Good news for the class of 2011! - Sterling Career Concepts

Good news for the class of 2011! Good news for the class of 2011! The global outplacement firm Challenger, Gray Christmas, Inc.released its Annual College Grad Job Outlook stating that this years entry-level market is the best its been in three years (yeah!) but is still fiercely competitive (back to reality). A point worth repeating from their findings: “One of the most important elements of a successful job search, for both entry-level job seekers and their more-experienced counterparts, is networking and meeting face-to-face with people who can help advance the job search. College graduates who believe they are too young to have an effective network are simply wrong. Parents, professors, former internship supervisors and even college and former high school classmates can be valuable sources when it comes to building and expanding one’s network,” said [Chief Executive Officer John] Challenger. Along these lines, Ipreviously shared a book review of A Foot in the Door,which does a great job of laying thefoundation for how to network effectively. Id highly recommend this book for college seniors or recent college graduates as its never too soon tofine-tuningyour networking skills. And one last thought on job search strategyto keep in mind: “Finally, graduates should not confine their searches to a specific industry or occupation. The job market is not robust enough to provide the ideal job situation for every individual. It seldom is. So, someone may come out of college with the plan to find a marketing position with a consumer products company. There’s nothing wrong with having a specific goal like that, but don’t make the mistake of adhering to it so closely that you overlook opportunities in marketing for a chemical company or health care provider, for example,” [Challenger] said. This relates back to a point I made ina post earlierthis week on changing careers. Sometimes you need to take stepping stones to reach your ultimate target position, no matter how relevant or on-target your education or past experience may be. This is as important for entry-level job seekers to keep in mind as it is for career changers. It may be hard to let go of your dream, but maintaining tunnel vision towards one type of position is not advisable in such a competitive job market. But lets refocus on the Yeah! part again. The first three months of 2011 have averaged monthly job gains of 188,000. In fact, February and March alone have witnessed a 470,000 increase in new private-sector jobs, the largest two-month employment gain since 2006, as reported byChallenger, Gray Christmas, Inc., and thats a step in the right direction for all of us.