Advice for college students during the Covid-19 pandemic

Millions of college juniors and seniors are at a loss on how to move forward right now. The good news is that everyone is dealing with this, so this is your chance to stand out.

What do you do when you need to show professional experiences on your resume, but you just lost your internship? Or you worked your tail off for your first job placement and you were just notified that there’s a hiring freeze? Here are some action steps from Lindsay Boccardo, Generational Consultant and Millennial Career Coach you can take today to feel good about your future:

• Be mindful of your mental health.  Students are self-reporting that their mental health is declining with being away from friends and feeling isolated and less motivated to do schoolwork. It would make sense that losing an internship or a job on top of that would be a lot to handle. One thing I love about GenZ is their openness to talk about mental health. Make sure your internal dialogue is compassionate towards yourself as you work through so much disappointment.

• Build a LIFE TEAM of people around you who can support you right now. That could very well include a therapist, a career coach, a mentor. You are going to need support to navigate this.

• Reach out to your university for support services. Your career services office has likely been working very hard to help students just like you. Reach out, with a specific ask. Don’t be afraid to send that email or pick up your phone. They are there to help you.

• List out the skills you were hoping to gain from your internship or first job. Think about how you could transfer the skills into other opportunities.
  • Let me give you an example: Say that you are a marketing major and you were looking forward to working at a marketing agency. Another way to get real world action is to reach out to small businesses who need more presence online. Tell them how you could help them. Take online courses that you can directly apply to your own little client base. I’ve hired people onto my team because they told me what they could bring to my business and showed initiative.
  • There are also awesome solutions like micro-internships. Where you work inside a company on a specific project for a few weeks. You can still build your experience and network. Check out parkerdewey.com

• Make
  sure you are spending quality time on LinkedIn. Update your ABOUT section and
  ask for recommendations. Make it a goal to reach out to at least 1 person a day
  to tell them about your situation and what you are trying to learn and grow in.
  Find alumni from your school or fraternity or sorority – start growing your
  network by finding people in your fields of interest.

I
believe a career is a commitment to keep learning and growing in a direction
that interests you. A commitment to add value to other people’s lives in a
specific way. Whether you want to be a coder or a teacher or you want to work
at a PR firm. This has not changed. How we go about it has changed and to the
degree that you can flex and show resiliency and resourcefulness, you’ll set
yourself up for success.  

For more from Lindsay, visit lindsayboccardo.com.