You can find the job you want by starting the process with positive thought, intention and action. If you’re a college student starting your job search, you might find yourself frightened into a frantic flurry of counterproductive activity, stalled out by fear or lulled into complacency. No matter what, you’ll want to find balance between feeling paralyzed or whirling around with no clear goal in sight. Here’s some simple but effective advice for beginning a job search:

Tip #1: Positive Self-Talk

Don’t sabotage yourself with negative thoughts. Remind yourself, instead, of your strengths and abilities.

Sue Levine, assistant director for career services at the Brandeis University Graduate School of Arts and Sciences says, “When the stressors of graduate school, a postdoc, life in general and the unpredictability of a job search converge -- it can become self-defeating and quickly spiral downward into excessive negativity and ‘thought errors.’” Those thought errors can turn into a bad habit and can even cost you the job you wanted.

For instance, if you go into an interview telling yourself, “I’m terrible at this. No one will ever hire me,” your anxiety will skyrocket. Odds are that the interviewer will sense your lack of confidence, and hire someone with a stronger professional identity.

Saying to yourself, “These are my strengths,” and listing them in your mind, will help keep negative self-talk at bay.

Tip #2: Accept Help

Be willing to contact a career counselor, and network with friends. These are both important parts of the job search.

Experienced mental health professional Veranda Hillard-Charleston says, “Career counseling offers people a safe and confidential place to explore their career passions and identify areas in which they are experiencing difficulty. It is a collaborative relationship – the client and the counselor work together to discover the client’s true career goals and work to overcome any obstacles.” Career counseling will help you focus on the best path to take.

Beyond career counseling, remember to network. Ask around. Undoubtedly, you know someone who knows someone who is looking to hire a person with your skill set.

Tip #3: Mindfulness

Be mindful about what you’re doing as you do it. Levine encourages students to stay in the moment by thinking about each application individually. Taking a generic approach, whizzing through applications and providing pat answers won’t help you stand out to prospective employers. Take your time and consider your responses. Send in your application, and follow up with a personal, thoughtful thank you note a few days later.

Andrew Strieber, Senior Producer at CareerCast.com, advises applicants who are applying for jobs through software technology: “Simply read the job description carefully, and customize your resume so that it's using the same keywords. Yes, it's a lot of work to customize your materials for every job, but it's well worth the effort.”

Apply a similar, customized thought process to your interviews. Don’t give a canned speech. Do the proper research. Think about what is meaningful to you about the job, and explain that to the interviewer—clearly and with confidence.

Stay Focused

What these tips all add up to is staying focused. When you’re focused, you’re less likely to slip into negativity or drift into the wrong mental lane. You perform your job search with care. You stay positive, accept assistance, boost your mindfulness and get closer to your dream job in the meantime.

Best of luck in your search!

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