Hey ThinkTalkers, my name is Molly and I am a senior English Major at CUA. As part of my internship for ThinkTalk, I will be blogging my epic search for a job in the D.C. area, giving you all my take on what has worked, what has failed miserably, and hopefully giving a splinter of insight to those of you who haven’t quite reached job hunting maturation yet in your young adult life.

Hello ThinkTalkers! When reading blog after blog about the job application process, you build immunity to their advice. You begin to think suggestions like joining LinkedIn, attending networking events, and sell-sell-selling yourself are unoriginal and implicit pieces of advice. I’m afraid I have to join their ranks by further encouraging you May grads to keep up the good work and continue to build a professional on-and-offline presence. I too experience moments of disillusionment in the job hunt, but last week’s Business Networking Event at my university gave me a dose of much needed inspiration.

I had very little expectations for the event’s turn out. After all, who would want to be pestered with questions and insignificant “elevator talk” after an eight hour day? I certainly wouldn’t be interested, even with the free t-shirt. I figured, even if there were four or five professional attendees, realistically, what could I take away from this “networking opportunity” other than a soda and a plateful of appetizers? I tugged awkwardly at my pants suit and complained about how useless and unnecessary this exercise would be while walking to the event.

Hopefully my enlightening experience at this Networking event will inspire you to get more involved in your University or community’s networking opportunities because it certainly taught me that you never know when you’ll meet that invaluable contact. A week before the Business Networking Event, I received an email from career services about a recently opened position. The job description read like hundreds of others. The responsibilities listed were vague and unexciting, but I figured I’d give it a try. The night of the event, I met the lovely woman who is leaving that position, and speaking with her changed my attitude towards the job completely. The job is fast-paced, deals with high profile political figures, and is staffed with other young professionals. A dream right? I never would have know, had a skipped the event, and took that nap instead. Our polite conversation turned into a mini interview, and then into a consultation on how to apply. This contact became an irreplaceable advocate.

The lesson here, ThinkTalkers is simple. The career search is in fact, like a box of chocolates- you never know what you’re going to get. And what happened next? I sent her a follow-up email the next day with my cover letter and resume attached for review. I thanked her for the illuminating information and advice and left the window of communication open. Every contact counts. Now iron that dress shirt and practice your handshake because you’re going to need it.

"Handshake" courtesy AndyRob via Flickr Creative Commons