As a college student looking for a job or internship, the search is miserable. The only job hunting we have down was for a summer job at the pool or a local retail store–not exactly the most challenging since these places are always looking to hire. The search for a “grown-up” job seems like a free for all. University career centers claim to offer help, but many only help with a few select companies or majors. Then if you want to work in a city more than 100 miles from your school, the career center is no help. Your professors are hardly any help either.

My tip for college students: NETWORK

College students do not realize how large their network actually is. Many students take some advantage of their parents’ networks, but often find it uncomfortable to converse with their parents’ friends in a professional manner.

But college students also have their own professional network. Their networks include friends who have graduated, professors, speakers to organizations, companies they have worked with in class, and previous employers.

Here are some places to find people who may have a job just waiting for you.

• Social Networking Sites

o Facebook: Do you have 10 friends? 100 friends? 1000 friends? Maybe you haven’t talked to all of them in awhile, but each is doing something with their lives. Find out what it is. Your paths may not have crossed recently, but they might be parallel.
o LinkedIn: Obviously a source of professional contacts. You can easily find out every job someone has had and what other companies they are connected to.
o Twitter: Post that you are looking for a job in a specific industry. People are listening to your thoughts. Make them worthwhile. Share job search strategies or industry thoughts.
o Brazen Careerist: You can join professional and social networks. Again, post that you are looking for a job. Include your major, college, hometown, whatever. These things will catch someone’s eye.

• College/University

o Professors: Professors have helped students get jobs for years. They have contacts at all kinds of companies. But you need to have built a relationship with your professor throughout college. Don’t seek out a professor you haven’t seen since freshman year expecting them to have a job waiting for you.
o Friends: Whether your friends have already graduated and are working full-time or had an internship last summer, they probably know something about the job you are looking for.

• Family: Talk to your parents’ friends. It will be awkward. But it will give you a chance to practice being a business professional before you actually have to be.

I admit it — I am addicted to job advice. I love reading advice on Twitter, rummage through my RSS feed of career blogs on LinkedIn, and regularly check out the latest career musings on BrazenCareerist. Based on all I read and my own experiences acquiring and maintaining 3 jobs in the past year, here is a compilation list of the 10 things you can do right now to jump start your job search.

1. Create a great LinkedIn profile. Sure, it’s pretty easy to sign up for LinkedIn, include your current and past positions, and add a few people to your network, but you can and should do so much more. Recruiters are using LinkedIn more and more to find candidates, even those who aren’t actively looking. Part of the reason why recruiters are coming across LinkedIn profiles of those who aren’t actively looking, is how well their profiles are put together.

What do you need to do to create the beginnings of a great LinkedIn profile? Here are the starters:
• Make your LinkedIn URL your first and last name. This can improve your LinkedIn visibility on Google
• In addition, if you include your blog in the Websites sections, instead of naming it the default “My Website,” rename it the blog name
• In the Specialties section, use resume keywords; otherwise known as core competencies
• List accomplishments in addition to duties to your experience (much like a resume)
• Ask for recommendations, and give recommendations!
• (Read these additional LinkedIn tips from LinkedIn)

2. Volunteer your career services. If you haven’t been working for a few months, you need to volunteer. Why? One of the first things recruiters will notice is gaps on your resume, and they will wonder what you have been doing to be a savvy job seeker during your time-off. Interested in a social media position but don’t have the formal experience? Find a local organization that’s lacking a Twitter or Facebook Fan Page and volunteer to create them. (Put this experience on your resume and LinkedIn page, and then ask for a LinkedIn recommendation from the boss.) Want to work in a project management role? Join your condo’s board of directors. (You can learn fiscal responsibility, teamwork negotiation, and leadership skills and include those competencies on your resume.)

Aside from the skills and resume experience you get from volunteering, you also gain a crucial opportunity to expand your network. Which leads us to…

3. Network everywhere, all the time, with everyone. Networking doesn’t mean you’re holding up a business card with sad, trembling eyes, and you ask a person who you just exchanged 2 words with an elevator: “Do you know of any jobs?” Networking is about getting to know a person—who he/she is, what kind of work he/she does, what his/her interests are—and striking up a conversation about who you are, what you have to offer, your interests, and what kind of work you are looking for. If all goes well in that conversation, that person will be more than happy to share pertinent information with you!  Many times, that person doesn’t have pertinent information for you at the moment—but he or she might in the future. Maintain communications with your contacts whether it’s through a holiday card, LinkedIn, or sharing lunch. Additionally, make sure you don’t let your membership to organizations you are already a part of expire—your networking experiences and opportunities to hear insights into the industry are often worth the annual fee. You might also want to consider joining job seeker groups on www.meetup.com where you can meet other job seekers and industry professionals who are all enthusiastic about helping each other out.

