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Your #Career : The 5 Best Ways to Network While You’re Still in College… When to Start Looking for a Career/Job? Today, IF you start your Junior Year, your Late!

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Thinking about the real world can be intimidating as a college student (I’ve been there!)… So it’s no surprise that our team gets questions from hundreds of students each month about how to network effectively in preparation for a career.

College Graduate

The connections I made in college have been instrumental in my post-grad life, including in starting my own company, WayUp. Below are five ways I suggest networking as a college student. Anyone can and should use them to build an effective set of relationships that will support you throughout your career.

Armed with these strategies, you should walk away feeling excited about the network, and future, that you’re building.

1. Use part-time jobs and internships to your advantage

Warren Buffett started as a paperboy, Madonna as a Dunkin Donuts worker, and Oprah worked at a grocery store. Working during school is the perfect way to gain experience, figure out what you love / don’t love, and make money. But regardless of what you choose to do, you’ll likely meet people who will go on to do bigger and better things, and you never know how they’ll be able to help you.

Today’s barista is tomorrow high-powered ad executive, so don’t discount anybody along the way. Use your time at work to get to know people and ask questions. Stay in touch after you leave a job or internship, even if it’s just a quick email update every couple of months.

 

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2. Cold email people you admire

I love cold emailing people (“cold emailing” means reaching out to someone you don’t know). Every college student should take advantage of how easy it can be!

Students are often intimidated to message someone to whom they have no connection, but in my experience, most people in the world really want to help others, and it’s even more special when a person gets to help a college student. So be sure to cold email people you admire, or even people at your own school who you just haven’t been able to meet.

Cold-emailing helped me plenty in college. I got one internship through it (back then, we didn’t have WayUp!), and I even relied on a cold email to a role model so I could get their advice on which career path to take after graduation. Here’s a video (at 49-seconds) of me telling that story:

A couple big tips here: always be respectful and genuine when cold emailing, definitely make sure that you show that you respect their time, and most of all, be sure to use the “I’m a college student” opening while you still can!

3. Take advantage of professional networking groups and clubs on campus

Many colleges have groups, clubs, and associations that you can join to expand your opportunities and meet amazing people, both on and off-campus. There’s never going to be another time quite like college where you’re surrounded by thousands of amazingly smart and interesting people, so get to know the people you think will change the world someday.

At college, you’re exposed to some of the most brilliant academic minds in the world, so why wouldn’t you take advantage of that? If there’s a subject area you’re interested in, don’t be afraid to go to professors in that field; they love talking about their work and meeting young people who are just as interested.

You never know which professor will end up being the professor who changes your life trajectory. For example, the professor who taught my “Entrepreneurship” class helped me work on a business plan that ended up being the inspiration for WayUp!

5. Reach out to everyone you know in your personal network

The best way to figure out what you might be interested in is to talk to absolutely everyone about your interests. You’d be surprised at how many people your friends and family know.

Pro-tip: don’t forget to take advantage of winter and spring break. It’s the perfect opportunity to reach out to folks at home about connections they may have that are relevant to your interests!

No matter where you attend school or what you choose to study, building a network now will make life so much easier after graduation. Good luck!

Liz Wessel,    CONTRIBUTOR – I write about how to level up your career while in college

Forbes.com | September 7, 2016

Your #Career : The 10 Best Sites For Finding An Internship In 2016… Question: What’s the Best Way in Attaining a Job when you Graduate from College? Answer: 96% Land Jobs thru Internships Before Graduation.

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“Years ago, when I was in college, when I wanted to apply for internships, the only websites around were Monster and CareerBuilder,” says Lauren Berger. “I would go to those sites as a student and I would feel so lost. I just wanted someone to help me.”

Free- Man with Two Fingers

Berger, now 31, wound up taking on 15 different internships in her student years before going on to found the internship search site Intern Queen, now in its seventh year and number 9 on our list of the best sites for finding internships. “I had this light bulb moment where I said, ‘Wait a second, what if I were the person that could help other students – at that time, my peers, and now students around the world – get one step closer to their dream opportunity.”

