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6 ways recent college graduates can enhance their online job search

Despite bleak employment outlooks, college graduates can take some simple steps to boost their chances of finding a job, a veteran career services counselor says.

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3 years ago

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Very few job applications get a positive response. Maskot/Getty Images

When recent or soon-to-be college graduates begin to seek employment, many inevitably turn to job-search and networking platforms on the internet.

The platforms include some that are college-based – such as Handshake, Symplicity GradLeaders and 12twenty – as well as networking platforms like LinkedIn and PeopleGrove. With COVID-19 having moved job searches more and more into the virtual realm, these platforms are playing an increasingly crucial role in the quest for employment.

From my vantage point as a veteran college-based career services counselor, I have also observed that many students and recent graduates don’t make the most of what these platforms have to offer.

With that in mind – and in light of reports of bleak employment prospects for new college graduates – here are six tips for recent or soon-to-be college graduates who hope to make the most of their virtual job searches.

1. Use multiple platforms

Start with the platform that has a partnership with your college. The reason is because campus-based platforms, such as Symplicity or Handshake, often list jobs that are not available on other sites.

At the same time, I recommend that college students set up profiles with one or more of the “big board” employment job posting sites, such as Indeed, CareerBuilder, SimplyHired, ZipRecruiter or Glassdoor. Among other things, these sites allow job seekers to create job search agents that push email notifications whenever new jobs that match search criteria are posted.

2. Apply frequently

Students who are new to the job search may not be applying for enough positions. I’ve recently worked with several students who have become discouraged when they applied to a few jobs and didn’t get the response they wanted.

While the number of positions a college job seeker should apply to will vary by industry, I suggest that an applicant should apply to at least two or three positions a day.

The reason I say this is because employment experts, such as Biron Clark, founder of CareerSidekick.com, estimate that only 2%-3% of employment applications result in an interview. For that reason alone, job seekers have to step up their search and networking efforts in order to increase their odds.

3. Set small daily goals

Real and perceived economic challenges created by the pandemic have led to a great deal of anxiety for job seekers. Studies have shown that extended periods of unemployment – and the risk of unemployment and underemployment – can be distressing.

Many college students with whom I have worked have expressed feelings of anxiety and being overwhelmed about their employment prospects. Some have even stopped searching for a job altogether.

To guard against giving up, I recommend that college students and recent graduates focus on small steps and daily goals. In addition to applying to a few positions a day, these goals can include conducting research regarding possible careers or networking with at least one person daily.

4. Track your progress

Create a spreadsheet to keep track of your job applications.

I believe a spreadsheet can be a motivational tool to ensure daily job hunt activity. I’ve even created a sample spreadsheet that I share with the students and alumni with whom I work. The columns on my sample spreadsheet include categories such as “Date of Application,” “Date of Screening Interview,” “Thank You Note Sent?” and “Salary Offer.”

A more sophisticated spreadsheet might include columns for when the time comes to choose between offers, such as length of commute or average rent in the city where the job is located.

5. Tap into alumni networks

Surveys indicate that up to 80% of people secure employment opportunities through networking and personal connections. For that reason, connections with alumni and others with ties to a particular school can be the key to a successful job search.

Many colleges and universities have programs to help students and alumni make connections. Some of these are closed networks exclusively for current students and verified alumni, often through service providers such as PeopleGrove and Graduway. Others are through LinkedIn, including specific university-affiliated LinkedIn groups and the popular LinkedIn Alumni Tool. This tool allows job seekers to research and connect with alumni from their alma mater based on search criteria that include geographic location, current employer, job function and industry, academic major and skills.

While networking strategies can feel like a lot of work, they are proven. Sometimes the progress is incremental. For instance, networking can lead to informational interviews, which are opportunities for job seekers to get insights from someone already working in a field or at a company of interest.

I have seen the power of networking and these informational interviews firsthand. A 2020 graduate from the school where I work landed a position as an area manager with a major logistics company in Orlando after we connected him with an alum who works for the same organization. The alum offered him an informational interview and made an internal employee referral. A formal job interview and, ultimately, a job offer soon followed.

6. Take advantage of career services

As a career services professional, I would be remiss if I failed to point out that almost every college and university has some sort of career center to help students find jobs. The vast majority offer services to alumni for life for free or for a small fee.

Evidence shows that visits to these centers are worthwhile. According to a 2016 Gallup poll, college graduates who use their college career center are more likely to obtain full-time employment – 67%, compared with 59% for graduates who did not visit career services.

