This is part of a 3-part post series I did on getting your dream job. Click to read Part 1 and Part 2.

The main difference between interview for an entry level job and interviewing for a professional career is in the former they just want you to be competent enough to do the job, and in the latter they want you to be the best to do the job.

If you want the grown-up gig, you gotta shine.

I know that hundreds of candidates apply for every job posting listed online. This is one of the hazards of the internet: ANYONE can press send on a form to submit their resume and hope for the best. If you’re one of the lucky few to make the cut and get called for an interview, you better impress them twice as much in person because competition is fierce.

I think the most important factor to set you up for a successful interview is to research the company and the position you’re going for. In the 48hrs between the time I received the call and my actual interview, I learned:

- every department in the business, and every service offered by the department I was applying to.

- the history of the business, including the founders, most prominent researchers, and how it contributed to the growth of the city over the past 100 years.

- the hierarchy and who was the most important players.

- who held my position previously, what he did well, and why he left.

- what specific responsibilities the job entailed.

In the interview, how much I had researched was noticed more than once by the interviewers. It was clear that I had spent a lot of time exploring the position and what would be expected of me. I think they were impressed by how thorough I was.

Researching the position will also provide you with everything you need to ask questions of the interviewers. In What Color Is Your Parachute? 2012: A Practical Manual for Job-Hunters and Career-Changers
the author says the most successful interviews are the ones in which each party talks 50% of the time. If they’re asking all the questions, you’re not going to get this ideal balance, so make sure to come with a list of your own. I asked specific things like what were the expectations of the course I’d be helping with, and who would be training me on the job.

Other little tips include:

- your answers should be between 20 seconds and 2 minutes in length. This ensures both that you’re not too abrupt, and that you don’t ramble.

- don’t fidget! It’s hard to resist when you’re nervous, but you must. I tied my hair back in a ponytail because I have a tendency to finger-comb my elbow-length blonde locks in a distracted, valley-girl sort of fashion whenever I get antsy.

- it’s better to overdress than underdress. I spent nearly 2 hours on twitter taking pictures of every outfit I was even remotely thinking about for the interview. When I went with a dress, blazer, heels and tights, I felt terribly overdressed on campus — until I was sooooo glad I was not out of place because my entire interview panel was all dressed in suits.

It really helped me to think about how I wanted to be perceived, and then make the effort to portray these qualities in the interview — a tactic I learned from blogger Jenny Blake‘s book Life After College: The Complete Guide to Getting What You Want. I wanted my interviews to see me as polite, engaging, enthusiastic, and easy to work with, so I minded my manners, made lots of eye contact, smiled a lot, and showed off my best self.

Later in the day, I sent a brief thank-you email to each member of my interview panel and then the next day, I mailed out handwritten thank-you cards. It felt a bit like overkill, but at this point I was an ardent subscriber to anything What Color is Your Parachute? suggested, so I just did it. Later I was glad that I did, because on my office tour earlier this week I noticed on of my cards on display one of my interviewer’s desks.

Everyone that interviews for the job is a good candidate (that’s why they got called for an interview). Be better.

This is part of a 3-part post series I did on getting your dream job. Click to read Part 1 and Part 3.

My old resume was bad. Like, really bad. It was basically a list of my education & work history with a trail of references at the end. The funny thing is I didn’t even think it was that bad (after all, it had gotten me jobs in the past!) — until I started getting rejected by jobs on a weekly basis. I wish I had kept the stack of letters that were mailed to me that all said the same thing:

Dear Bridget,

 Thank you for the interest in our awesome job at our fantastic company. We have reviewed your sorry excuse for a resume and, after our laughter subsided, concluded that you are not nearly great enough to work for an organization as fabulous as us. Please don’t try again, you suck.

Love, 

Too Good For You, INC.

Ok, so they didn’t quite say that word-for-word, but that was the gist. What’s particularly heart-crushing is it took my resume a revision or two to even start getting rejection letters — previously I was just ignored entirely. Frankly, when rejections started coming in the mail, I wrote ecstatic comments all over twitter about how thrilled I was that employers were acknowledging my existence, even if they weren’t particularly interested in it.

Yes, this was a low point for me, bloggers… but a learning experience!

Well, eventually I admitted defeat and decided to get outside help with my resume. I visited a career services organization where I paid $20 to have my resume looked over and to get help with my cover letter.

I will never get a greater return on investment than that $20, swear to god. If the girl helping me out didn’t make me look like a rockstar on paper, I would have never landed the interview for my current position. Now, the book I promote for job seekers, What Color Is Your Parachute? 2012: A Practical Manual for Job-Hunters and Career-Changers, doesn’t put a lot of stock in resumes, but my opinion is that they’re essential — and you better be proud of it because you’re going to show it to everyone.

Some resume essentials:

- target your resume & cover letter for each job. This added an hour to the application process for every job I sought, but it’s absolutely necessary. Highlight the skills and experiences that make you perfect for the position you want, scrap everything else.

