Finding a job after graduation is a challenge that college students face every year.
But during an economic slump and within a tight job market, searching for a job becomes daunting. However, it is not a mission impossible.
According to a survey conducted by 104 Job Bank last month, the most important factor in getting that job offer is relevant work experience.
TAIPEI TIMES FILE PHOTO
Among 747 companies surveyed, 65.6 percent said that relevant experience is the most critical factor in the hiring process. And of the 1,365 people who graduated from college this year and already in jobs, 72.9 percent felt that relevant work experience was the most crucial factor in receiving an offer.
"Many college students prefer to work in better-paying, part-time jobs that are not relevant to their future profession. Although working in a related industry would be beneficial to their career development, these internships pay rather less compared to a lot of other part-time jobs. They offer little appeal to students," said Monica Chiu (
Teresa Chu (朱俐) and Yoland Wang (王又冉) are two journalism students in college who have already received job offers before their expected graduation in June next year. After graduating, Chu will work for a Chinese-language newspaper in the US, while Wang will work for a tourism public relations firm in Taipei.
Experience
"We both had a lot of internship experience at various media outlets, and this experience allowed us to receive early offers," Chu said.
Chu has worked for two TV news stations, a financial magazine and a newspaper, all during her undergraduate studies.
"I started working in the media industry on my own initiative. My first part-time job was working on a TV project at a leading news station," she said.
Chu heard about the job opening through her journalism professor, who had connections with the news stations.
"The pay was about NT$120 per hour; and although the pay was not all that great, I learned a lot about TV production through this experience. I stayed in that job for a year until the project was completed," Chu said.
Chu's second part-time job was working as an intern reporter at a well-known financial magazine.
"I also got this job through my professor. The magazine actually didn't hire interns, but my professor managed to get me in as he knew the editor there. My job was to assist a reporter as she conducted interviews. This internship was unpaid, but I learned how to prepare well before writing up a story," she said.
Last summer, Chu secured a news internship at the largest newspaper in Seattle, Washington.
"I was on vacation there and browsing the newspaper's Web site where I found that they were recruiting summer interns. I decided to give it a shot and was fortunate enough to be hired," she said. Listening and writing at a professional standard of English turned out to be a challenge for Chu at the beginning.
"Because I was assigned to report on the state government's financial news, I had to pick up many business terms which did not come easily to me. Every day during the first week, I had to stay up late, look up every unfamiliar word and ask a friend who majored in business for help," Chu said.
Chu also had to face language barriers because English was not her first language.
"My drafts were rejected by my editor over and over again and I got very discouraged. During the first week on the job, I cried every night because I found writing a news article in good English to be very difficult. However, I was undeterred by this and decided to work harder for the rest of the two months," she said.
Chu's efforts paid off in the end. For her internship performance review, Chu received an "A."
"The reason why I was offered a permanent position at the Chinese-language newspaper in the US was because of my internship at the Seattle paper. Because I was experienced in covering news in the US, the Chinese-language paper didn't need to train me all over again," she said.
Performance
Yoland Wang first started looking for an internship because of school requirements.
"Because an internship is required for journalism students, it was vital that I find related work experience, and in the end this helped me enormously in my search for a job," said Wang.
"My first part-time job was working as a copy editor at an online newspaper. I had to paraphrase articles passed to me by the reporters and make the articles more presentable. But I didn't get my own bylines," said Wang.
Nevertheless, Wang's skills in writing news reports were greatly improved through this experience.
Wang's second experience as an intern was to work at a gourmet food magazine as a reporter.
"I did reviews on luncheon specials at different restaurants. Sometimes, I had to eat four or five meals in an afternoon. I was so full that I almost got sick," Wang said.
Like Chu, Wang heard about this part-time job through a professor. Eventually her work was rewarded with a byline or two.
"I was delighted that two feature articles I had written were published in the magazine," Wang said.
The company that Wang is now working for as an intern has already offered her a full-time job after graduation.
"My current internship is working on public relations projects for a Japanese tourism company. I write up articles about tourist attractions in Taiwan and someone else translates the article into Japanese and posts it on a tourism Web site," said Wang.
Wang heard about this internship through a school friend.
"I was actually not very close to this friend, but she was kind enough to let me know about that opportunity for an internship."
Wang's outstanding performance at work was greatly appreciated by her boss.
"Because I took my work very seriously, I worked very hard. Then my boss approached me and offered me a permanent full-time position. I was overjoyed," Wang said.
A recent survey conducted by the Council of Labor Affairs (CLA) showed that younger people tend to leave a job sooner than older people. The CLA said that many new graduates are constantly looking for the ideal job, and this results in a high turnover rate. Additionally, many younger people do not know what kind of work they are really interested in.
"If a college student doesn't know what he or she wants to do after graduation, I would suggest try looking for an internship in various fields and see what you really enjoy doing. Although you may not be paid during an internship, you're able to become very familiar with the work environment in that particular field," said Wang.
Wang also pointed out that by being an intern, one can decide for oneself how long to stay in the job.
"If you have a lot of one-month internship items on your resume, an employer will not be able to doubt your stability as an employee. However, if you try to find out what you want to do only after you graduate, and change jobs all the time, then your resume will show that you've had a series of short-lived jobs. An employer who wants to hire you will not be pleased to see this," Wang said.
"If you are looking for internship opportunities, always approach professors or school friends for connections, and you will be surprised at what you can find," Wang said.
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