Jason Eckert does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

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Low Iron Levels In Blood Could Trigger Long COVID: Study

Low Iron Levels In Blood Could Trigger Long COVID: Study

Authored by Amie Dahnke via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

People with inadequate…

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2 hours ago

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March 9, 2024

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Low Iron Levels In Blood Could Trigger Long COVID: Study

Authored by Amie Dahnke via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

People with inadequate iron levels in their blood due to a COVID-19 infection could be at greater risk of long COVID.

(Shutterstock)

A new study indicates that problems with iron levels in the bloodstream likely trigger chronic inflammation and other conditions associated with the post-COVID phenomenon. The findings, published on March 1 in Nature Immunology, could offer new ways to treat or prevent the condition.

Long COVID Patients Have Low Iron Levels

Researchers at the University of Cambridge pinpointed low iron as a potential link to long-COVID symptoms thanks to a study they initiated shortly after the start of the pandemic. They recruited people who tested positive for the virus to provide blood samples for analysis over a year, which allowed the researchers to look for post-infection changes in the blood. The researchers looked at 214 samples and found that 45 percent of patients reported symptoms of long COVID that lasted between three and 10 months.

In analyzing the blood samples, the research team noticed that people experiencing long COVID had low iron levels, contributing to anemia and low red blood cell production, just two weeks after they were diagnosed with COVID-19. This was true for patients regardless of age, sex, or the initial severity of their infection.

According to one of the study co-authors, the removal of iron from the bloodstream is a natural process and defense mechanism of the body.

But it can jeopardize a person’s recovery.

“When the body has an infection, it responds by removing iron from the bloodstream. This protects us from potentially lethal bacteria that capture the iron in the bloodstream and grow rapidly. It’s an evolutionary response that redistributes iron in the body, and the blood plasma becomes an iron desert,” University of Oxford professor Hal Drakesmith said in a press release. “However, if this goes on for a long time, there is less iron for red blood cells, so oxygen is transported less efficiently affecting metabolism and energy production, and for white blood cells, which need iron to work properly. The protective mechanism ends up becoming a problem.”

The research team believes that consistently low iron levels could explain why individuals with long COVID continue to experience fatigue and difficulty exercising. As such, the researchers suggested iron supplementation to help regulate and prevent the often debilitating symptoms associated with long COVID.

“It isn’t necessarily the case that individuals don’t have enough iron in their body, it’s just that it’s trapped in the wrong place,” Aimee Hanson, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Cambridge who worked on the study, said in the press release. “What we need is a way to remobilize the iron and pull it back into the bloodstream, where it becomes more useful to the red blood cells.”

The research team pointed out that iron supplementation isn’t always straightforward. Achieving the right level of iron varies from person to person. Too much iron can cause stomach issues, ranging from constipation, nausea, and abdominal pain to gastritis and gastric lesions.

1 in 5 Still Affected by Long COVID

COVID-19 has affected nearly 40 percent of Americans, with one in five of those still suffering from symptoms of long COVID, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Long COVID is marked by health issues that continue at least four weeks after an individual was initially diagnosed with COVID-19. Symptoms can last for days, weeks, months, or years and may include fatigue, cough or chest pain, headache, brain fog, depression or anxiety, digestive issues, and joint or muscle pain.

Tyler Durden Sat, 03/09/2024 - 12:50

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February Employment Situation

By Paul Gomme and Peter Rupert The establishment data from the BLS showed a 275,000 increase in payroll employment for February, outpacing the 230,000…

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3 hours ago

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March 9, 2024

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By Paul Gomme and Peter Rupert

The establishment data from the BLS showed a 275,000 increase in payroll employment for February, outpacing the 230,000 average over the previous 12 months. The payroll data for January and December were revised down by a total of 167,000. The private sector added 223,000 new jobs, the largest gain since May of last year.

Temporary help services employment continues a steep decline after a sharp post-pandemic rise.

Average hours of work increased from 34.2 to 34.3. The increase, along with the 223,000 private employment increase led to a hefty increase in total hours of 5.6% at an annualized rate, also the largest increase since May of last year.

The establishment report, once again, beat “expectations;” the WSJ survey of economists was 198,000. Other than the downward revisions, mentioned above, another bit of negative news was a smallish increase in wage growth, from $34.52 to $34.57.

The household survey shows that the labor force increased 150,000, a drop in employment of 184,000 and an increase in the number of unemployed persons of 334,000. The labor force participation rate held steady at 62.5, the employment to population ratio decreased from 60.2 to 60.1 and the unemployment rate increased from 3.66 to 3.86. Remember that the unemployment rate is the number of unemployed relative to the labor force (the number employed plus the number unemployed). Consequently, the unemployment rate can go up if the number of unemployed rises holding fixed the labor force, or if the labor force shrinks holding the number unemployed unchanged. An increase in the unemployment rate is not necessarily a bad thing: it may reflect a strong labor market drawing “marginally attached” individuals from outside the labor force. Indeed, there was a 96,000 decline in those workers.

