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I am a youngin' who will be graduating college pretty soon but I will be looking for a paid, full-time position within the next few months. Several of my classmates have managed to land professional positions in far away places months (yes, months) before they graduated and I would like to be in the same boat as these classmates. I am asking for how this can be done especially when the career services at my university are not particularly equipped or connected to the employers in my field (as it's a very niche field).
By the time I graduate, I will have an upwards of 7 professional certifications (might gain some more soon) and 3 internships on my resume. I have professional references ranging from employers to professors.
I start my current internship pretty soon and while I would look forward to potential employment options here, it seems the route for entry-level goes from volunteer to intern to temp to full-time. As an intern if I expect to get a full-time job it will be as a temp, and I'm not sure I can afford to forgo benefits and pay for them on my own even at a young age due to certain health conditions. Roughly 1/4 of the department (local government) has done this route. Even though where I am working now is in my mind for the future, I don't want to put all my eggs in one basket so I'd like to look elsewhere as well.
How do I, a future college graduate, reach out to out-of-state employers (and local ones too even though I would like to relocate) to see about employment that is a bit further out in time? I know that it is possible and in January perhaps too soon to be looking but I don't want to start looking when it's too late.
NOTE, if it helps, most of my field is in the public sector though private sector employment does exist.
Well, it does help to know what niche field we're talking about. I'm guessing a type of engineering/planning role or GIS? Anyway ...
But, in general terms, the best way to go about doing what you're asking is just to ask. Start mining that network that you have set up through the internships you have already done.
If you work in local government, those people generally know each other because they have to work together regionally on certain projects from time to time. Reach out to let the people you've already worked with know of your plans and goals. Ask them for contact referrals so you can send your resume to those folks.
If there are any professional or civic associations for your field, join those so you can attend functions and network.
Well, it does help to know what niche field we're talking about. I'm guessing a type of engineering/planning role or GIS? Anyway ...
But, in general terms, the best way to go about doing what you're asking is just to ask. Start mining that network that you have set up through the internships you have already done.
If you work in local government, those people generally know each other because they have to work together regionally on certain projects from time to time. Reach out to let the people you've already worked with know of your plans and goals. Ask them for contact referrals so you can send your resume to those folks.
If there are any professional or civic associations for your field, join those so you can attend functions and network.
Thank you!
I work in emergency management with a public health emphasis. Most of what I'm doing right now is less public health but more technical which is more transferable to non-PH fields in emergency management. I'm not sure if this is niche per say but very little college kids pursue or even know about this niche field in emergency management. However, there's a lot of work in it, which is why I think it was successful for me to find this internship (despite being a county government with a very large university) and land it.
This is my first internship in this field with the other two being irrelevant for this field. So my network will mostly be built on what I gain for the next few months (starting from scratch) rather than the other two. I have connected to some groups on LinkedIn and I have kept my personal profile up to date. I have been reached out for jobs through there but it was for sales based on my business minor.
It's a matter of how do I find and score interviews for these jobs when I won't be able to work until late May/early June. Especially since most of EM is public sector and I'm very new to how governments work on the inside. Though like I said there are private sector options, just less in public health.
I'll be in touch with my university's career services but I have little faith in them they are pretty incompetent at my university. I'm debating reaching out to an acquaintance who graduated from my program but managed to land a consulting job in DC for healthcare policy, but different fields and I'm not sure how much that helps me.
I get what you're saying now about the niche aspect. In my experience, it is definitely something people end up in after doing something else in another related field, and not so much a major that kids leaving high school are pursuing. Lots of former military managers and fire/police/911 upper management.
I do know, however, that some cities and counties are beefing up their EMA services, so relocation will work in your favor. The timing is tricky, but maybe you could target a desired market and get a related job there and move into the EMA services once you get established.
In fact, our county just last year opened a state-of-the-art EMA center.
I get what you're saying now about the niche aspect. In my experience, it is definitely something people end up in after doing something else in another related field, and not so much a major that kids leaving high school are pursuing. Lots of former military managers and fire/police/911 upper management.
I do know, however, that some cities and counties are beefing up their EMA services, so relocation will work in your favor. The timing is tricky, but maybe you could target a desired market and get a related job there and move into the EMA services once you get established.
In fact, our county just last year opened a state-of-the-art EMA center.
You could target local health departments and then move into EMA from there.
Well the public health part is a little different and doesn't rely on hiring police/fire to transition mainly because they don't have experience running healthcare clinics (we call them PODs) or shelter management and general epidemic/bioterrorism aspects of the job. I mean not always but police/fire/military usually don't have healthcare backgrounds of any kind. There's a good reason why they do hire from that route however but like I said, the public health part is a niche. In fact most of our work is in sanitation, shelter management, quarantine, epidemiology, etc. In the traditional say Hurricane Katrina scenario fire/police/military are HUGE helpers and some of the main players in the response while say, the anthrax outbreaks that ensued in that time also, was left in different hands. Anyway, that's my irrelevant tangent of the day.
In private sector the work, instead of being in public health departments, is usually in hospitals.
But yeah I'll have to figure out how to reach other governments, they get more of the fun work in my opinion.
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