Why I'm jobless no more!

Yay I have a job!!  I win.  After months of uncertainty and stresses over money (the credit card has definitely taken a beating), I can finally say I have a 'proper grown up person job'.  I'll be working as of Monday at Mountbatten Institute as an Admissions Officer.  It involves (amongst lots of other things) interviewing applicants to the global exchange programmes and attending recruitment events to promote the courses by giving presentations.  Although it's not technically Dance or Drama related, I know for sure I would not have gained the job without my degree and general university experience. Before going to uni, I had only really had jobs in pubs/bars/restaurants.  Although I gained great experience from these in terms of customer service, my teacher at school told me to go to uni and do things I'd never done before to widen my experience base.  That's what I tried to do.

The best 8 decisions I made during uni that ultimately helped me get a job after it:

• Becoming a social sec for a Sports club-  You'd be amazed at how many transferrable skills you can squeeze out of that and implement into an interview.  Arranging discounts, liaising with night clubs/venues and members to get the best results possible. People person.
• Attending a FREE KU graduate bootcamp-  Drawing on experiences of team building exercises, creating and giving presentations whilst sticking to a strict deadline, CV writing.  I was asked about this day in detail during the interview, it looks great if you've made the effort to try and increase your employability rate.  
• Doing Dance and Drama-  Being able to convincingly fake confidence and keep my cool in the interview helped a lot. 
• Attending a writing course, publishing blogs and articles-  Social networking is more important now than ever before.  Proving you can sell yourself/ get opinions across effectively and with good english looks pretty damn good.  You have to be aware of your audience and show that you can tailor your writing to a varying clientele.  Communication skills. 
• Being a Student Ambassador-  Shows that you can support fellow students and work with lecturers effectively in order to promote your university. 
• Getting a part time Admin job-  Proof that you can use Excel, Word etc and input data effectively and to strict deadlines. 
• Getting LinkedIn-  Do it, do it now.
• Worked hard, played hard-  You are a human being.  My interviewers all asked me about what I do for fun, what I'm passionate about. Ok, so DON'T bring up that as a student you probably got drunk on a regular basis and missed lectures...they already assume that you did that anyways!  DO bring up that you like going out with friends and attending music gigs/poetry readings/cinema nights/whatever it is. It shows that you have a life and are like normal and stuff.   

The purpose of this is not to patronise, it's to reassure you that if you're still on the job hunt, there is hope.  I really thought it was never going to happen, it's so disheartening when you don't hear back from various applications and you feel like you're doing everything you can.  Use a reputable recruitment agency and go and meet them in person, you're more likely to get a job this way, because when they meet you they'll be able to picture you in different roles with ease.
                                       YOU WILL GET A JOB. IT WILL BE OK.
 You've just got to be patient and resilient.  Use experiences you've had and sell them, why were they important/awesome to you or others?  You're going to have way more awesome experience than I have I'm sure, it's just knowing how to sell it! 

Picture sourced:www.alifechangingjourney.com