What the Search
Has Been Teaching Them
A search that has run since graduation holds a pattern your graduate can read and act on.
What they may be feeling
Summer gave them a reasonable explanation for still looking, and October takes it away. Friends have started jobs and the school year has begun without them for the first time, which can make a search that felt temporary in June start to feel like a verdict.
What may be happening
Your graduate now has several months of search activity behind them, and that history contains a pattern they can read. One recent graduate we work with was sure his major had made him unhireable. His search told a more specific story: his applications were earning interviews, and the interviews slipped when a question went off script. That gave him one skill to practice in place of a whole degree to regret.
A search also teaches, even in the months when no offer comes. Each interview and each conversation with someone in the field shows your graduate more about which work holds their interest and how their experience applies to it. They're building skills along the way, including the ability to explain what they've done and to assess their own interviews, which the graduate above now does before anyone else weighs in.
That knowledge builds confidence and gives them a clearer picture of themselves as a professional. For graduates who left school unsure of what they wanted, this is the most important work of the search, because a direction they've tested for themselves is one they can trust.
The Career Check-In
Ask where the search stalls. Are applications going out with no response, are interviews ending after the first round, are they avoiding networking, or have they slowed down because they're unsure what to target? Each answer calls for a different fix. After an interview, try asking what they learned from it before you ask how it went.
Three Questions to Ask About the Search
These work best as one relaxed conversation, and your graduate's answers will show you both where the search stands.
Do you know what kind of work you want to try first?
When a graduate isn't sure what they want, every posting looks like a possible fit, and applying to all of them is exhausting. Choosing two or three roles to test gives them a list they can manage and revise as they learn.
What's one opportunity you've ruled out that might be worth a try?
Graduates often pass on roles, cities, or conversations that feel like a stretch. A first job mostly teaches them what they want next, so one application or one message outside their comfort zone costs little and gives them real information.
What would you change about your last interview?
Interviewing is a skill that improves with practice and review. A graduate who can name one answer that worked and one that didn't has something specific to practice before the next one.
Any question they can't answer yet is a good place to start.
Look at their last ten applications to find the stage where most of them stopped, then take one action on that stage this week.
Ask one person in their target field for a 20-minute conversation about how they got started.
See Another Stage
We Guide. They Do.
Pursue IQ helps students and recent graduates understand what's affecting their progress and build a practical career strategy they carry out themselves. If your young adult could use a guide for this stage, send us a note below. Melissa or Jaime will read it and write back to you personally.