Source: Pexels

So you’re about to graduate with a business degree. Whether you’re graduating with your master’s or just a bachelor’s degree, you need to know what the world is looking for and how to make your place in it! Staying knowledgeable is step number one, so we’re here to help you with that. Study up!

Beefing Up Your Resume

Make no mistake: You should be changing your resume for every job you apply for. Each one should be different and catered to what a company is already looking for. For instance, right now companies are looking for applicants with MBAs to hire as business and marketing operations managers. If you were to apply for a marketing operations manager position, you would want to highlight marketing-oriented classes you took and what those classes entailed, as well as any internship or previous job tasks that used marketing skills. However, if it was a business operations manager, then you may want to highlight your more well-rounded experiences with leadership and management, but you would focus less specifically on the marketing tasks.

It’s true that an MBA is practically necessary for any kind of management position, but it also opens your possibilities up to different kinds of consultancies and gives you the tools for entrepreneurship, which a Bachelor’s in Business may do as well. So you can see that basic-level business experience may not be all you need for more specified offshoots of the business field. With whatever you want to go into, you should always try to get an internship catered more directly to your field. The more extra professional experience you put on your resume, the more likely your resume will find its way to the top of the pile. Choose the most noteworthy, eye-catching, specific, and impressive things you can for this — and when you’re beefing it up, trim the fat.

Building Your Reputation

Your reputation is your brand, and you need to market yourself effectively. As the age-old saying goes, it’s not who you are, it’s who you know. For better or worse, this is just the way the world runs itself. Therefore you only have one option: to make yourself known.

Sometimes your reputation starts just with your face. After your face gets known a few times, your reputation also becomes a name. Go to any meeting of industry heads and leaders you can. Schedule informational interviews with them. See if they’ll give you a tour of their facilities. Always send a follow-up email after a meeting thanking them for their time, even after a convention or group meeting. This way they will be more likely to remember you in the future.

The Interview

Your interview is your in-person resume. You should already know this being a business grad, as well as someone who’s probably worked jobs and internships before. But just in case, dress to impress. Your looks are your first impression after your resume, so present yourself professionally and show your potential employers you mean business (no pun intended). Shake their hands, smile, ask them how they are, and keep a friendly and confident tone.

Employers want to hire long-term assets, not short-term passerbys. Do not let on that you may leave if that’s an honest option, and while you’re there do the absolute best work you can for them. When you converse with the interviewer, asking the correct questions back to the interviewer means choosing questions that show genuine respect for and interest in what the company does. This interview is your chance to make clear that you believe in what the company is doing and want to help them accomplish it. Be prepared to answer all questions, even the generic ones, without being generic. And remember: Body language says it all. Sit up straight, don’t move around too much, and be excited but composed.

What would you recommend to new business grads? Let us know in the comments below.