- use key words like “facilitated, organized, designed, managed, performed, enhanced, engaged, promoted, etc.” to describe work you did previously. I thought I was merely President of the Chemistry Student’s Association in senior year — turns out I was fulfilling a “leadership role that allowed me to recruit and mentor new students” as well as “organize large scale events” and other such amazing things that I didn’t really know were amazing until I saw them described with the right words on paper.

- keep your references on a separate page. I still don’t really understand why this is so important, but my resume ends with “References upon request” because that’s what everyone says to do.

- keep the text and design simple. We’re all sick of Times New Roman in size 12, but that doesn’t mean it’s not still a good idea.

- save your resume as a PDF. This is Mac & PC friendly, viewable online or on mobile devices, and small to attach to an email.

Now, give your resume to everyone.

E v e r y o n e.

Ok, maybe not everyone, but have it handy to pass it along as needed. I kept a copy of mine on my iPhone so I could readily attach it to an email or print it off no matter where I was. For the job I landed, I had to pass my resume on to a person I only knew online via twitter — she worked in another faculty at the University, and after a brief conversation on the phone, asked for my resume to pass it along to the faculty I wanted to work in. Now, I’m pretty sure this was paramount to me securing my new job which bring up the most important thing:

Network.

Network every way you can. Everyone you know is a contact — everyone from every job you’ve had, school you’ve attended, Facebook friend, neighbour, whatever. Like I said, my network contact was someone I followed on Twitter. Opportunities can show up in the strangest places, be ready.

Finding the network contact you need can be a daunting task if you don’t know anyone that works in the field you want to — in which case, you better start meeting people. Volunteer, ask to shadow, Google the leaders in the field until you stumble upon anything: a blog, a group, a Facebook page, and then start participating in the discussion. Sometimes you’ll probably feel stuck, but in the end you might be surprised which task or person led you to the job you wanted.

This is part of a 3-part post series I did on getting your dream job. Click to read Part 2 and Part 3.

I’ve finally landed my first grown-up job, but I’ll say it was no easy feat — even though I’m first to admit that going from lost graduate post-France to successfully employed young professional in 3 months is as much sheer dumb luck good fortune as it is my own effort.

I browsed jobs back home a bit while I was in Paris, but I didn’t really start trying until I got home. I felt like I was in an awkward spot because I didn’t go to university for a degree that directly translated to a job, like teaching or nursing. I have a BSc., which makes you a “generalist” in the best light and “directionless” in the worst. Like life, your degree is what you make it. If you have your heart set on a certain career, by all means, pursue the education to get it, but if you’re flexible, consider being open to whatever opportunities are out there.

I’ve met far too many new graduates that whine incessantly that university gave them “nothing” because they didn’t land some definite career path immediately after graduation. First, recognize that if you wanted a job the second after convocation, you should have enrolled in a technical school. Secondly, acknowledge that it might take you months or even a year to find a job you really want to be at. Thirdly, expect to work for it. My generation suffers from the worst sense of entitlement ever, and it always rears its ugly head when the professional world doesn’t lay out the red carpet to welcome them in.

Find the job you want:

- the first place to look is your current employer. If you are not employed, get employed, even if it’s only at the local Starbucks. Never, ever sit at home doing nothing. It’s unproductive, hurts your bank account, and it looks bad on your resume.  Your current employer knows you, you have a work history with them, so if a higher opportunity opens up, it’s often easier to wiggle your way in with a reference from the right person.

- the second place to look is places that employ your friends or acquaintances. Some job postings never make it to the internet or the classifieds ads, and the only people that really know what’s available are those that are already working for the company. Ask around, see what’s out there.

- look for companies you would like to work for. I think it’s useless to mindlessly browse job listings, sifting through thousands of postings, hoping something will come up. Having a company or organization in mind gives you a starting point. See what they have open — and if it’s nothing, drop your resume off anyway for anything that might open up in the future.

And finally, be searchable yourself. I told pretty much everyone I knew that I was career-seeking. I asked my friends and family to let me know if they ever stumbled on something they thought I might be suited for. Many old and new (and present) employers knew I was on the lookout for a change. I had just started a LinkedIn profile, but I’m still undecided about the effectiveness of that site so I’m not sure if I’ll maintain it. In any case, I was hunting in every avenue I knew, and looking for more.

I eventually found my current job posting on the careers website of a past employer, a place the employs my friends, and an organization I wanted to work for again. But that doesn’t mean I didn’t visit the city job postings weekly, troll online search engines, and frantically google every company I was remotely interested in working for.

If anything I think searching is the hardest part of getting a job.. or at least of getting you the job you want. I found plenty of office positions as admin assistants and secretaries and other dull things I wasn’t too keen on but thought I would have to do to gain experience. To get the right job, you kind of have to be looking for it so you’ll catch it when it comes up.