Finding a job in college can seem like a monumental task especially when you have a school schedule to work around. There are a lot of websites dedicated to helping people find jobs and it seems like the list of job options on them is never-ending, especially with the increasing number of remote jobs that companies are offering. There are ways to help in sorting through the clutter and making sure you get an interview for the job you really want.  

The first step is to make sure that you have a resume that will make you appealing to the job that you want to apply for. It is important to have one that showcases you in the best light and highlights your accomplishments. If it seems like you do not have anything to show off to potential employers, you need to think outside of the box a little to find something that makes you better than the rest. Coming out of college it is important to realize that your work history likely will not be the part of your resume that stands out because most students only have experience as a cashier or a server and in many cases that might be your only job you have had. In all likeliness, the main thing that will show your importance to the employer is the clubs, volunteer work, and skills you have acquired throughout your time at school along with any college classes or projects you have finished that are related to your major. Something that will help you show this is designing your resume to fit your life. A resume template can help you start but it is important to change it to what you want to showcase. If you do not have a lot of work experience but have been president of three clubs, you can switch the order to show that first rather than near the end of the document. If you are having trouble with your resume there are multiple resources offered by UND through Career Services and the Pancratz Career Development Center for business students.  

Once you have a good resume, the next step is to find a job. There are tons of job boards online, but I have found the most success with Indeed and LinkedIn. Indeed is one of the larger job boards in terms of sheer number of postings and you can find a link for nearly every industry or job from a cashier position at a department store all the way to working border security. Indeed makes it extremely easy to apply to jobs both directly on their site or by linking to the employer’s site and you can filter by title, keyword, location and more. There will be a lot of options that come up with each search so leave yourself some time to look through them and apply. If you are looking for a more professional job, another good option is going through LinkedIn. This site hosts many jobs and is a great place to find a career or internship position. I also recommend making yourself a strong profile with a professional headshot on this site as it is one of the locations employers check on you to gain some additional information when you apply. If you need a headshot, keep an eye on the UND events page as there will often be postings for free headshots for students and alumni.  

Another place to find job postings is by checking company websites directly. If you know of a company that you want to work for, they may not be posting on other job boards so you can find a decent number of options just by Googling the company name or careers. This will have some mixed results as there will be many postings for jobs that you do not qualify for or are just in a different industry, but it could be a good way to get a few other applications out.  

Once you have found the jobs you would like to apply for, the next step is tailoring your resume to what they want in applicants. It will help you adjust your resume for each job that you apply for by changing the wording to match the wording of their preferences listed in the job description. This is important because many companies use a computer to sort through the applications based on keywords matching the company’s description so you will get further in the applicant pool and show that you are exactly the candidate they are looking for.  

This goes along with creating cover letters for the different positions you apply for. If a posting says that a cover letter is optional, you should still think about writing one because in many cases this is what hiring managers look at to see if you are even worth considering. You can write your cover letter off one main document that you change for each job, so that you do not have to write a new one every time you send an application. There are a huge number of online resources for writing a cover letter along with the ability to take your cover letter with you to UND to have it reviewed.  

The last thing to keep in mind when applying for jobs is that you should not let yourself get discouraged. There will be a lot of denials when you start applying, but each one of these is not necessarily because you were a bad candidate but that they just found someone that better fit the job. There are a huge number of jobs out there and if you get denied for your dream job that could just lead to you finding an even better one down the road, so it is important to keep searching and not let yourself get deflated. 

Dylan Enerson is a Dakota Student General Reporter. He can be reached at [email protected].