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The MBA Student's Job Seeking Bible: Everything You Need to Know to Land a Great Job by Graduation
by
Elizabeth Freedman
Copyright 2011 Elizabeth Freedman,
All rights reserved.
Published in eBook format by eBookIt.com
ISBN-13: 978-1-4566-0313-7
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.
The Job Search is a Marathon
On your mark....get set……
GO!
For today’s MBA student, conducting a job search today is like running a marathon. It takes time, practice, and lots of endurance. Sometimes, the job search race can seem really, really long, with no end in sight. Even worse, it can be painful.
But here’s the good news: If you get in the race, eventually you’ll finish. Like most of us, you’ll reach the finish line, and, hopefully, feel good about your accomplishment.
Here’s the problem: Too many of us treat the job search like a series of sprints, instead of the marathon it resembles. Instead of accepting the fact that the job search is a long road and we need to start running if we’re going to finish the race (which, hopefully, ends by the time we graduate!), we take action in short bursts, stopping almost as soon as we start. Like a good sprinter, we gear up for the short race, putting all of our energy into our next interview, or dashing out dozens of resumes to employers when we’re feeling productive or panicked.
Soon, however, our energy dissipates, and we need to rest, to stop…to collapse! We’re done, spent, and don’t have the resources to devote to the ongoing follow-up, networking, and relationship-building that the job search requires. Until we realize that we’ve only got a month until graduation, and then we sprint again, trying to make up for the time and distance we lost because we stopped running. Calgon, take me away!
The job search is a marathon and the sooner you start the race, the better. Unlike a sprint, you aren’t expected to find a job in a day, make hundreds of contacts in a week, or send off dozens of resumes in a flurry of energy.
The job search is a marathon because it requires a long-term, ongoing commitment to land a job that you’ll feel good about. And that takes time. Like any self-respecting marathon runner, we know that we will hit a few bumps in the road, face a few hills, and, sometimes, get on a good roll and before we know it, we’re halfway there. But we’ve got to get in the race to win it. Start today.
A Word About This Guide
What this Guide Is
No guide or manual, no matter how good, can write your resume, draft your cover letter, or call up a recruiter to sing your praises. Unfortunately, you’ve got to do that yourself.
However, this guide can help you accomplish one thing, and that’s to help you help yourself. Throughout this manual, you’ll find many powerful tools, tips, and strategies to support you in your efforts to land the very best job you possibly can after graduation. If you use this guide in the way it was intended, you’ll have plenty of exercises, activities, and other action items you’ll need to take on a regular basis in order to have a successful job search. You’ll have good ideas that you can implement to help you network, build relationships, and differentiate yourself in a competitive job market. The key here is to take action– don’t let this guide become another dust-collector in your room. Use it!
What this Guide is Not
This guide prides itself on delivering fresh, intelligent insight in a fun, humorous way – because, let’s face it, the job search can get pretty grim sometimes. It isn’t intended to cover information on topics that are written about with such frequency– like resume writing or interviewing—that you could read a book a day on one of these traditional job search tools and still not be done by the time you graduate from business school. That isn’t to suggest that we ignore the resume or cover letter in this manual (this is a job search guide, after all!) – but simply that we take it one step further for you. While we focus on the traditional job search tools, this guide also focuses on the subtleties, the unspoken rules, and the nuances of the job search. It offers ideas about the little things that get overlooked (like how to leave a good voice mail), the big things that we all need to master during the job search (like how to network when you don’t have any contacts!), and the other things that matter to MBA students.
This Guide Is Your Friend
Like a cold can of Diet Coke, this guide can provide some comfort to you when the going gets tough…and, my friend, the going always gets tough at one point or another during the job search. If you’re having a bad job search day, you didn’t get the offer, or nobody is returning your phone calls, take heart, and remember that we’ve all been there. So pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and keep taking the steps suggested in this manual. Use the exercises throughout this guide to motivate you, to inspire you, and to remind you that we all started this job search journey with a single step. You can too.
Let the Race Begin!
Start the Job Search Now
The biggest mistake students make is that they underestimate how long it will take to actually get a job. We all know that the adjustment into any MBA program is considerable, and it’s most certainly understandable that it will take time to get the hang of things. But start the job search anyway. As you adjust and get the hang of things, your job search will ‘adjust’ itself too, and you’ll get better at it.
The MBA Bottom Line
We all know that there are times when the joys of business school are few and far between – extremely few and far between. Knowing that the MBA journey can be a tough one from time to time, why bother?
Studies show again and again that we shed our blood, sweat, and tears for one reason -- to land a job after graduation that offers us a better title, more money, and more opportunity than we could have obtained otherwise.
In fact, business school represents a huge turning point for many of us – we have bigger goals, dreams, and ambitions for ourselves. Getting a job that we are proud of after graduation is a huge part of the ‘new’ plan for ourselves.
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Getting Good Grades is Good…But Getting a Good Job Offer is Better
What I’m about to say is probably not authorized by any business school in the country, but here it goes: Forget about grades! As crazy as it may sound to some of you, if you want a great job after graduation, you simply must make the job search your absolute first priority, and getting good grades is a distant second. Don’t get sucked in to caring so much about getting straight A’s that you neglect the real reason you came to business school – to get a great job.
Obviously, we’re
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