Hello, everyone, my name is Julian Pacino. And the conversation today is three keys to getting hired after you graduate from college. So for the past 10 years, I've been working in the field of professional recruitment and staffing. And over the course of my career, I've had the great privilege of having successfully helped advance the careers of hundreds of individuals in a multitude of different job professions at various stages of their career. And a very significant piece of the candidate market I've been able to help is the entry level market. So folks who have recently graduated from college, and knowing what I know about my own search 10 years ago when I first entered the market, and also now being on the flip side in the coaching and, and consulting side of things.

I know that entry level candidates have very specific challenges that they face when they're looking for a job the first time and a lot of these challenges don't necessarily even have to do with like economic factors, but more so just kind of wherever they are in life. And that's why I wanted to put this content together today. So to add to the specific challenges of job seekers, believe it or not, once you graduate from college, you are actually entry level. So I know the first time that I heard this and I spent all this time going to college, I squeezed four years of college into six and no, I don't have a master's degree. But nevertheless, when I did that, I was told I was entry level. And to me that was so shocking the first time.

But that's the truth of the market. That's how most corporate institutions view someone who just graduated from college. They're kind of at the beginning wrong and you don't have much experience. And the second item is, the reality of the entry level job market is this. There is massive amounts of competition. Think about it every single semester.

A new graduate is ejected into the marketplace, fall, spring, winter, maesters. Summer one summer to all those tiny insurance semesters as well, but a new graduate is being ejected every single semester. Stir. And what does that do? That adds to the pool of entry level candidates that are competing for the same jobs you are. So that's another reality of the entry level job candidate market is perpetual competition.

And the third challenge is, you really have little to no identity in the marketplace, nor really any kind of points of differentiation, because you're just starting out. And it's hard to if you're not careful about a create a specific case about your candidacy. So here's the agenda. We're going to do two things. And that's it. Number one, we're going to discuss the top three characteristics of the most successful college graduate job seekers.

Now Anthony Robbins says success leaves clues. And I believe that and I think that absolutely rings true when it comes to a candidate search. So what I've done is taken the 10 years of experience in observing entry level candidates who've actually gotten jobs, and boiled them down to the top three things that I know absolutely serve them in their search. So by dissecting them and learning the best practice is hopefully you can apply that to your own independent search. And the second thing we're going to do is what to do if you're lacking any or all of them. And I'll give you some points and how we can at least approach that if you lack one or all those necessary points.

So key number one. This sounds overly simplistic, but I don't want you to miss this. The most successful job seekers know exactly what they want to do with clarity and certainty. There's a number of individuals that I know for a fact that I graduated with, once they got their degree. That was like the end goal, but they really had no idea what they wanted to do. But the best folks out there know with clarity, what major what job, what profession, what industry, and even what company they want to go after.

There is power and clarity. Napoleon Hill says the world has the habit of making room for the man whose actions show that he knows where he's going. And that's the truth. There is power and clarity and focus when it comes to finding the job that you want. So I graduated from College back in 2005. And I was super overconfident in my ability to go get a job once I got my degree, because I built up some pretty significant retail experience.

I was a manager, one of the youngest in my company and ran very successful departments. So I thought that my experience coupled with my degree and technical certifications now would make me an amazing entry level candidate, right? Well, I was very much humbled throughout this process. It took me eight months to finally find a job which ultimately accepted and I was rejected 35 times. And the truth was, I had no idea what I wanted to do after I graduated from college, I just wanted that degree. And what I soon learned was that I was trying to be everything to everyone.

And that's not what the market wants. what the market wants is this. It does not seek generalization. It seeks specialization. And that's exactly what a job is. It's one function of the business.

Every opening that a company has is a problem that they need. And that's how you need to think of things. How Were you a solution to that employers need. And again, that's so key. The market doesn't see generalization for most positions, it seeks specializations and wants one person to do something better than anything else. Make sense.

Key number two, all seems kind of doing it right. But they have some experience. But that's the leg up. If you think about it, right. Most people who graduate from college don't necessarily have a whole lot of experience. But the best ones, the ones that typically have offers as soon as they walk through the graduation stage is this.

They have internships, they have relevant part time and full time work experience. And if they haven't worked for an institution before, they have some type of tangible, relevant experience that they've created on their own. For creatives, they have portfolios that they can show off and say, Hey, this is my artwork. This is what I've done. For software engineers, they have like, they have like code repositories like GitHub and, and places that you can store your code and show the way that you think and apply your your critical thinking when it comes to engineering. So if there's a way that you can tangibilize your experience even though you haven't really worked for a company, that's really, really good.

