5 steps I would take to land my next job

Welcome back to another episode of how to twenty-something where today I’m going to give you my tips and tricks to landing a full-time job based on how I’ve seen the job market change while also taking into account the future markets

Currently, I don’t have any business in returning to the corporate world, and if I did I could see myself as a professor helping college students adult and adapt to transitions

But right now, I remain self-employed

However, a large part of the work I do with my twenty-somethings is centered around their career and how basically everything their parents are telling them is not relevant to today’s world

Okay, that was an exaggeration, but I will say that no one taught me these tips and tricks so I went with the default plan of go on Indeed or Ziprecruiter and mass apply to anything and everything that seemed relevant to my degree

And sure that COULD work, but if I were to make up a statistic, I’d say there’s about a 5% success rate of your resume getting noticed and you getting an interview for a full time position

I see people on social media constantly talking about how bad the job market is, especially for fresh grads or for someone wanting to change industries, and then they’ll follow it up with saying something like I’ve applied to 200 jobs in the last month and have either heard nothing or have been rejected

Like, you’re wasting your time doing that

Applying online through an Indeed post or even through the companies website is not going to get you very far

Which is why I want to break down what steps I would be taking on a regular basis if I wanted to return to the corporate world in 2025

For starters, I would get really clear on what industry I have any interest in

Not based on my degree, per se, but what I was okay with focusing on for 40 plus hours a week

Yes that’s a big thing to think about so let’s shrink it down into a bite sized chunk to get you started

For one, ask yourself, what are you good at

And then what is a topic you could learn about and not want to shoot your brains out

And no, it can’t be pop culture or crime documentaries 

Which is why I want you to answer those questions in that order, what subjects were you good at in school or extracurriculars in life, where do your strengths lie

Is it math, reading/writing, sciences, history, arts

For me, I was really good at math and thrived in classes like marine science and environmental science

And then when I went to college, my favorite classes were extreme weather and extreme floods

I know I know, how did I not see the warning signs that interior design was not my forte

But you live and you learn and now I’m here to help you live and learn better than I did 

One thing I did always know for myself was that I wanted to be the boss

I’m a little sister and I hated that everyone was the boss of me growing up, so I would walk around and say I want to be the boss of me

Meaning I wanted to be the ceo and run the business

What business? I had no clue, i’m pretty sure i would say I want to be a 6 figure ceo of a fortune 500 company – not fully knowing the words coming out of my mouth

I would never have guessed I was going to own my own business, but here we are

Now, back to you, what classes piqued your interest in high school and/or college?

And based on those answers you come up with, what industries support those strengths and/or interests

Here’s another new thing that unfortunately you do have to take into account and that is based on what you’re researching, what is human based

What do you fully believe will not be eradicated by Ai in the next 5-10 years

This is a tough part, because there’s no real way to predict how Ai is going to change the job market

But we do know it’s going to be extremely disruptive

I can’t even tell you what industries definitely won’t be taken over by machines, although I do believe we’re always going to need some human component in everything we do

Because machines can’t replicate empathy and adjust accordingly

But it is definitely something you need to keep in mind when conducting your research

And who’s to say you need to limit yourself to one industry

I believe everyone is multi-passionate so pull those passions into some component of the work you do

Like if you are good at and/or enjoy organizing, fitness, painting, and math, then who is stopping you from just selecting one of those areas as a field of work

You’ve got options!

I’ve always loved the weather and sports/being healthy

And now I’m a personal trainer and a coach and in my free time I track weather systems 

So, from my perspective of doing this exercise and say I wanted to leave the coaching industry and fitness industry for a full-time job

I would probably switch into meteorology

Now, I know I don’t have a degree in it, so part of that research is finding out if I need a degree, if there’s a certification I can get, if there’s a book I can read, or if there’s a job that will me get my foot in the door and learn by doing

I’ll ask myself, do I know anyone who is either already in that industry or could connect me with someone in that industry so I could directly ask them about their experience, their history, and their advice for someone wanting to get started 

And I do know a meteorologist, I met her in January and we bonded over being weather nerds

I also know two news anchors who know meteorologists and could connect me 

Now, you might not know anyone for your industry, especially if you are a fresh college grad

In which case, I would go on Linkedin and start connecting with people who are in that industry, maybe that went to your school, and message them explaining that you’re interested in their career choice and you want to know their background, how they got their foot in the door, and any advice they might want to share with you

This is all research, this is a very big, but very important step to make the remaining four steps easier

So, you have your industry or industries and you’re starting to connect with people already in them to see what qualifications you need or might already have to help you out 

Step 2 is going to be curate your resume accordingly

Have a rough outline, of past jobs, what you’ve brought to the table that highlights your strengths and overlaps strengths needed in the industry you’re wanting to go into

You do not need to include the year you graduate, but it is helpful to include your alma mater, so the school you graduated from

Because you never know who is looking at your resume and if they went to the same school then you’re helping your chances of getting an interview

Speaking from personal experience, the second job I got out of college was partially due to the fact that me and the VP both went to the University of Florida and were in the school of design, construction, and planning

So he already trusted me based on my background, and to that I say go gators

Your resume should include any jobs, club positions (if you’ve graduated within the last 4 years or less) skills which can vary from microsoft suite to detail oriented so think program skills and soft skills

So, using me as an example with meteorology and having zero experience in the field, I would cater my resume to an entry level position with the goal to work my way up

That means highlighting my organizational skills, teamwork abilities, following directions, classes I took in college, I would look into a certification or even a community college class to make my knowledge a bit more relevant and then add that to my resume as well

So now that I’ve done my research and create a rough resume outline relevant to the industry I’m interested in entering, I’m going to either create a LinkedIn account if I don’t have one, or update the one I do have to match my resume updates as well as begin posting content that is relevant to this new industry

