We want to walk out of college knowing what’s ahead of us is “dab” worthy and what’s behind us was worth it. But, alas, Recruiting Season.
For those that aren’t familiar, recruiting season occurs for all college students. It occurs at different times of the year, but the season evokes similar emotions in all junior and senior college students.
For juniors, the burden is feeling like you have to make the most “optimal” decision in order to be set-up for the job you actually want next year but didn’t qualify for this year.
For seniors, the burden to place yourself in the most “ideal” scenario, to actually make your college experience, and your ungodly high GPA, that was formulated on less sleep and less socialization, worth something.
Recruiting Season. It’s like a Chicago winter.
Here’s five ways to overcome the woes of recruiting season.
1. Review the foundation of your expectations. Why are you applying to these sales positions? Why do you have to work at a Big 3 consulting firm? Is this what you want or is this what everyone else is doing, and it’s, therefore, the “right” way.
2. Bottom line measure for success. After you’ve verified that your career pursuits are a manifestation of your dreams only, then consider what’s the scale of this aspiration? You may want to do consulting, but perhaps a Brighthouse [80 employees] over a Bain [10,000 employees] makes more sense for you. Consider what are the minimum requirements for you to be happy without specificity. Ex: Consulting at a small company that has an opportunity for international travel vs. Brand strategy consulting at BCG in the Chicago office with a guarantee of working in Switzerland for a month.
Consider this your career MVP. You’ve got to start somewhere.
3. Know Your Why. This is extremely difficult to dissect without self-reflection. Hence why the most common answer to “why consulting” is “because I love problem-solving”. LOL. Everyone is problem-solving, from people in Human Resources to the janitorial staff, heck especially the maintenance and the janitorial staff. So, problem-solving as an answer to why you want to be somewhere is not good enough for any position. You're why should be personal and nearly irreplicable. Your interviewer should be surprised by your answer.
Try the 5 why’s exercise. Start your first why with “Why do I want to work in XYZ position. Do this until you know your WHY.
4. Be open to “similar” roles. This is where transferable skills are needed and you can discover those through mind mapping. Right now, you’re in a river with your ideal position. When you outline and discover your transferrable skills, then an ocean of opportunity awaits. Here’s a quick example of how transferrable skills can change your trajectory.
Personal Anecdote
I had three internships, two with an accounting firm and the other in a finance program. At face value, I should be working in financial services at most. However, I ended up with offers and final round interviews from
- The NFL — Junior Rotational Program
- NBCUniversal — Ad Sales Rotational Program
- BlackRock — Operations Analyst
- EY — People Advisory Service Consultant
- Indeed — Associate Product Manager Rotational Program
All of those positions are so different but so similar. Each of them required skills I gained over the course of my four years of college — leadership, strategy, communication, negotiation, and data analytics. Those are five simple yet unobvious transferrable skills that I was able to unearth through my mind-mapping process. Of course, there were others, but these were the ones I wanted to use after college, which was the key.
5. Audit your resume. Do this every time you apply for a position. A tailored resume takes time but yields dividends. Deciding to step outside of what you know to be certain requires changes and adaptability. If you need assistance updating your resume, check out my friend Nigel who does resume creation.
Recruiting season is brutal. Practicing self-preservation and taking these five actions will help you overcome the woes of recruiting season.
