The Drew Dillon

I now have four roommates, two of us have jobs and the other two are looking… Watching their journey through job sites, newspapers, chamber of commerce, and various other job listings I have realized a few important points to remember when looking for that first job.

1. Approach the job search as a sale – You can easily relate every step of a job search to that of a sale to a client. When your looking for a prospective employer you are aligning your needs with their needs (lead generation and qualifying), When you submit your resume and begin communication your showing your product (YOU!) which is just like pitching your solution to a client. And finally when you have the prospective employers attention now your negotiating and finding if this will be a win-win for both parties. I know I broke this down quite roughly, but my point is sell yourself! Know their needs and show how you can exceed them!
2. Have confidence in yourself - If you don’t have confidence in yourself, then why would an employer ever have confidence in you! We’re past the days of summer jobs, in which we applied for jobs where employers just needed warm bodies to fill spots. Employers are in a hard position and they need some faith that if they give you work it will come back better then they expected. Sit down and write out your experiences. Ask yourself, what did you love doing? Why did you love doing it? How was the outcome? Once you find what your passionate about and what really generates that passion you can begin to look for it in positions employers are in need to fill. Now it will be much easier to talk about why you would be so great at this position and what in your past shows that you can excel at it!
3. Find a way to differentiate yourself! – The web has given us more access to information then ever before. Use it to you advantage! What you know yourself is important, but what is even more important… how fast you can learn and solve a problem! So you are not that technical savvy… no need to avoid building a LinkedIn page, or search for people in your field on Twitter… Get on these applications, experiment, read articles online about them, and LEARN! I bring up social media, but there are many ways to differentiate yourself, and you should use the ones that apply best to your field of interest (I feel social media can apply to them all! )

I’d love to hear more about what people have had success with themselves in finding a job. How did you differentiate yourself? Do you have any friends in this position, and what are they doing right now? The economy isn’t helping us much, but now is the time to really help each other!

Generation Y, Work Generation Y, job search, social media