The availability of employment right now is abundant, with many companies hiring entry-level positions with great benefits and bonuses. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that “Thus far this year, monthly job growth has averaged 561,000” (“The Employment Situation-September 2021”). This is all great news for fourth-year students and recent graduates, but deciding what position and company to apply to can still be nerve-racking. Here are a few tips for finding and selecting which role and company are perfect for you.

Research the Company and Role

Knowing more about the company’s goals, mission statement, and culture can help determine if you see yourself working there. Because of the internet, all of these questions can usually be answered in as quick as five minutes. But if you’re looking to do a deeper dive, search news articles written about the company. This can be helpful in discovering what the company might do for the surrounding community or give a non-bias view of the company’s work.


Also, you can do a simple google search of the position title to know more about their specific duties and maybe even salary data. A great resource that you can utilize is O*Net (https://www.onetonline.org/). You can also use websites like LinkedIn, where you can find more open positions with that job title and even alumni that work there, which we will get to later.

Talk to your Professors / Advisors

One of the great aspects of going to a smaller college or university is the opportunity to connect with professors and advisors on a more personal level. Often too, these professors and advisors have connections to major companies and businesses in the area.

Talking with a professor or advisor can lead to more insights about what the company does, and many of them may have experience working there or collaborating with the business. If you’ve had the opportunity to make a great connection with these mentors, they might even give you suggestions on companies and positions to apply for based on your personality, work ethic and experience. All and all, growing your network with professors and advisors can also lead to a network of better opportunities.

Connect with Alumni that work there

It may be intimidating at first, but something as simple as a message sent on LinkedIn can lead to not only important information but a great connection. Alum can give you inside information about the interview process, give you the names of hiring managers to personalize your cover letters, and so much more. Lexi, and recent LVC alum, says more about why reaching out to alumni is beneficial to searching and applying for a career.

Reaching out to alumni is so important. Alumni can really put your hopeful career into perspective outside of an academic setting. They can provide great tips for application success since they have already been in your shoes.

Lexi Shriner ’19

If you feel more comfortable talking to someone offline, ask a professor if they have any alumni they still connect with that might be willing to talk over the phone or even meet in person. 

Update your Resume

This may look different for everyone. Some might update their resume constantly, while others might not have touched their resume since getting it reviewed for FYE class. Look over your resume and think about what you might want to add or highlight.

What do you really want the employer to see when they first look at your resume? Maybe you completed an internship with responsibilities that are very similar to the job description of the full-time position. This is something to put high up on your resume, so employers have no problem finding your experience. Tailoring your resume for that specific career can help the employer easily align your talents with the company’s goals and ultimately lead to the next step, an interview.

The Breen Center is here to help!

The process of applying for full-time positions after graduation is a challenging and stressful task. It is easy to feel like you have no idea what to do sometimes, but that’s why the Breen Center is here to help. Make an appointment to speak with a career coach or stop by for drop-in hours to meet with a career peer. Sometimes all you need is that extra boost of confidence to know that you’re making the right decision, and the Breen Team can help you develop that confidence.

“The Employment Situation-September 2021.” Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S Department of Labor , 8 Oct. 2021, https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/empsit.pdf.