Earlier in the week, the BLS announced JOLTS (Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey) data for January. There isn’t much to report here as the job openings changed little at 8.9 million, the number of hires and total separations were little changed at 5.7 million and 5.3 million, respectively.

As has been the case for the last couple of years, the number of job openings remains higher than the number of unemployed persons.

Also earlier in the week the BLS announced that productivity increased 3.2% in the 4th quarter with output rising 3.5% and hours of work rising 0.3%.

The bottom line is that the labor market continues its surprisingly (to some) strong performance, once again proving stronger than many had expected. This strength makes it difficult to justify any interest rate cuts soon, particularly given the recent inflation spike.

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Spread & Containment

Another beloved brewery files Chapter 11 bankruptcy

The beer industry has been devastated by covid, changing tastes, and maybe fallout from the Bud Light scandal.

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4 hours ago

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March 9, 2024

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Before the covid pandemic, craft beer was having a moment. Most cities had multiple breweries and taprooms with some having so many that people put together the brewery version of a pub crawl.

It was a period where beer snobbery ruled the day and it was not uncommon to hear bar patrons discuss the makeup of the beer the beer they were drinking. This boom period always seemed destined for failure, or at least a retraction as many markets seemed to have more craft breweries than they could support.

Related: Fast-food chain closes more stores after Chapter 11 bankruptcy

The pandemic, however, hastened that downfall. Many of these local and regional craft breweries counted on in-person sales to drive their business. 

And while many had local and regional distribution, selling through a third party comes with much lower margins. Direct sales drove their business and the pandemic forced many breweries to shut down their taprooms during the period where social distancing rules were in effect.

During those months the breweries still had rent and employees to pay while little money was coming in. That led to a number of popular beermakers including San Francisco's nationally-known Anchor Brewing as well as many regional favorites including Chicago’s Metropolitan Brewing, New Jersey’s Flying Fish, Denver’s Joyride Brewing, Tampa’s Zydeco Brew Werks, and Cleveland’s Terrestrial Brewing filing bankruptcy.

Some of these brands hope to survive, but others, including Anchor Brewing, fell into Chapter 7 liquidation. Now, another domino has fallen as a popular regional brewery has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

Overall beer sales have fallen.

Image source: Shutterstock

Covid is not the only reason for brewery bankruptcies

While covid deserves some of the blame for brewery failures, it's not the only reason why so many have filed for bankruptcy protection. Overall beer sales have fallen driven by younger people embracing non-alcoholic cocktails, and the rise in popularity of non-beer alcoholic offerings,

Beer sales have fallen to their lowest levels since 1999 and some industry analysts

"Sales declined by more than 5% in the first nine months of the year, dragged down not only by the backlash and boycotts against Anheuser-Busch-owned Bud Light but the changing habits of younger drinkers," according to data from Beer Marketer’s Insights published by the New York Post.

Bud Light parent Anheuser Busch InBev (BUD) faced massive boycotts after it partnered with transgender social media influencer Dylan Mulvaney. It was a very small partnership but it led to a right-wing backlash spurred on by Kid Rock, who posted a video on social media where he chastised the company before shooting up cases of Bud Light with an automatic weapon.

Another brewery files Chapter 11 bankruptcy

Gizmo Brew Works, which does business under the name Roth Brewing Company LLC, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on March 8. In its filing, the company checked the box that indicates that its debts are less than $7.5 million and it chooses to proceed under Subchapter V of Chapter 11. 

"Both small business and subchapter V cases are treated differently than a traditional chapter 11 case primarily due to accelerated deadlines and the speed with which the plan is confirmed," USCourts.gov explained. 

Roth Brewing/Gizmo Brew Works shared that it has 50-99 creditors and assets $100,000 and $500,000. The filing noted that the company does expect to have funds available for unsecured creditors. 

The popular brewery operates three taprooms and sells its beer to go at those locations.

"Join us at Gizmo Brew Works Craft Brewery and Taprooms located in Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Find us for entertainment, live music, food trucks, beer specials, and most importantly, great-tasting craft beer by Gizmo Brew Works," the company shared on its website.

The company estimates that it has between $1 and $10 million in liabilities (a broad range as the bankruptcy form does not provide a space to be more specific).

Gizmo Brew Works/Roth Brewing did not share a reorganization or funding plan in its bankruptcy filing. An email request for comment sent through the company's contact page was not immediately returned.

 

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