Graduates Avoid These 6 Early Career Pitfalls

Graduates Avoid These 6 Early Career Pitfalls The summer can be an exciting time for a young job seeker, especially if youre fresh off of college graduation and ready to embark on your professional career journey.As you head out in search of your first job, set yourself up for long-term success by avoiding these common early career pitfalls1. Dont Let Your Parents Get Involved in Your Job SearchAt the most, your parents should be providing you with one-on-one guidance from the comfort of your home. Mom or dad should not be applying to jobs for you. They should not be perfecting your resume. They should not be editing your LinkedIn profile. They should definitely neverattend an interview with you or negotiate your salary for you.2. Dont Let Your Social Media PresenceSabotage Your SearchEmployers will look at more than your resume. Regardless of how you feel about the practice, they will look at your social media profiles as well. You dont want to have any content on your accounts that mightmake employers turn you down. Get in there and scrub you profiles clean of anything controversial.3. Dont Be Afraid of the PhoneI cant tell you how often an employer has said to me, Wow I wish the candidate would learn how to answer their phone. If youre applying for jobs, you may get calls from phone numbers you dont recognize. Answer politely and pleasantly and maybe even give your name up front. An uncomfortable Hello? is no way to begin a conversation with your future boss.4. Dont Be LateEarly in your career,your real-world experience is slim. You have little evidenceof the value you can provide an employer. But you do have one easy way to boost your credibility Always show up on time.5. Dont Ask for More Money Without a Good ReasonOnce youre in your job, dont go around hinting that you should be paid more. The time to negotiate was before you started.Now, youve agreed to work for what theyre paying you. Nobody is planning to pay you more just because youre the smartest, fastest, or best at the job you were hired to do. Earning a raise requires going above and beyondyour job description.6. Dont Expect Automatic PromotionsIt would be nice if we all got a aufsteigen every two years, but thats not how it works. Making your way up the ladder takes time, and it requires you to take on new responsibilities. If you start managing a team, for example, or take over a new area, then maybe youll get that promotion.Early in your career, it is smart to take the time to learn as much as you can. Doing so will contribute to the long-term success of your career.A version of this article originally appeared onCopeland Coaching.Angela Copeland is a career coach and CEO at her firm,Copeland Coaching.

Can Your Social Media Activity Prevent You From Getting The Job

Can Your Social Media Activity Prevent You From Getting The JobCan Your Social Media Activity Prevent You From Getting The JobWe do like to talk a lot about how beneficial social media can be for the unemployed Average Joe scouting for an opening at a company they really want to work for. Most of the job scouting actions and processes have been transferred to the virtual environment, making a transition from being physical to being digital. There are websites dedicated to recruitment which benefit both the employer and the future employee.But, above all, we can also uniquely and creatively make use of the other tools in the online environment at our disposal. Social media can be useful for so many other things except for liking Auntie Bettys latest photographic evidence of the unmatchable beauty of her cat (for instance). All in all, digital job hunting has been completely blown out of proportions.Theres no secret that its helped many people land positions, even prestigious positions , because said people knew how to manipulate the material to their advantage. They created subtle resumes out of the display of their hobbies, likes, activities, and timeline. Moreover, the job scouting process itself can be just a little bit easier if youre capable of looking up the company with one simple search on Twitter and getting in contact with them.However, as the yin to its yang, we can talk about some kind of weaknesses too. Social media might be helpful in the hands of the aspiring employee, but what does it look like to the recruiting company?How Does It Happen?According to a survey conducted using May of 2015 as a reference, over 50% of employers at present use social media as ways to filter through their job candidates. The numbers are a blatant improvement when laid out next to previous years, which only proves that the attention we pay to our harmless hobbies will only need to be greater in the future.Social media is a good way for the employer to learn more about t he aspiring applicant. The information they seek can vary from resume-related ones, such as qualifications, skills, and hobbies More often than not, they also end up turning towards the slightly more personal of it all in order to get a rounded, general idea of their personality as well.Youd be surprised by the number of things you can learn about a person through their social media profile. Things such as relationship status, religion, past workplaces, and schools, theyre pretty much a click away from becoming parte of anyones knowledge baggage.A silver lining to all this, we suppose, is that the employers are no Sherlock Holmes. They wont overanalyze the existence of a mere picture and dig into the specific details behind it or try to find vices where the naked eye cant see them. More than two-thirds of the employers that were part of the aforementioned survey declared that they would, and have had, rejected applications in the past after giving a quick browse through a candidates social media profile. Usually, these were the main reasonsShared inappropriate photographs or information 46%Posted photos about them drinking or using drugs 41%Posted negative comments about your previous employer or co-workers 36%Demonstrated poor communication skills 32%Posted discriminatory comments related to race, religion, gender, 28%Its not even personal because it makes sense for anyone to automatically reject from their vicinity anything that might not benefit their reputation or affect the development of the business.What Can I Do?Weve opened up this article with a pretty pressuring and poignant question. Well, can it? It definitely can. But you can also try to avoid putting yourself in any kind of trouble. The obvious first step is to avoid having your content part of either of the categories written above, but the options dont end here. In fact, theyre extended enough to allow for a change of vibes and turn social media into that powerful ally we all know it as.Wa tch Your ContentSome experts in the field cannot stress the importance of becoming yourself the filter that keeps the negative posts at bayrumbaum in order to not leave the wrong impression on anyone visiting your profile. Social media profiles, like Twitter or Facebook, tend to show up among the first results on the first of pages. All it takes is a single Google search with your name and your content becomes available to everyone, an exact mirror of your personality, thoughts, and beliefs.If you act as the filtering tool yourself, theres nothing to worry about, of course. Aside from removing anything that might seem discrediting or inappropriate, its also recommended that you dont keep anything involving complaints about previous bosses or workplaces.Keep Moral StandardsHeres something that not that many counselors talk about plagiarism. In a time when copyright is becoming such a pressuring issue, how much attention you pay to it and respect it is something that a future employer might be really fond of. If you post a photograph not belonging to you, always have it credited.If Theres A Reputation, Make It GoodThis is an wahlfrei step. If youre not active in your online environment, thats perfectly fine. But if you are, make sure that there are only words of praise. And as a little bonus, its good to try to have an online presence because it surely brings some extra points in the employers eyes.Social media is a double edged sword in the process of recruiting. It can be your most powerful weapon or your biggest liability. Pay careful attention on what you want to share because your future employer might eventually see it.Share Your Feedback or Ideas in the Comments