
First-time job hunt - start from your skills, then ask about your coworkers' jobs
When I was looking for my first full-time job (and my second), I had no idea what I wanted to do. I didn't have any magical moment of "you were meant to be a nurse!" "an analyst!" "a park ranger". So I started from "what can I do that someone will pay me for?"
I had good computer skills and could concentrate, so I applied and ended up working as a transcriptionist, listening to audio of people having meetings and typing what they said. Most of it was focus groups (with overlapping voices, argh) about random products - and all my coworkers were doing the same thing. And then when I moved, I got a temp job putting table-of-contents links into downloadable textbooks.
But when I was in that second job, I got a break: the same company did web development, and they offered to make me a web developer intern. I had enough background to learn the new skills, and they knew I'd work hard. And I knew that I'd be more interested in building websites than I was in linking books together.
So I went from jobs that I knew I could do with the skills I already had to one where I'd need to learn more. I knew I could make that jump, and had way more confidence than when I'd first left school and thought "now what?" Since then, my advice has been to get into a company that has many different jobs, start from something you know how to do (easier to interview for!), and then talk to your coworkers about what they do and see if you're interested in changing your role.
That way you have an easier path to get your first job, and many options for your second!
Hey Jennifer Berk , Great first job story! Okay, so I have to ask... a lot of our first time job seeking members have a pretty good sense of what they're good at BUT have trouble connecting their talents with job titles.
Transcriptionist is an almost perfect fit for someone with high concentration and computer skills. How did you discover that job?