We’re no stranger to new endeavors here at Community Care College. In fact, we fully welcome and encourage each of our students joining us in pursuit of a new career or set of skills. But what to do when entering a new job market you’re unfamiliar with? Well, you can start by looking at how your competitors are doing it. We’ve put together a few job hunting tips for the experienced job seeker embarking on a new career path.
This isn’t the first time we’ve considered taking a page out of the millennial handbook. Millennials comprise nearly half of the U.S. workforce, and it’s likely the dawn of millennial C-suite executives is not far away. Your next set of coworkers—maybe even your bosses—will be keen on things like work-life balance, company mission statements, and actually using all of your vacation days.
Here’s an inside look how Millennials approach the job search:
- One of the top characteristics of job seeking millennials is not experience, per se, but eagerness and opportunity for experience. Millennials crave the opportunity to experience new office cultures, learn new skills, and contribute to a greater mission. Another characteristic? An endless optimism that this will always be possible.
- It’s important to have clarity before diving into your job search. Millennials know that having clarity on what they want out of a company or a position will help to avoid the “take what you can get” mentality that most often leads to dead-end temp jobs. When possible, millennials hold out for the position that fits right with their morals, career goals, and talents.
- Another millennial characteristic is the art of succinctness. Though this is possibly attributable to the era of Twitter and text messaging, there’s still a lot to be said for the ability to make your point in as few sentences as possible. Enter: the elevator pitch. An elevator pitch is your own personal mission statement. Bosses and hiring managers today are stretched thin, and if they can know why you’re interviewing and what you can offer them within the first few minutes of meeting you, the better you’ll fare against fellow candidates.
- Another hack to owning the job search is to not be afraid of letting your friends, family, and extended network know about your career change. Millennials are social beings. They love to share ideas and learn new things, and these traits inevitably lead to meeting new people almost daily. This might give them a bit of an edge when it comes to a well-rounded network of possible job connections, but that doesn’t mean you can’t leverage your own network. The majority of your circle might be more familiar with your old career, but you never know who those folks might know in your new intended field. Don’t underestimate the power of an extended-network referral!
- Lastly, gone are the days of sterile resumes. This doesn’t mean you need to hire a graphic designer to make your resume frame-worthy. It just means that you can feel free to let your personality and quirks shine through. Millennials value personal style, and hiring managers count on it to differentiate among highly qualified candidates. The bottom line is that it’s more than likely that multiple applicants will be a great fit for a role. The key is to make yourself stand out in some way by personalizing your application and highlighting what makes you a team asset. This is where you can use your experience to your advantage, showcasing on-the-job skills that millennials might not have had the chance to gain yet, like people skills and project management.
Your courage to take a risk and pursue new opportunities are commendable characteristics that already put you a head above the rest. Keep it going with a degree and a new set of transferrable skills from Community Care College. Request more info here!