8 Ways to Start Your Career Search

Choosing what career path to go down is perhaps the hardest step to go through. While there are a variety of different career assessments available online, it can be difficult to navigate which ones to trust and how thorough the assessments will be. Check out the top rated assessments and ones professors advise endorse. You can take one at your school’s career center as well, where they can narrow your point of interest with you in person.  

This can vary from joining a professional fraternity to scoping out the groups that meet up according to different majors. By joining a group of people that have the same mindset—learning more about a career you all enjoy or just for the purpose of networking—you are already establishing a network of people to keep in touch with down the road when looking for a job.  

By helping out in some way, not only will you meet likeminded individuals, but it will provide a network of people that you may never have met before. Volunteer groups range in age, career, and education backgrounds. Volunteering can open doors that would have remained shut. While helping out the community, you are also helping expand the network of people you interact with and likewise, opening your eyes to challenges your local community may be facing.   

Although volunteering can be a wonderful way to meet fellow students, joining anything from a pickup soccer game to a math league can introduce you to future friends, and perhaps colleagues. 

A well-known secret is that a great way to network is while actually still working. By finding a job or internship that is client facing—such as a brand ambassador—will focus your interactions to new people. People have lasting impressions of those they worked with that they remember either did a wonderful or terrible job, so this is a great chance to prove what you are like when you work. 

Making a point to visit professors you admire during office hours not only helps your schoolwork, but is a way to build connections in the long run. Another great way to stay in touch with generations outside of your class is to tutor an underclassman. Keep in mind that the leaders of groups you may join can be great contacts in the future. 

By scoping out what’s currently available in your local town or on your campus, can narrow down what you want to focus on in the near future. It’s a way to check out what is currently available and needs immediate applicants. In addition, sometimes these boards have ads for new clubs or volunteer opportunities you may have not heard about otherwise.