Like Spring Break trips, cell phones for six-year-olds,  and $4 lattes, taking the summer off after graduating from college seems like the thing to do.  It must have something to do with all the pain and suffering one has to fight through on college campuses today.   Summer is about on us, graduation speeches are being ghost written, and practiced…except for Ann Curry.  Young 22 and 23 year olds are starting to search for that all-important first job.  Here are some quick tips:

1. Sending out resumes to openings you see on the mega Job boards will get you zero interviews. That sounds like a generalization but go ahead and try it.   It won’t work.  Far better to use our LinkUp.com, the job search engine that only grabs jobs off over 20,000+ company websites.  (About 70% of them are never advertised elsewhere!)

2. Ask your parents, their friends, your friends’ parents and their friends for references and ideas. It seems to me that the fastest way in the door is with a reference, preferably from a friend. It almost always works.

3. If you do get an interview, show up. SHOW UP. Too many times, we see people who just reek of I-don’t-really-want-a-job attitude.  It is so easy to be the one person who wants to work.

4.  Job hunting is a lot like work.  You can’t do it later and you can’t do it from Europe.  Approach it like it is YOUR job and you will be miles ahead.

5.  Interview for the jobs YOU DO NOT WANT. This is absolutely a must do thing. What it gives you is practice for the real interview for the real job you want. Think of it as legal practice.