And also, some of the best job seekers who just graduated from college do not postpone their job search. They've been constantly making connections even through their freshman year. So I oversee hiring for one of the world's greatest mobile solution studios, and we hire some of the best talents in the world. I know several instances of at least maybe four or five interns that we brought on three years in a row. And you bet we hired them the day that they graduated. So that's important to know.

Don't wait until you graduate to start looking for a job. Make those inroads now as early on as you can. key number three, having a good attitude and also persistence. So in the world of professional hiring, there's something called the kung fu right? But in essence, what that means there's like a technical Also a cultural fit. There's two sides of the coin, the technical pieces, can the candidate do the job?

Do they have the technical skills required to be able to function well in this role? And the other piece is the cultural aspects. So what if this person can do the job? There's hundreds of people who can do the job. But now can we stomach working with this person? Is this someone that we can go have a beer with?

Or hang out with on the weekend? Whatever it is, is this person we would want to work with? There's absolutely those two aspects when it comes to an employer's mindset of making that hire. And I'd argue in a lot of cases we have. We have made hires who weren't necessarily the most technical but had a great attitude in terms of humility. And we actually several times have passed on candidates with name brand previous employers.

For example, there was one engineer who came to us from Google, pass all of his technical tests and just blew them all out of the water, right. But when it came time to us to actually interview him, we find out that there's level of arrogance and conceit with this individual, right? Yeah, it comes from a name brand. Yeah, he's awesome. But you know what this person is not gonna mesh well with the team, we look for people with a certain level of humility and humility doesn't have anything to do with being meek. It has to do with being truthful to who you are in the experience that you have being okay with it.

And in several cases, we have hired people with less experience but a great attitude. we'd much rather take somebody who is willing to learn and put in the extra effort than somebody who can't learn anything, in addition to what we teach them. And the best job seekers that I've found also don't get too emotional about declines. And they treat it as more of an objective process. And they also know that getting offers are a byproduct of the quality and quantity of interviews that you create for yourself. If you look at the job search process, which it truly is, it's kind of a sales process, right?

And it's a circle. And the cool thing about a circle is that you could keep doing it until you create that desired outcome, which is getting an offer ultimately which you accept Well, the most important event that can take place in a person's job search is the interview process. Nothing happens until an individual communicates his or her value to the person who actually makes the decision. So what to do if you lack some of these characteristics. So these top three characteristics I've really seen and maybe 510 percent of the population I've been able to help. So the vast majority of folks might not have one or all of these keys.

So let's start with you don't know what to do. As early on as you can in life, if I was to give myself some advice, back when I first graduated, it would be find out who you are. Find out what you seem to do naturally, well, what are the activities that you invest yourself in where time seems to just go away? What are the things that you are truly passionate about? And, and is there an intersection between what you do naturally Well, what you love to do and what creates an income. Because once you find that try you an intersection, you find more than just a job, you find a career, you found a calling.

And that's really what I wish for all of you guys not just to find a job, but to find something that gives you meaning in your work. So 16 personalities calm is actually a free personality test that you can take. And it's heavily based off the Myers Briggs. It takes about 2530 minutes to complete. And it has been one of the most interesting encapsulations of my own personal character when I read it. Like I was actually kind of emotional when I saw it because I knew some of these things about myself, but I never saw it in words spelt out.

And this is not comprehensive. It's not going to tell you what you want to do in life, but it's going to give you a mind post and I highly suggest you try to give that a shot. strengthsfinder 2.0 is another similar thing, but instead of creating character profiles, it isolate specific strengths. And when you take the test it gives you the top five also a great way to start learning who you are. And once you know who you are and how you work with other people that could give you at least directions in terms of what kind of job you want to pursue. network with an interview people who are doing the things you think you want to do.

One of the greatest things about being entry level is that you really don't have much to lose. And what better way to figure out what you want to do then by meeting some of the people that are doing the things you think you want to do, there's infinite number of meetup groups that you can go to. So that's what I suggest. If you think you have a career in mind a job, go to meetup.com type it in, whether it's software engineering, or mobile development, or project management or sales, you will find some type of Meetup group in that area. And the folks that actually go and arrange these meetup groups are usually the most passionate individuals, find those people interview them, buy them lunch and see if you could shadow them for a day or two at their office to see if it's something that you want to do to gain some further clarity.

If it's something you ultimately want to do in a career that you want to pursue. Lastly, just get out there and go try stuff. Some of the best ways that I've ever learned about myself is just by kind of reckless and trying things. And there's nothing wrong with that. And I live in the Dallas area, which is great because there's an amazing startup community. And startup communities are always looking for people with talents and skills who are willing to work for cheap, but that's a great way just to kind of get your hands dirty and start digging yourself out a little bit more.

