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How To Acquire a Good Entry-Level Job Print
Wednesday, 7th June 2006 (by J.D.)This article is about Basics, Career, Hints and Tips
Not everyone is ready to aim for a $100,000 job. On AskMetafilter, a user writes:
I need to find some sort of long-term employment that will put me on my way to establishing financial independence from my family and also provide me with meaningful work experience. This is made difficult as I am eighteen, I only have a GED, and my resume leaves much to be desired. I do not have any prior work or volunteer experience, and nepotism is not an option. What should I be doing?
There’s some great advice in the thread, from a variety of perspectives. I like these comments (emphasis mine):
Don’t wait around for the pefect job to come along. Take any job to start off. Work at McDonald’s. Get a retail job. Do manual labor. Just get out there and WORK so you have money coming in and experience you can point to in the future. THEN, once you’ve been working for a few months, start to think about what line of work you really want to be in. If you wait around for the “perfect” job to come along, it never will.
I second getting any old job for the experience. But make the job work for you too. Don’t just punch the clock. Go over and above your job duties. Ask questions. Learn the business. Offer to take on extra projects if possible. If it’s a retail gig, ask to work the register, and the stocking, and the receiving, and security. If it’s a fast food gig, you can practice your customer service skills. Make friends with your managers, not as a way to suck up, but in a way that they will think of you in a good way when planning promotions or other personnel changes.
Do some research. Find out who the largest employers are in your state, region or city. Large employers have a variety of jobs, so even if you start on a loading dock, or grounds crew, you’ll be able to move into better jobs. Go to the nearest Job Center, and ask to meet with someone who can help you put together a simple resume, and teach you how to fill out applications. Employers want you to be reliable and hard-working. Get a job, any job, and work hard and be reliable. Be the person who’s always on time, ready to work, ready to have fun getting the job done, i.e., not complaining non-stop. You could think of a fast food job as a training job, just to get some practice.
The entire thread is filled with great advice for a person seeking an entry-level job.
June 7th, 2006 at 11:54 am
Definitely. With my first job out of college, I told my employer that I wanted this job to also be a learning process, and That I realized that I was new to the workforce. I was confident in my ability and desire to succeed, however.
They put me in a low-level job, but allocated time and money for training. I went from basically an IT secretary to a Jr. Net Admin in a year + a 15% raise, using what I leanred in the training. In another year I was managing our Email server and acting as a co-Sr. network admin, plus another 15%.
A year later, it was made obvious there was nowhere else to go, so I switched org’s and now run a WAN of 400 machines, split across 3 campuses, and am continuing to fight hard for the right to educate myself.
If you keep fighting, and have the will to succeed, look at a low-level job as an investment in your future. I’ll be 27 in 3 weeks, and am already the director of technology with my own network to command, after being in the workforce for 3 years, and starting as a secretary.
I’m planning on going after my master’s and gunning for a CIO job before 30.
Basically, to answer the question, getting any old job is good just to be doing something, but have a plan/goals, and ask yourself ‘what can I do TODAY to reach for my goals?’. For example, I’m reading up on XHTML, CSS and AJAX while I wait for my master’s degree course to begin.
The key is to do something, anything, but also to make sure it is in line with your ultimate goals. Just make sure it’s moving you forward, and not a waste of your time in the long run. (Sometimes it will seem like a waste of time in the short run, but look 3+ years down the road)
okaaay, guess I care about this topic…sorry for the long post!
September 12th, 2006 at 6:06 am
[...] Acquire a Good Entry-Level Job [...]
June 26th, 2007 at 10:06 am
This fits me exactly, except I know what I want to do and I have 7 years experience in this industry including some not so entry level jobs. It’s just that I just so happened to have graduated and quit my decent job that I had during school to move halfway across the country.
Now I’ve gone much longer without working than I had planned. I could easily find a job, they just aren’t what I want to do. The places I want to work are few and far between, require incredible knowledge, skill and hard work ethic not mention dealing with the egotistical assholes that usually run these kind of places. Oh, and the odd chance that they are hiring. I can deal with all of this, I’m used to it and honestly, I love it. Taking an entry level job at mcdonalds would be a very bad move for me. I would much rather take a job in a completely different industry.
But I did get one offer for a job doing something I might enjoy a little while but I worry that I’ll tire of it easily. The real benefit of this job would be networking with my coworkers in the hopes of getting a job that I really want.
Anyway, I need to go make some phone calss and try and get me a job.