think your experiences aren’t good enough, put them on your resume.  Ask ChatGPT to help put it together if you’re struggling.  (Sorry resume writers).

Now, why should you have a targeted resume?

Having a targeted resume does a few things:

-          It helps give you a chance against the Applicant Tracking System (this is the computer system that looks at your resume once you hit “apply” on an online application)

-          Helps people to know exactly what you’re looking for

-          Helps you tell a story during the interview process

Here’s 3 tips on how to create a targeted resume:

-          Customize for Each Job: Tailor your resume to highlight the skills and experiences most relevant to the job you're applying for.

-          Use Action Verbs: Start bullet points with strong action verbs like "led," "created," or "improved" to showcase your impact.

-          Showcase Achievements: Focus on accomplishments rather than just duties, and quantify results when possible (e.g., "Increased social media engagement by 30%").

Step 5: Develop Soft Skills

There are two types of skills that employers look for when hiring, soft skills and technical/job specific skills.  We’ll get to the job related skills in just a minute, but first it’s important to focus on your soft skills.

What are soft skills you ask?

Think of them as things that make you a better person; communication skills, problem-solving and critical thinking skills; work ethic and flexibility, to name a few.

You don’t need to be a Harvard or Oxford or Seton Hall graduate to gain these skills (I know Seton Hall doesn’t fit there but I’m making myself feel good as a Seton Hall grad).  Whether you graduated from a community college or an Ivy league school, you can pick up soft skills.

It might not be easy to learn how to be a better communicator, or develop a work ethic, but it can certainly be done.

For example, I didn’t have great communication skills early on in college. (My wife will tell you I still don’t have great communication skills but let’s leave her out of this).  I wanted to improve, so I joined my college radio station and put myself in a position where I had to become a good communicator.

That being said, these soft skills take some self-reflection.  You’ll need to identify your strengths and weaknesses and see which skills you have and which you need to improve.

If you’re someone who was born with every soft skill that employers are looking for, I guess you can skip this step.  Everyone else, should really focus on building these skills.

3 Tips for Building Soft Skills:

-          Seek Feedback: Ask for input from peers and mentors to identify areas for improvement and practice regularly.

-          Take on New Challenges: Step out of your comfort zone by volunteering for new tasks or roles that require soft skills.

-          Practice Active Listening: Focus on truly understanding others during conversations to improve communication and empathy.

Step 6: Continue Learning

Remember those technical and job related skills I was talking about?  This is where you make sure you are up to speed on those.

Just because you are a college graduate, it doesn’t mean you’ll never have to learn anything again…unfortunately.

We’re in a world where Generative AI is changing everything, and it’s always changing, so if you don’t have any skills that you can think about wanting to learn, find some training about GenAI and take those, you won’t regret it.

Here’s a tip if you’re struggling to find a job, companies value candidates who have relevant technical skills even if you don’t have a job that’s necessarily a technical job.

For example, if you graduated with a Teaching degree and are struggling to find a job, having knowledge of the latest educational technology can give you an advantage on your competition.

So, where can you go to learn new skills after graduating:

-          LinkedIn Learning (this blog is not sponsored by LinkedIn, but if they want to sponsor reach out!)

-          Coursera

-          YouTube

*If you value your money, don’t go back to college unless there’s a specific and good reason.

Step 7: Find a Mentor

This last step may be difficult, but it could really help transform your career and lead you to success in the future.

Finding a mentor who has been successful in your industry could help you to learn what to do and what not to do along the way. 

So how can you find a mentor?

Here Are 3 Ways to Find a Mentor:

·         Reach Out to Alumni: Connect with successful alumni from your school who are in your desired field and ask for advice.

·         Join Professional Groups: Participate in industry-specific organizations or online communities where mentorship opportunities often arise.

·         Be Direct and Respectful: When approaching a potential mentor, be clear about your goals and show genuine interest in learning from their experience.

What to Do After Reading This Article:

For additional resources on how to create a career strategy, check out this article as it will give you a career strategy roadmap that will put you in the drivers seat to owning your career.

If you are struggling with your job search and need help our team at Your Career Strategy is here to help.  You can book a FREE 45 minute call with our talented Career Coaches by clicking here.

Developing a career strategy is not an easy task, especially as a recent graduate, but with the information from this article and some hard work, we have faith you can do it!