By Greg Howard, a Midwest-based entrepreneur.
From my experience, there are two possible strategies for landing a great internship or entry-level job. I’ll call them “the blast way” and “the targeted way.”
1. The Blast Way
When I was a junior in college, in pursuit of a good summer internship, I purchased a book called “Kick Off Your Career” by Kate Wendleton. One of the main pieces of advice in this book was to pick a few specific industries and roles you wanted to target, and then send off as many résumés as you could.
The philosophy behind this advice is that job hunting is a numbers game, and to get a decent amount of offers within a reasonable period of time you need to send out at least 200 resumes.
At the time, this made sense to me, because I was under the naïve impression that getting a job was all about having good credentials and a résumé printed on fine Crane 24 lb. paper.
Now, having been out in the real world for a few years, I realize more than ever that personal relationships are the real driver of business, and more often than not are the key to finding a good internship or entry-level job. But, not knowing this at the time, I took the book’s advice 100 percent and starting sending off as many letters as I could.
My results were pretty much what the book suggested they would be: I got about eight interviews and two good offers, one of which fell through. Fortunately for me, I decided to apply only to companies that I could get really excited about, so the two offers were from really great companies. And the internship I eventually completed, doing marketing for an awesome e-commerce company, was the time of my life.
The bottom line: there is something to be said for the blast way, in my opinion—as long as you really think through the companies you’re willing to apply to and have a good strategy on how to represent yourself.
2. The Targeted Way
After college, I immediately launched my own Web-based company. Actually, let me rephrase: I tried to launch my own Web-based company. The company never really got out of the idea stage until I was just about out of capital (my own life savings), and by then it was too late to get a product to market, much less do anything else. In the end, I was broke, deeply regretful of how I had screwed things up, and had to move back home with my parents—not exactly the life I had envisioned for myself at 25.
I started looking for work, but I was very picky about who I applied to; I insisted on applying only to companies I could really believe in. What made matters worse was that I was moving back home around the time the economy was starting to tank last year. As the months wore on, more and more people were being laid off. This made it tough to find any full-time work, and even tougher to find work with a company I was really interested in.
Finally, in February of this year, I stumbled upon an ad for an internet startup that just happened to be headquartered in my community. This was exactly the kind of company I was hoping to work for, being handed to me on a silver platter; needless to say, I jumped at the opportunity. The position in the ad was only a part-time position, but I started peppering the executive team with questions and volunteering to help. Before long, I was meeting with the CEO to explore the possibility of full-time employment.
After a few more meetings, the executive team still wasn’t convinced that they should create a new full-time position just for me. I was getting nervous, as the little cash left in my bank account was rapidly dwindling and this opportunity was the only hot one that I had at the time. So, I volunteered to do a consulting project to prove my worth.
To make a long story short, my consulting project was very well-received and I was offered full-time work. I’m now several months into my tenure at that company, and it feels good to have some money in the bank. The consulting project really helped seal the deal, and I learned a lot from it, too.
If I would have been listening to my career book from college, I would have never focused on that company so heavily; even though it was my best job opportunity, I was putting all my eggs into one basket by that book’s philosophy. On the other hand, by giving this company way more than the standard résumé-and-cover-letter treatment, I was able to land a full-time position that was created just for me.
The bottom line: If there’s a company you’re dying to work for, by all means go after it. If it seems a little risky to put yourself on the line for a company that might not give you the time of day…well, it is. But, like anything else in life, if you want a massive payoff, you’re going to have to commit to some serious investment.
Greg Howard is a Midwest-based entrepreneur.
What if an organization thought like a baseball team? What if they thought about talent in the same way? You will argue: “Ted, that is completely different.” No, it’s not. Sure, it has it’s differences, but the principles remain the same. You get young, raw talent and you build a team that wins.