4. Treat your resume as if it is the most important financial document you will ever own. This quote is borrowed from GoSavant’s Martin Yate, but I believe in it 100%! Your resume is what gets you or what keeps you from getting the job you want. If you aren’t getting interviews after months of applying for jobs, chances are something is wrong with your resume. If you’re still not getting the interview after updating your resume per expert opinion, hire a professional resume writer. It can seem expensive, but it is an investment into your future, an investment into the future of your income.

5. Write a cover letter for each job you apply to and personalize it. Even if a company doesn’t require you to submit a cover letter, submit a cover letter. Don’t let your cover letter be a boring recitation of everything on your resume in an equally boring 4-paragraph form—keep your cover letter concise and personal to the company, and let your personality shine through!

6. Clean up your “digital dirt.” Google your first and last name. Click on those sites. Do you see anything that can keep you from getting the job you want? Get rid of it. Keep in mind that although your Facebook profile may be “private,” your profile picture may not be. What you write on your friend’s walls may not be private either. If you have a personal blog that includes your personal feelings on personal topics and your name is linked to it, you will want to keep that from public view.

7. Do not just use job boards. Here’s the truth: a few of the jobs I’ve gotten were indeed from CareerBuilder, but that was during a different job market with less competition and more time for HR recruiters to look at resumes. In conjunction with talking to your networking contacts for job opportunities, create new networking contacts through social media platforms like Twitter by creating an appropriate job hunting profile that discusses who you are, your skills, and what kind of work you’re looking for, then follow and network with  businesses and thought leaders pertinent to your job search. Use www.linkup.com to view job openings on company websites. And of course, use LinkedIn to look for job opportunities or to find hiring managers behind company profiles and find ways to be on their radar.

8. Don’t have one-size-fits-all approach to your job search. There’s a reason why they don’t make jeans all in one size: they wouldn’t fit! You have to focus your job search on the kind of work you are suitable for and not have or communicate the “I’ll take anything” approach. For each type of job you are looking for (ie, sales vs. marketing job), have a different resume. Always have an individualized cover letter. Don’t give canned answers to interviews. Be aware of what the company is looking for and put your focused energy into a personalized resume, cover letter, and interview. If you’re not finding success after several months of job hunting and interviewing, hire a job coach.

9. Have a daily job search plan. Looking for a job should be a full-time job until you find a full-time job, but that doesn’t mean you need to spend 8 hours looking at a computer all day. It may help to prevent job search burnout by organizing a daily job search plan that includes a myriad of tasks during the course of the day. Have a day that looks like this: look for jobs for an hour, read trade magazines and articles specific to your industry (which might give you leads into the hidden job market) for about an hour, write cover letters for 2 hours, volunteer for 2 hours, and go to a networking event for 2 hours that night. Switch up your tasks per day! Your job search won’t seem as tasking.

10. Be positive. This is not meant to be hokey advice that equates to having an unrealistic attitude and a forced smile. The bottom-line is this: you will get hired. If you arm yourself with all the tools you need like the right resume, a creative cover letter, awesome interviewing skills, and an optimistic outlook, you will find work. Having a positive attitude in your job search will extend to your networking events, your cover letters, your interviews—and employers will infinitely prefer to hire someone who has a positive, optimistic attitude as opposed to a depressed and pleading one.

Have I missed any major pointers on improving job search? What have you done to have a successful job search? Sound off below!

A protégée of GoSavant.com, Molly Mann, has been profiled in the Chicago Sun-Times! Molly’s job search success has been realized after taking GoSavant.com’s “Ultimate Job Search Toolkit” and working with one of GoSavant’s coaches, Karen Marvinac.

After watching GoSavant.com’s “Winning Interviewing Techniques” before the interview that led to her job offer, Molly noted: "The tips, along with my coach Karen Marvinac's help, gave me a lot more confidence and acted as a refresher course… GoSavant gave me a structure and a feeling that things can turn around."

Natalie Petouhoff of Forrester Research also notes that GoSavant is unique because it allows job seekers to practice interviewing skills by speaking to a job coach, rather than rehearsing in their heads, and can role-play their resumes in the best way possible.

