5 Things Recent Grads Wish They Had Done in College for Their Careers

It’s hard to focus on the future when you’re soaking in every moment of your college life. However, many recent college grads out in the job market are looking back and wish they had prepared themselves a little better for the ever-looming “real world”. In fact, a survey conducted shows that 71% of college graduates wish they had done things differently before graduation day arrived. Thankfully, post-collegiettes are sharing what wish they had done for their career during college—here are the top 5 ways to prepare for the real world before graduation.

Use Your Resources

At Manav Rachna International University, Career Development Center works with a mission of helping students realize their full potential and help them be employable. Career Development center has good amalgamation of highly skilled faculty from the education and the corporate world.

Career Development Center works with the philosophy that a persons Employ-ability is his or her ability to do Intelligent Self Assessment with an objective of exploring personal assets (Skills, Values, Strengths, motivations etc.), explore opportunities in the market, make informed career related decisions, identify and bridge training gaps in terms of assets required for the desired jobs and current inventory of personal assets, create a compelling action plan (Effective resume, Covering letter, Preparation for Personal Interview etc.), Gain the first employment, ensure self development throughout professional career, grow in an organization and gain subsequent employments. To achieve this objective Career Development Center provides coaching on not only basic Employ-ability Skills and Business Communication but also on Personal Productivity Skills (Time Management, Problem solving, Decision making etc.), Quality (Lean, Six Sigma) and Managerial Skills (Performance Management, Effective Coaching, Team Building etc.) which are rated very highly by corporate across the world

Career Development Center plans to achieve its employ ability enhancement objectives by conducting Intensive Process Oriented classroom training and by organizing events related to both Soft and Hard Skills”

Get a schedule of all of the workshops that the career center is offering and find the ones that interest you. Motivate yourself to go by putting them in your planner and finding a friend or two to join you! You can also set up a meeting with a career counselor who can give you more information on what services they offer and how they can best help you.

Network, network, network!

Networking is one of the most important aspects of getting a job post-graduation. According to Fox Business, almost 80% of jobs are filled through networking. But many collegiettes graduate only to realize they did not make the most of the networking opportunities they had.

Vicki Salemi—author of Big Career in the Big City, founder of Career Boot Camp for College Grads and host of Score That Job on MediaBistro.com—stresses the importance of networking. “This is the one area where college students could really tap into on campus,” Salemi says. “Your network is bigger and more robust than you think! Your roommates’ parents, professors, the works!”

Vicki also reminds students that networking is not as hard as they might think. “A lot of students sometimes get overwhelmed by the notion of networking but they don't realize they -- rather, YOU, are already doing it!” she says. “It's nonchalant and doesn't have to be oh-so-formal. It could be getting to know members of your lacrosse team, going to an alumni mixer and chatting it up. All you need to do is be open and friendly to meeting new people and asking for help in terms of informational interviews, find out what they enjoy doing and why, etc. to get your foot in the door.”

Learning how to network is an essential skill to develop during your time in college. Go to networking events on campus, create a LinkedIn profile if you haven’t already, and keep a list of connections you already have (such as previous employers, family friends, and former professors). These are all resources you can turn to when working toward a career or internship opportunity!

Dream (Realistically) Big

In our society, we are told that we can do anything we put our minds to. Unfortunately, the economic recession and the crisis in the job market have made it tougher to get jobs after graduation, and many people are facing “underemployment,” or working jobs that don’t utilize the knowledge or skills they learned in college.

Many collegiettes are coming to the realization that they may have set their expectations too high straight out of college. Resham Parikh, a recent grad, says she wishes she had “aimed higher (with goals, internships, ambitions) but was more practical at the same time (knowing what was a realistic goal for the future -- what would land me a job, what could get me into graduate school, how much money I would make to live decently, etc.).”

Talk to recent college grads about what to expect after graduation. They can tell you how they landed their job, how much money it really costs to live, and what they wish they had done differently to prepare themselves.

Start Earlier

It’s easy to get so wrapped up in college life that you put off the job search. The G-word can be pretty scary, and there are tons of memories to be made during senior year. However, waiting to look for jobs until the last minute can be seriously detrimental.

According to Forbes, students should be starting the job search as early as the beginning of their junior year so that they have plenty of time to keep applying and secure a job before graduation.

Resham realizes that she and her friends were so focused on living in the present and that they put off thinking about their future. “We thought, once we graduate anything is possible -- that's what a college degree is; that's what life is,” Resham says, “but it's not true! You need to actually begin working toward your career goals in college, and even with experience you need a network of supporters.”

Take advantage of school breaks and summer vacations to start looking for career opportunities. It is never too early to see what kinds of jobs are out there! Talk to friends and family working in fields that interest you, add more people on LinkedIn, sharpen up your resume, and start perusing job sites. You can never apply to too many jobs, and the sooner you start, the sooner you will land one you love!

Do Your Research

Tons of students go into college thinking they know what they want to do with their lives. Once they start looking for jobs in those fields, often they realize it isn’t quite what they were expecting. It is important to research various fields before graduating so that you are not limited to a narrow career path.

“My advice to college students is to look ahead to your career and figure out what knowledge and skills you're going to have to know,” says 2012 grad. “The best way to do this is to ask people working in the field you're looking to go into.”

“If I could go back and re-do, or offer advice to those who are in college now, it would be to look at the jobs out there now, even if you’re a freshman,” says, a 2011 graduate. “This way, you're aware of what the market wants from recent college graduates, what you should know, and you can follow the changes and take the extra classes needed or snatch up an internship in that area.”