So you’ve graduated from college. The parties are over, the cake eaten, the real diplomas sent in the mail. And now you’re sitting in your parents’ basement, reading this at 3 am in your bathrobe between checking out Yahoo Personals and vainly searching the classifieds for jobs that don’t involve copious amounts of data entry. It’s okay—you’re not alone.

You’re probably asking the eternal question right now—how do I get a job? What mysterious quality are employers looking for that I don’t have? What will set me apart from all the other college grads out there?

Young padawan, job seeking is a long and arduous road… frighteningly arduous. I’ve been on both sides, actually. I’ve interviewed many times, both for jobs and scholarships, and have also been the interviewer a few times. Here are a few things I’ve observed in my own experiences, boiled down for your reading pleasure:

• Get your act together. Nobody is perfect, but prospective employers out there would like to think you are. Make sure your resume looks sharp and clean, with no spelling or punctuation errors, on nice stationary paper. Research the job—by the end of the interview process, you should practically be able to quote the organization’s website verbatim. The point is not to be a perfectionist, but to show that you care enough about the job to put some effort into it.
  
• A continuation of above, worth repeating—research the job. Your resume and cover letter should recycle “buzz words” from the position description (if you don’t already tailor each resume you send to the specific position, you should). When you interview, you should know enough about the kind of qualifications they’re seeking to anticipate some of the interview questions. It is just like taking the GRE, I’ve found—the key to the “job exam” is prephrasing their questions and knowing what answers they’re looking for.
  
• Know how to state your qualifications. When an employer in an interview asks you about how you handle conflict, for instance, you want to take an experience from a previous job where you dealt with conflict and plug it into your answer. Take a few seconds to pause and gather your thoughts before answering—it is better to wait a second and then give a clear, relevant answer that demonstrates your experience rather than stumble around the question or babble incessantly about nothing.

• Always be positive!!! If they ask you about something where you have no relevant experience, be honest, but confident in your ability to learn. Perhaps even refer them back to a job where you had to learn something from scratch. I can always talk about my experience as an English major giving guided tours about hydropower production as an example of my ability to quickly learn new information. And if you hated your last job, for heaven’s sake, don’t tell them that!! Focus on the positive!
  
• Finally, be enthusiastic. If you really feel called to a particular job, let them know how much you want it. My former supervisor still mentions this as the most memorable moment of my interview for NNPCW: I sat across the table from her in her office, looked her straight in the eye, and told her with conviction that I wanted to work for her. I wasn’t necessarily the most qualified person for the NNPCW internship. But throughout the process, I worked to show them that I wanted it. I felt called to the position, and I let them know it.

The bad news is that even if you really do all this stuff, you still may not get a particular job. Sometimes you can’t know what is going on in the heads of employers, or what they’re really looking for in a candidate. I firmly believe, though, that the Spirit is at work in these decisions. You will feel the leading and calling of God somewhere, regardless of the profession. If this job is where you’re supposed to be, you’ll end up there. The above tips might just help you along the way.

“But strive first for the realm of God and its righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.” --Matthew 6:33

Kelsey