There’s nothing quite as exciting as watching your hard work pay off after years of academic achievement when you finally graduate with your college degree. But for millions of graduating college seniors this year, the excitement and celebration of graduation have been replaced with uncertainty and concern in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic. In the highly competitive engineering and technical fields, professionals who were working during the past recession can more than empathize with these frustrations. However, as they will often tell you, it is possible to find work during a time of economic uncertainty with hard work and a good plan.
At One Tech Engineering, our Minnesota engineering and technical recruiters work with young professionals every day to help them make a plan for the future. We’ve put together this advice to help graduating seniors find work they’ll thrive in during this challenging time.
The Challenges of Graduating During a Pandemic
Graduating seniors face unprecedented challenges that no other generation has previously encountered. Instead of walking across the stage and tossing their graduation cap gleefully, they’re wrapping up their finals online and graduating via Zoom. While previous generations immediately began sending out resumes and scheduling interviews, today’s grads are joining a workforce that’s waking up from a months-long quarantine.
Even as the economy begins to open back up, today’s engineering graduates will face tremendous challenges finding work with millions of Americans on unemployment. That’s why it’s important to have a clear plan moving forward.
Follow these steps to get back to work sooner:
1. Work on building your professional network.
Connect with college acquaintances and work on building relationships. Most of the time, it’s not what you know but who you know that gets your foot in the door.
2. Refine your social media presence.
Expect any potential employers to check out your social media presence. Take some time to clean up your content so you look like someone an engineering firm would want to hire.
3. Work with professional engineering recruiters.
During the last recession, many young engineering professionals floundered for years in search of work. However, professional engineering recruiting services specialize in connecting industry professionals with the best firms in their field.
Get to Work Fast With Engineering Staffing Minnesota
At One Tech Engineering in Minnesota, we’re committed to getting engineering and technical employees to work. We can help with civil designer recruiting, structural designer recruiting, electrical engineering recruiting, mechanical designer recruiting, and technical drafting recruiting.
In addition to a benefits package, we can help connect you with contract or contract-to-direct hire work. If you’re ready to get to work now, give us a call at 952.884.9199, or contact us to learn more about how we can help you get started on your career today.