How can you find out more about your options?
You want to know how to get a job after graduation. Who needs someone like you? Where do you fit in? You get seated in front of your computer and open the browser. What now? How do you find the information you’re looking for?Maybe your first hunch is to go to Jobindex or a similar job database. It’s a great place to begin as it can give you an idea of the current state of the job market. Many tend to search for their particular degree or specific job functions. But, many are not aware that the search results will depend on what is typed in the search bar, and how the database categorizes jobs.
When searching for an education or a job function alone, your search results will be limited and will not be indicative of all of the relevant information there actually is. No-one knows the ins and outs of every university degree there is, including employers. Maybe an employer is unaware that you are just what they are looking for. If you only search for your degree in the databases, the results will be the workplaces that already knows about people with your degree and what types of job functions you can do. But then you would miss out on all the other exciting potential jobs there are.
Get creative with your searches. You can e.g. search for competencies and different tasks related to certain jobs. However, keep in mind that the databases reflect what employers are looking for right now. What you see is therefore a snapshot moment of the job market and the jobs that are booming right now. Who knows what that will look like when you start your job search?
Use LinkedIn to explore the job market
Are you on LinkedIn? It can be a great platform for career inspiration. In the search bar, you can look for titles, degrees, competencies, and much more. Kind of like a job database. Only here, you don’t just get job posts, but you can also find people with all sorts of jobs that can be a source of inspiration for what you could work with and where.
You can start by narrowing down your search a bit. Look up the University of Southern Denmark page on LinkedIn and click on the “Alumni” tab (yes, it’s a bit strange, but give it a go). Even though this tab function sounds a bit off, it lets you explore information about former and currently enrolled students at SDU. You can enter a range of years that a person has attended the university. When doing this, the results will show you people who have written something on their profiles that aligns with what you have searched for. People with degrees similar to yours can serve as inspiration. Go explore their profiles. Where do they work? How did they get to where they are? Could this be useful for you, and how?
You will most likely discover a lot of job titles and workplaces that you hadn’t initially thought about. And hopefully, you’ll see that there are a wide range of things you can do with your degree.
Don't fall in love with a job before your first date
“What do you want to be? What can you do with your degree?” You’ve probably been asked these questions in some shape or form. And maybe several times. Perhaps by the same people. People want to work towards something, a goal, but it can get a bit more complex with an academic degree that does not lead to a specific job title. Maybe the LinkedIn exercise above made you lower your shoulders a bit and feel more at ease knowing that there are several avenues you can take. Maybe it helped you get closer to an answer to those broad questions.
But how can we decide on a job or types of trade before we have even tried it? That’s why we would like to challenge the premise a bit. We would not get married to a partner before getting to know them, and the same devise goes for jobs – both those you think you can and want, and those you might believe you can’t get.
Find out whether the job or career is right for you – and do it today
We recommend that you check the conceptions you may have of a particular job before deciding whether it’s for you or not.
- Create a plan of action that is least likely to happen. Just enough details to take the next step; What can you do within the next week?
- Experiment in order to validate or disprove your conceptions about a career path you might be curious about: How can you find out if a career path is intricate, if it’s something you’d be good at, etc.? Can you do it on a volunteer basis? Take an online course to try it out? Follow someone around for a day who works within the field?
- Do you think you might not have the right education or experience? Look for successful people with the same background as you and use them as examples. If they didn’t hold back, why should you?
- Have you been told by others that it’s difficult or no fun? Find a way to test this for yourself to see if you feel the same way or not.
- Have you heard or read that the field of work is competitive? Find someone who you think is doing well and ask them what they have done along the way to get to where they are. How did they gain a foothold in the beginning? With their answers in mind, ask yourself if you could do the same.
- Are you worried you might not have what it takes? Find others who you find inspiring and who are doing well, and then ask yourself how you could learn the skills that made them successful.