Building Your Confidence After University

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Leaving university and dipping your toes into the job market can be a very challenging time for any recent graduate. Having the safety net of the education institution taken away from you after what may have been your entire life can be hard and can throw up so much uncertainty. You may worry that you do not have enough experience for the jobs that you are interested in applying for. Being a student may have provided you with lots of great academic insight into your subject area, but you may worry that an employer will see through the lack of time in a relevant job and pass you up for the job. 

 

Manage Your Expectations

 

This is natural to worry, and when it comes to searching for jobs you should be prepared for a certain amount of rejection. You will be up against a lot of competition for a job, but that does not mean that you won’t ever find one. Use each application as an opportunity to learn and develop so that you will be able to improve with future applications. You will find a job, but the process will require resilience and patience. 

 

Job Hunting

 

There are many places that you can look to find the job of your dreams. There are countless general recruitment sites that bring together jobs from various employers. Or, there are niche sites where you can, for example, try searching for rheumatology jobs

 

Try journals and broadsheet papers to look for jobs that are related to a specific field as this will be the place where niche companies and organizations will target to find people with the relevant skills and experiences. 

 

If there are companies that you want to go and work for, check their sites to see if they are advertising any jobs. If they have nothing listed, you may be able to send them a speculative resume. Be sure that this stands out and comes with a strong cover letter. 

 

Build Yourself Up

 

Nobody else is guaranteed to give you the confidence that you will need to succeed, so you should make every effort to do this yourself. List your skills and traits and tell yourself what these things are each day. Positive thinking will overcome worries and doubts.  You will be able to channel all of this into your applications and your interviews and become a much more confident person for it. 

 

Turn Rejection Into Feedback

 

Not getting a job does not mean that you have wasted your time. On the contrary, you should see every rejection as the chance to learn and do better next time. Ask the recruiter if they have any feedback from your application or interview and take on board everything that they tell you. There is nothing stopping you from applying again next time around, and if you can demonstrate that you take feedback on board and improve through it, they may see that as a very desirable trait to have.