This is articles I come across, podcasts that I’ve listened to that discuss meteorology, um my own fascination of storm tracking, or right now with it being hurricane season I could post updates on systems as they develop 

Last year when hurricane helene hit I was explaining to everyone in charlotte that the rain we received that morning was a weaker cold front moving through and the rian in the afternoon was the hurricane

And the reason why asheville was so badly hit was because that cold front rain stalled for a bit as the two different systems started colliding, so they had a very saturated ground followed by the rainy side of the hurricane and the results were disastrous 

Guys when I tell you I am a weather nerd, believe me

But back on topic, now that my linkedin is filled with relevant content, content that I’m not going to stop posting, so maybe set a goal of posting twice a week, I’m going to shift my primary focus to building relationships

At this point, I’ve already been connecting with people online relevant to the industry like meteorologists, news stations, geographers, environmental scientists

Now, here’s the part everyone overlooks

The fourth thing I would do to help me land my next full-time job comes in multiple parts

There are two parts to this and then each part has their own sub parts

So on a virtual level: I would look on Indeed for available jobs, but I would not apply right then and there

Instead, I would go to the company’s linkedIn account, immediately follow it, go to where it says people and connect with as many people as I could 

The goal here is to get to a real person

Whether it’s a linkedIn account or an email that isn’t hr and start asking them questions

Not questions like are you hiring

Or I saw this position was open and wanted to apply

No – that’s fools play, that’s also where a lot of people go wrong

Send messages like I’m interested in this industry and would love to know how you got started or if you had any tips for someone looking to enter

If you have something in common with a connection and that could be another person, a location, an alma mater, then lead with that

It shows you’ve done your research and aren’t just spamming people’s inboxes

You have to personalize it as best as you can and not just copy and paste your messages

Yes it’s tedious, yes it takes time, yes you’re probably not going to hear back from a majority of these people

But the ones you do hear back from will help you much more than you sitting by yourself and mass applying

If you come across a job at a company and there are no people listed and the only email you have available is hr and you really want to work there, then apply and send hr an email saying that you applied and why you applied and end it with a question for them to respond to

Something like what’s the interview process look like or how can you stand out as an applicant etc etc

If all you’re doing is sending an email saying hey I applied and I like this company, you’re doing absolutely nothing for yourself besides wasting time because what is hr going to do with that information

They’re not going to read it and be like oh wow they like this company let’s move them to the interview process 

No

Build relationships 

Ask questions

Make it personal 

Show that you care

The second part of this fourth step is going to in person events

Not necessarily networking specific events either.. I want you think of networking as any opportunity to build a relationship

It could be a pottery class, a game of soccer, a bar, the park, the gym, and literal networking events

Don’t limit yourself to the specifics, go where people are and have conversations

It doesn’t have to be career related all the time, but you need to go in knowing that career has a high chance of coming up since that’s a major focus of people in their twenties and a way for people to try to find a commonality

So if you’re in between jobs or not yet employed, responding with i’m looking to get into x industry, do you know anyone in it right now that you could connect me with, will help you with your confidence around going to these events and not feel less than the other people there who are currently employed

You don’t have to say you’re unemployed or you lost your job, I mean you can but in my experience of my own story and with working with many unemployed twenty-somethings it is demoralizing to say over and over again that you don’t have a job

So you don’t have to say that, you could keep the conversation future oriented and say what you’re looking to do and not where you’re currently at

Which brings me to the fifth step I would take when looking for a new job and that is follow up

Follow up with the people you meet at networking events, follow up with companies that you’ve applied to, follow up with anyone and everyone

This could be connecting with people on LinkedIn that you meet out in the wild

It could also look like sending an email after an interview thanking them for their time

I just helped a client compose her follow up email so she put her best foot forward and is able to say she did everything she could to be considered for the job

Following up is even sending an email or LinkedIn dm if you haven’t heard back in an appropriate amount of time like 1-2 weeks

On a similar note, you should always ask in an interview when you can expect to hear back and what the interview process looks like so you don’t drive yourself crazy refreshing your email every second of every day waiting and hoping for a response

And instead spend your time connecting with other people, building those relationships, having other job opportunities to focus on

It’s like if you have an anxious attachment style of dating and you meet someone you like, you should keep dating other people so you don’t focus all of your energy on waiting for a text back

Similarly, don’t put all your eggs in one basket

Meaning just because you really really want one job, meet one person that could help get you connected, have one interview that went well, does not mean you stop job hunting

Yes give yourself an afternoon off, celebrate your progress, but then get right back to steps 3, 4, and 5

I’m not going to sugarcoat it, finding a job in 2025 is difficult, but you’re also probably not doing everything you could be to help your chances

Which I want to reiterate what I said at the start of this episode, submitting online applications is not going to get you very far in the job finding process

You have to know people to help you get your foot through the right door

A face to face interaction goes a really long way so don’t underestimate the power of physically shaking hands with someone

But that’s my advice, take it or leave it, although I do suggest you take it if you’re part of the twenty-something population who has been trying to find a job for quite some time now

Because clearly, what you’re doing isn’t working

And let me know if you have any other questions, email me if you want me to review an email you want to send as a follow up or as a way of connecting, I’d love to help you free of charge! My email is in the show notes for you to access and connect with me 

P.S. i have a lot of connections myself that helps clients get familiarized with the industry they’re wanting to get into

Otherwise, this does conclude another episode of how to twenty-something. If you liked what you heard, learned something new, agree or disagree with what I have to say, then let me know! I’m dying to hear from you

All I ask is you help me out by sharing this episode and telling people this podcast exists for all twenty-somethings trying to navigate the most confusing decade of their life

And as always, I can’t wait to be in your headphones again next week with another brand new episode