How to Get a Job after Graduation

Every year, hundreds, if not thousands of students get the call from a recruiter or an interviewer: "You’ve got the job." Here’s how you, too, can wind up picking up the same call.

First of all, congratulations. From where you sit at a respected university, you’ve got the Big Four coming to *you.* Company representatives visit campus during Winter and Spring on the lookout for Juniors to be summer interns, and then they’re back in the Fall looking for people to hire after graduation.

And in both cases, it works like this: Before they come, you learn all you can about the company, their hiring process and what they’re looking for. (Here are links to the pages for KPMG, Deloitte, EY and PwC.) For some of these you can even submit your resume and fill out a candidate profile right there on the firm’s website.

Side note: Not into the Big Four? Not a problem. Applying to a smaller firm just means finding out about the local environment as well. You want to know what businesses are in the area, who’s growing, that kind of thing. You can get involved with the local chamber of commerce to brush up, or read the latest issues of any business journals or newspapers available in your area. Actually, do both. Talk to professors and upperclassmen to find out even more, and check out clubs like Beta Alpha Psi – another treasure trove of knowledge about local business.

The next step in the campus process is the Meet and Greet. Here’s where you see their representatives in person and, well, meet them. After that come the on-campus interviews, which you’ll be invited to if your credentials checked out so far. They’ll probably talk to you for half an hour to an hour.

Get through that and you’ll be invited to the in-office interview, two or three weeks later. This one will take all day, and you two will get to know each other a lot better. You should have plenty of time to get an idea of whether it’s a good fit between you and this company.

And then, that’s it! In about a week, they’ll call, and you’ll know if you have a new employer lined up.

Don't go into it with your eyes closed. Know what to expect on interview day.