To read the rest of the Chicago Sun-Times article on GoSavant.com, click here.

Chew on this! GoSavant.com team members show you how to really "blow" the interview by "sticking it" to the interviewer.

Rule #4: When interviewing, don't describe the reason why you want the job as a "stepping stone" to future jobs.

Rule #3: When asked about your weaknesses in an interview, mention an actual weakness. And when asked why you left a company, the word "supervisor" probably shouldn't be mentioned

Rule #2: When asked in an interview to "Tell me about yourself," your response should never include the phrases "I was born in" and "it was dark at night mostly there."

Rule #1: Know the position you're interviewing for. (Also throw out your used tissue in advance.)

Many of you have completed pre-interview questionnaires. What are they? They are questions a hiring company may have you complete after sending in your resume and before landing a phone or live interview. I know they can seem hard. I know it reminds you of writing papers for school. But just like writing those papers, once you sit down and do it, it isn’t as bad as it seems.

Pre-interview questionnaires are one of many resources or tools that companies use to screen candidates. They can be an effective way to determine a person’s skills and experience. They can also be very telling about a person’s written communication skills and style.

From a candidate’s perspective, pre-interview questionnaires are an additional way to highlight achievements. Your resume lists your accomplishments, competencies, and experience. The questionnaire allows you to elaborate and explain your actual job-oriented accomplishments. Use the pre-interview questionnaire to demonstrate your successes. This can help you stand out in today’s sea of job applicants.

Here are a few tips for completing the pre-interview questionnaire:

• Be thorough but not too lengthy
• Be straightforward and give specific examples
• Take this part of the process seriously – it could land you the interview
• Spell check your responses before turning the questionnaire into the company
• Have another set of eyes (perhaps a career coach) look at your responses

You may find that many of these pre-employment questionnaires ask similar questions. Over time you can build from previous answers when completing new questionnaires. Remember, just as this is a tool that employers use to screen, it is also a tool for you to showcase yourself.

Many of us know Kanye West to be a talented, hardworking, and successful musical artist, but for thousands of people out there, those admirable qualities are not the first thoughts they have when they think of Kanye. They think things like “egotistical,” “ungrateful,” and “selfish.” They don’t think about the millions of records he’s sold; they think of him jumping on stage at the VMAs giving his unsolicited opinion while Taylor Swift is trying to accept her award. They don’t think about his sheer determination to make in the industry as a teenager, making a record while his mouth is wired shut due to an accident; they think about him complaining that his music video didn’t win best video of the year in Europe. They don’t think about his acclaimed skills as a lyricist; they think about how he chooses to use CAPS lock for nearly every blog he writes.

As gifted as an employee may be at work, he or she can suffer “Kanye West-syndrome” due to his of her insufferable complaints and actions at the job. Kanye-West syndrome sufferers may be plagued with the following symptoms:

• Constantly feels he or she is more deserving of acclaim than another
• Openly complains about that lack of supposed acclaim
• Gives unsolicited opinions, especially in inappropriate venues
• When apologizing for something, still has excuses for behavior in response
• Believes others copy/mimic him or her artistically
• Complains about how he or she believes others copy/mimic him or her artistically
• Shows up late to meetings or is insufficiently prepared for meetings due to poor behavioral choices
• Uses the CAPS lock or other font, font style, or color/size of text that is inappropriate for business communications

How can you combat Kanye-West syndrome? Well, you could practice all of those behaviors and hope that several eventual apologies will suffice—but that’s not working for Kanye right now, and that’s probably not going to going to work for you at work. Instead, practice the following behaviors at work:

• Congratulate colleagues at work for their successes
• When finding personal success in a team effort, give open credit to all those involved and thank them each of them for their effort
• If you have made a mistake at work, don’t make excuses for it; apologize and discuss how you plan to remedy it
• If you have a potentially negative comment about someone’s work, instead of openly proclaiming it at a board meeting or copying everyone on it in an e-mail, discuss it personally with the individual
• Instead of complaining about lack of acclaim, thank manager for support, discuss current accomplishments, and create goals with that manager
• Don’t use text or font in business communications that can be seen as annoying or showy

You might be one of the most talented, hardworking, and successful people at work; but no one will want to recognize you if you act like a Kanye West at work. Act positive, appreciative, and humble, and you might be able to find even more success in the workplace.