So you don't have experience. Here's one thing I know I've spoken to a lot of college graduates that think it's sort of demeaning to get an internship after college, there was nothing wrong with that. If you have clarity about what you want to do, and you're willing to prove yourself by producing results for a particular organization. There is nothing wrong with getting an internship after college. And if anything, the employer knows that the desired outcome is for you to work full time. But if you're willing to work as an intern, they know that you're serious.

Go volunteer work for free. There are infinite numbers of nonprofits that Looking for specialized help. That's another way just to get experience to put something relevant on your resume, functional bullet points of value that you've added in the marketplace. That's a way to build experience, add it to your resume, without a whole lot of risk associated with it. And create massive job leads. So the idea here really is to just get out there and start doing stuff apply for every single job chase down every single lead, and it doesn't matter if you get declined for it.

But learn something from each and every opportunity that you pursue, go to indeed.com that's like the mother of all search engines and type in the job that you want. And you will come up with a list of openings that are happening within the marketplace in your specific zip networking groups and also warm contacts. Warm contacts are probably the greatest place to go generate leads. So the mobile solutions studio that I worked for, I've been here for the past four years I've overseen hiring we have quadrupled in size in the past. Two and a half years, one out of every two persons that we hired was an internal referral. That's a clue 50% of the hiring that we did came from the networks of the people that we know love and trust.

What does that mean? referrals are great because they're recommendations based on trust. And that's a clue there is a great likelihood that the first career first job that you go after and accept is might be coming from a warm contact that you have family, friends, previous co workers, previous bosses, there's so many different ways to generate a warm lead. And because you don't have experience, most likely you're not going to be recognized just based on your resume. So if there was a way to get a shortcut outside of the the normal application process, perhaps through a warm contact, to get yourself in front of the hiring manager and communicate your value, the much better off you're going to be. And let's say that you actually do find a company that you're You're interested in, and you're really passionate about this job.

And although you don't have the experience you think that your life experiences can add value to it. Well, the first step you do in preparing for that interview is thoroughly research the company, really understand them in the space that they are the unique strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats that have towards that organization. And then truly understand the job description and go through it line by line and really understanding what that need is, although you don't have relevant job working experience, everyone has life experience. And then you have to find the narrative about your own life story to figure out how that can translate into adding value to this company. discouraged so getting rejected 35 times is no joke. And when I first started that search, I was really arrogant, but really humbled in the process.

And I know what it's like to be completely discouraged. And I deeply empathize with anyone who's struggling in a job search. And that's actually what gives me so much meaning and doing the things that I do in helping the folks that need this kind of help. But if I was to go back in time, I would tell myself this, start with your why. Now, this is a strategy that you can use for pretty much any aspect of your life. I know for a fact whenever I develop a compelling reason to do something, I become invincible.

I can run through walls, nothing can hurt me, I am not denied by anything. So what is your reason for looking for a job? Are you looking to create an income for your for your family or your kids? Are you looking to make a deep impact in this world? Are you looking for significance? Are you looking to add value?

Are you looking to start your own company? Who knows maybe this whole Odyssey that you have is not even about a job but starting a business. But that's a big part of what I do is I want to make sure that I unlock the potential that you have inside of you for you to do the best things whatever you want to do. So start with your why got off on a tangent there, right? I get really passionate about the things that I talked about, but back to seeking for a job, right? So there is no such thing as failure, only feedback.

I don't want you guys to gloss over that. But if you look with an unemotional view, an emotional viewpoint of pursuing a job, and just looking at as feedback and not failure, you can never fail. Because you only fail whenever you give up. It took me 35 times to find a job. But now I made a career and helping other people find jobs. And to me, there's a deep amount of meaning in that.

So don't perceive failure, just see it as feedback. In Review, we talked about the top three characteristics. The first characteristic characteristic of the most successful job seeker is that they know what to do. And if you don't know what to do after you graduate from college, it's okay you have time to figure it out. I shared a few tools of how you can at least approach the idea of figuring that out. The second piece was most of them have some kind of experience.

And if you don't have experience, find a way to make your experience tangible to that particular employer. Go work for free, that work with people do something. And then lastly, have a good attitude and be persistent. And don't be denied. And don't see failure as failure, but just see it as feedback. So those are the top three characteristics that I've seen in the most successful job seekers.

So hopefully you can take this information applied in your search and be successful in fighting in what you ultimately want to do. Thank you very much for your time and attention and I look forward to connecting with you guys in a future trading. Thanks