Applying for colleges can help prepare you for applying to jobs in many ways. First, there is an expectation that you will be able to communicate your skills and experience to recruiters and potential employers through various mediums including resumes, through written formats including essays and letters, and one-on-one and panel-style interviews. Additionally, applying for colleges can prepare you for applying to jobs by teaching you how to work through applications quickly and carefully – a skill that can help you work through often tedious applications.
Resume Building for College and Job Applications
While most colleges and universities may not ask you to submit a resume as part of the application process, creating a resume for your college application can be very helpful for organizing highlights that you’d like to include in short answer and essay portions of a college application.
Additionally, learning how to create a resume for your academic and extracurricular activities now will provide useful when it comes time to apply to jobs. Since most college students will not have an extensive professional history when applying for their first jobs, early resumes will likely include many of the achievements you have included in your college applications including sports, clubs, organizations, and other extra-curricular activities.
Learn How to Write About Yourself in Personal Essays and Cover Letters
As a high school student, you are certainly no stranger to writing essays. You have worked on crafting research and argumentative papers for many years, but there is something about writing about yourself that tends to trip up students. It could be that students have been told to avoid writing in the first person their whole life or maybe they just feel uncomfortable with gloating. Regardless of the reason, practicing how to write personal strong essays for college will prepare you for writing cover letters for job applications in the future. While there is a difference between a college admissions essay and a professional cover letter, being able to write about your skills, your experience, and the value that you can add to an organization cannot be overstated.
Developing Interview Skills
While very few colleges require interviews as part of the application process, some of the more competitive programs may offer optional interview opportunities that can are worth exploring. Interviewing, much like writing, is something that develops with practice and through experience. Developing strong interview skills as you enter college can provide you with more familiarity around the process so that you are more comfortable with professional interviews that are a standard part of most job applications. As you do more and more interviews, you will also become better at coming up with questions that help you identify which companies will be a good fit for you.
