Take Hold of Opportunities

I hope everybody has had a great week! In case you missed the last blog post, Marion has stepped back from writing the blog. For the time being, I will be temporarily taking over. My name is Morgan and I am 21 years old. I love reading, writing, and bad movies. I’m hoping to bring the perspective of a young adult entering the working world to the blog. 

After seeing that RiseUP is doing several job preparedness workshops this month, I was struck with an idea for this week’s post. Don’t take opportunities that are laid out for you for granted. One of my fatal flaws is that I have a hard time taking advantage of resources that are available to me. Throughout high school and college, I never used the career center, and I regretted it upon graduating.

I graduated from college in May with a BA in English. The only time I took advantage of my professors’ knowledge of going out into the real world was when making my resume was an assignment. I remember my mom continuously telling me to go to my university’s career center to get advice on how to improve my resume. Suffice to say, I never went. It made me too anxious. I probably would have been too anxious to attend a workshop like RiseUP’s, too, but I urge you to give it a try.

There is valuable information that comes with getting advice from people who are knowledgeable about what it takes to get a job. There are great resources like lectures and one one-on-one advice that often aren’t utilized by young adults. This topic struck me because I know how frustrating it is to hear adults tell you to do job preparedness workshops or go to events. Well, this is me, freshly on the other side, saying that no matter how pointless it may seem, these resources will give you valuable skills in the future.

I was completely unprepared for going in for an interview. My resume was subpar, and I didn’t feel good about submitting it anywhere. The whole time I was applying to jobs, I wished I had just gone to the career center and asked for help. Heck, it took a lot for me to take advantage of the opportunity to work on this blog as a resume builder. I didn’t feel qualified, and I am frankly terrified of it not being good enough, but my resolution when I graduated was to embrace the opportunities given to me. You should, too.

Question of the Week: What is one piece of advice you wish you had taken before applying to jobs? Or, what is the best piece of advice you’ve gotten about preparing to apply to jobs?