If you have recently completed an academic program at college or university, it can be difficult to translate your academic work into the skills and experience needed to land your dream job. Many academic programs, especially those in the arts and humanities, do not traditionally include experience based training and employment skills development. This leads to the classic post-graduation dilemma. You can’t get the job you want without experience. You can’t get the experience you need without the job.
In order to get the experience and skills required to land your dream job, you need to become employment ready. The first step is to learn what experience and skills are needed to succeed in your dream job. Next, determine whether an internship or volunteer position will help you land that job. If you need additional certification or qualifications, or can’t find the right internship or volunteer position, look for an experience based educational program that will give you the experience and skills you need. It is common for college and university graduates to obtain practical, skill based education. Invest in yourself and what you offer to potential employers.
Evaluating Your Options
The best experiential learning opportunities are found outside of traditional academia. Private colleges and technical institutions offer many attractive experience based programs that promise employment readiness. The best programs often include strong practicum and industry support for students and new graduates.
Try to find a program that minimizes overlap with your previous education. Look for programs that give you concrete skills and experience. Take the time to review the potential curriculum. Make sure that you will be investing in building new employable skills, rather than rehashing old academic experiences. This is especially important if you are considering a program at a technical institute, as many students enter technical programs out of high school and require some amount of academic polish to accompany their experiential training. Research your options and ask tough questions. This will save time and money in the long run.
A final consideration is opportunity cost. Unfortunately, the old adage is true. Time is money. If you can finish a program in one year instead of two, you will be able to start building your career and collecting a pay check sooner. Look for programs that allow you to study year round. Look at the number of in-class and direct instruction hours. Ask how the program you are considering gives you the skills you need to succeed. Keep employability in mind. Try to look at potential programs from the view point of potential employers.
What Should You Look For?
What is experience and skill based education? Rhodes Wellness College, an industry leading coaching, counseling and wellness college, is a great example. It is a pioneer in experiential education. Students build critical coaching, counseling and wellness skills by applying the tools and theories they learn to themselves and others. Students become great coaches and counselors by engaging in hands-on training. Students with diverse backgrounds coach and counsel each other, helping other students while other students help them. This unique process builds skills, experience and confidence. It also leads to tremendous personal growth. Students learn how to succeed personally and professionally.
Rhodes Wellness College also maintains relationships with employers and continually updates curriculum and teaching methods so that graduates are employment ready from day one. All of their diploma programs include an applied practicum, utilizing a strong network of employers within the coaching, counseling and wellness fields. All of this translates into post-graduation employment rates consistently higher than 80%, and at times greater than 95%.
Best of Both Worlds
The great news is that students and new graduates that have a traditional academic education, as well as industry specific skills and experience, are highly valued by employers. They offer the best of both worlds. By consciously investing and building your own skill set and experience, you will land the job of your dreams and succeed!
By: Neil Mangan
Posts Tagged ‘Dream Job’
Done School? Get the Experience You Need to Land Your Dream Job
January 14th, 2010Job Searching Online – Best Way To Grab Your Dream Job
January 3rd, 2010Scouring the local papers for best job choices is something your older siblings may have done while visiting the consultancy went out with your parent’s outdated music sense, so welcome the new-age online job hunting facilities for your self – and grab the best of the Internet’s endless range and reach! Who knows – your dream job may be in virtual space itself – just a click away, so why not begin today?
We bring you tips and hints on landing the perfect job of your choice and how to do it safely, conveniently and in the comfort of your home: all you need is basic qualifications to hunt for a particular job, a PC and internet connectivity and of course, the time and patience to search these online. There is really no dearth of job portals and websites advertising thousands of jobs online from various local business chapters (in your town or city) to national and even international job postings, so you have endless variety at your disposal and no dearth of choices when it comes to deciding on a field of work – all thanks to the internet and how its brought the world closer!
No more scanning and circling the classified ads section in your local paper and building up paper trash in the home or having someone cut out a recipe or comic strip out of the section you’d marked out to apply: now with a click of the mouse and entering the top keyword phrases in the fast search engines on the net, you can get instant access to the best job portals in your country and even international job openings! Isn’t that a great advantage of technology and changing job hunting environments? No scouring newspapers, visiting consultancies, walking around job fairs at exhibition grounds simply to gain access to the hottest, best-paying and advanced job opportunities – all you need to do is register online (free and paid sites exist, so choose the kind that suits you) with some personal particulars, like academic qualifications, interest areas, personality traits or perhaps an online query form for some jobs –and voila! You’re there!
From working within your state to going out of the country for a special assignment (ideal for those that love traveling and visiting new places, cultures and picking up new skills on the job), you can choose jobs offering different scope of growth and roles when hunting online, so get there and start clicking!
You may initially feel hesitant about parting with personal information like your name, age, address and contact number or even social security number that job site forms ask you for, but verify the authenticity of the job portal and fill these in for their records, which are confidential and used to contact you and for company records (of those looking to hire) besides your educational background and any employment highlights that may impress potential employers – and you can rest assured of receiving good job offers every week or month from the job websites.
By: Abhishek Agarwal
Dreams Come True – Especially A Dream Job
December 30th, 2009There are a lot of people out there who dream, but only a few are willing to work on their dreams and make them come true. If you want to land your dream job then you may have to make short-term sacrifices. And boy, will it be worth it!
What To Dream
For example, maybe you are a janitor and you dream of becoming the president of the bank. It’s going to be a step-by-step process, moving towards your goal. So,if you want to land your dream job then you must use your money wisely and get the education and training you will need to achieve this prestigious goal.
You work to save the money that you earn from being a janitor and invest it in your business education – you are on the first step of your dream – so, celebrate, many people don’t even start!
Be In The Right Place
Whilst you are getting that business education, you can apply for a lesser position in the company where your dream job exists. When you are in that lesser position in the right company doing a great job will then provide you with opportunities to make your moves over time.
And at some point in time, you will become the vice president of the company and then eventually you will become the president. What you just did is land your dream job. This is your dream and you wanted it to happen and you planned your course of action and you worked on it. Focused action towards a real and possible goal.
You have to make sure that you will put in the necessary effort to make things happen in a deliberate and focused way with all your attention and effort. Then, anything is possible, because everyone started at the bottom once.
Dreams Come True – Only If You Work At Them!
You can not simply sit and expect to land your dream job out of nowhere. If you want your dream to happen then you have to work hard at it. You have to make sure that you are covering all the necessary requirements to make your dream a reality.
If you are a teaching assistant in the university, who wants more, then you must seek a level higher education that helps you on your way to becoming the Dean. You also have to deliver the teaching hours requirement if you want to go up the university ladder.
Studying hard, putting the hours in all along a planned path will get you there. Many people don’t do this and fall by the wayside with complaints of unfairness and other excuses. Good luck and fortune often comes to those who put the effort in, so that at the end of the day, you will be able to be successful enough to land your dream job once and for all.
Put In The Dream Job Effort
It’s about working hard and making sacrifices – yet you don’t have to kill yourself. Work smart too. By focusing your actions and leveraging your time and resourcefulness, you can take shortcuts.
A dream job is accessible to everyone. A job where you love getting up each morning to face the great challenges of your working day. A day where you will feel fulfilled and you will truly be a round peg in a round hole and not the other way round.
The time is yours, the time is now. What are you waiting for?
By: Martin Haworth
