3 Important Entry-Level Skills For New Grads

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Successfully step out of school and into the workplace by knowing 3 important entry-level skills for new grads.

Graduating from college or university should be a time for celebration and ceremony. You’re finally finished with school and are days, weeks, or months away from entering the professional world. Your academic skills will never be sharper than they are now, and your ability to think critically is at an all-time high. 

However, you may find that landing your first job is harder than you might think. This is a common experience amongst Canadian graduates today. Around 25% of graduates were not able to find a full-time job within three months of graduation, which underlines the difficulties that millions of students face across the nation. 

As a new grad, you can bump your resume to the top of the pile by working on your entry-level skills. This can help you land a job with no experience and will show recruiters that you’re serious about the world of work and want to push on as quickly as possible. 

Job Seeking

Researching, applying, and interviewing for jobs is a crucial skill when you’re attempting to enter your field. However, many recent graduates underestimate the importance of job seeking and the competitive nature of the labour market today. Currently, unemployment remains high at 6.1%, which reflects the difficulties you may face when applying for jobs. Rather than relying on your generic resume to get you interviews, revise your existing materials to create a standout application that includes: 

• A brief, targeted resume that highlights your most relevant experiences, skills, and coursework;
• A clean, crisp CV/resume design that shows you have some visual skills and are able to properly organize documents;
• A cover letter that introduces you to recruiters, highlights your top skills, and tells a story of where you’ve been and where you want to go in life;
• Select key information from your cover letter in the body of an email if applications are being gathered by emails sent directly to the hiring manager.

These steps can hone your creative skills and will give you a better understanding of your strengths and weaknesses. This is crucial as you’ll need to reevaluate your existing skill set and present yourself as a well-rounded applicant when searching for your first job out of school. 

When you do land an interview, try to hone your interpersonal skills by practicing with trusted peers and mentors. You may even find that your university’s career center may be willing to help you even though you’ve graduated. Practicing for interviews with folks who know how interviews work will keep you calm in the moment and help you develop some strategic answers to tricky questions. 

Project Management

As a college graduate, you’re well accustomed to meeting deadlines and managing your workload. However, your professional peers will want to see that you can handle projects that support the firm’s bottom line. This reality is underscored by the fact that project management is regarded as one of the most important skills in Canada today, and remains and important entry-level skill for new grads. 

You can become a better project manager and impress your peers as a recent grad by developing soft and hard skills like: 

• Communication: Succinct, accurate communication is at the core of effective project management. You can boost your communication skills by creating a clear process when drafting emails or responding to requests for more information. 
• Time Management: Effective time management can be difficult to master as a recent grad. Build a schedule into your day when applying for jobs and consider using workflow management programs to track your progress. 
• Organization: Staying organized is the key to professional success. As a recent grad, you can improve your organizational skills by spending more time planning and mapping out the actions you intend to take. This will teach you the value of proper organization and help you hit the ground running when you land your first job. 
• Budgeting: Creating a budget can be daunting as a recent grad. However, you don’t need to wait until you land your first job to start managing budgets. Instead, document your current income and expenditures to get a better understanding of your current cash flow. This will expose you to different forms of budgets and will help you stay on track financially while job seeking. 

Becoming an effective project manager can help you stand out from the crowd when applying for jobs as a recent graduate. It shows that you have the potential to grow in the role and are willing to take on new responsibilities, too. However, you’ll still need to negotiate properly to ensure you are adequately compensated for your skills and potential. 

Negotiation 

Negotiating your compensation can be tricky when you’re new to the job market, but it remains one of the 3 important entry-level skills for new grads. It can feel awkward to push back when a hiring manager suggests a salary that does not meet your expectations, and you may struggle to assert yourself when you badly need a job. However, you can still negotiate effectively as a recent grad by: 

• Researching normal salaries in your field;
• Determining a ballpark salary of your own value using metrics like grades, degree level, and relevant experience;
• Starting high and working down;
• Being prepared to decline potential offers and move on to new employers. 

Following these steps will help you land a first job that sets you up for career success in later life. You’ll negotiate a great salary and will be in a more powerful position when looking for promotions or new roles. Developing your negotiation skills will serve you well in your role, too, as you’ll need to do plenty of negotiating in your professional life. 

Conclusion 

Landing your first job can be more difficult than expected for a new grad. However, you can put yourself in a great position by continuing to invest in your skills after graduation. Commit to improving these 3 important entry-level skills for new grads and practice interviews to improve your ability to negotiate. This will boost your potential earnings and help you land a job you want that much quicker.