The fact is college students and new graduates have more resources for finding an internship than ever. In addition to the time-tested strategy of scouring their own networks of friends, family and contacts, young people in search of an entry-level position or valuable experience in the workplace have many quality search engines to look through. Here are ten of the best:

LinkedIn

The ubiquity of LinkedIn in the world of professional networking is so profound, having a profile there is arguably more important than having a presence on any other social media site. Building a network of contacts is easy, and connecting with friends adds a social aspect to the massive, international online job fair LinkedIn has become. Keep in mind, though, that the cost to post a single job is $499 for employers (it costs $295 each to post ten of them), so the internship listings you turn up will likely have been placed by firms with a few dollars to throw around. For opportunities at smaller, more thrifty firms, look elsewhere.

 

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 Indeed

Indeed.com’s low cost model has served it well since its founding in 2004; its policy of letting employers post jobs and search resumes for free may be the prime factor in the site’s ability to attract the 180 million unique visitors it claims log on every month from over 50 different countries. The plain mechanics of the site provide a no-nonsense search engine that’s easy to navigate for those seeking or posting jobs. A search for internship positions in Chicago, yielded almost 2,000 results, with the option to whittle down the list of findings by salary, distance, company and job type. Results also show reviews of employers, presumably written by previous employees.

Internships.com

Based in Burbank, California, Internships.com is owned by textbook rental and educational services company Chegg and claims to offer 143,000 positions from 94,000 companies in 8,270 cities in the U.S. A quick search for internships in advertising in the Chicago area yielded 220 results, the vast majority of them virtual positions, workable from remote locations. The service offers free postings, allows users to see which Facebook FB +1.75% friends are connected to a given company and, of course, includes a mobile app for managing a job search on the go.

Glassdoor

Based in Sausalito, California, Glassdoor boasts useful ratings of various aspects of employing companies, including CEO approval ratings, salary reports, interview reviews and questions, and benefit information. The company also offers a mobile app. A quick search for an internship in advertising near Chicago yielded 329 postings, though some of them had already expired.

Your School or Alma Mater

The careers website of the college you attended can be a fantastic resource if you’re seeking an internship for the summer or looking for entry into the workforce in a given industry. Different schools within a university sometimes have their own job boards too. If employers trust the university you attended enough to seek its students as workers, you will be at an advantage as a product of that institution.

Idealist

Founded in 1995, Idealist.org focuses on finding job seekers positions as volunteers, opportunities at non profits, and open internships. The firm, which is based in New York City and Portland, Oregon, boasts 1.4 million visitors to its site and placement openings with over 100,000 organizations. A quick search conducted in late January for internships – in no particular geographical region – yielded just fewer than 1,900 openings. Founder Ami Dar sat down with Forbes contributor Rahim Kanini in 2012; see that interview here.

Absolute Internship

Since it was launched in 2009 by Fredrik van Huynh, London-based Absolute Internship has focused on the internationally-minded internship seeker. As van Huynh told FORBES, the company is sought out by “ambitious, travel-loving university students who are keen on expanding their global network and want to meet students from around the world.” Van Huynh claims the firm places about 1,000 students each year into internships in its six locations—Beijing, Hong Kong, London, Madrid, Shanghai and Singapore. Students pay a program fee that starts at $3,099 and goes up to $6,495 for the destination they have been accepted to.

Looksharp

Since launching for business in 2009, Looksharp – which, once upon a time, was known as InternMatch – has raised almost $9.5 million from players like 500 Startups, Artis Ventures and Kapor Capital, to name a few. The company claims to offer postings from over 30,000 companies including Facebook , Lyft , Vertafore , and Charles Schwab , plus quite a few NGOs. The search engine stores positions from most U.S. states, Washington, D.C., plus some areas of Canada. When searching, if the internship you had your sights on is no longer available, Looksharp will offer up several others that are similar.

Intern Queen

Lauren Berger’s Intern Queen business has been around for the past seven years and emerged directly from her own experience searching for internships. Her small staff, based in California, seeks to give internship seekers a slightly more personal service by offering career and job search advice on its site while putting forth its founder, Berger, as the very visible face of the media and fashion industry-centric search organization. Says Berger: “I think people come to our site and feel like they have a cheerleader; someone really rooting for them and there to hold their hand throughout the internship journey.”

Internship Programs

Internship Programs is essentially a landing page for a bevy of internship openings from everywhere. The simple site allows job-seekers to type in a keyword describing what they are looking for, followed by a geographical location in which they would like to work. The results are often brief descriptions of what’s on offer and a link to the hiring company’s site or the job board on which the position is offered.

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Forbes.com | February 1, 2016 |  Karsten Strauss