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TCU students talk to a Texas Rangers job recruiter at a career fair. (Courtesy photo | TCU)
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Landing your first job after college takes planning and years of building skills and making contacts. And that means starting to make a plan as early as freshmen and sophomore years, college counselors advise.

“The recruiting processes and timelines, as I have seen, and others in this field have seen, they’ve moved up more and more early,” said Mike Caldwell, executive director of the TCU Center for Career and Professional Development. “Employers are looking to recruit talent early and get ahead of their competition.” 

When freshmen walk into Kristin Wright’s career office at Tarrant County College’s Trinity River campus in downtown Fort Worth, she tells them, “You are here to test drive your career, and you’re going to align your academics with a career opportunity.” 

Wright, a career services coordinator at the college, frequently suggests students explore jobs in industries like finance, supply chain, hospitality and insurance. 

Those are some of the in-demand sectors right now across the country, and graduates can expect an active job market in a region where there’s been a lot of job growth. The Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington region saw the most job growth in the nation between 2018 and 2023, according to The Wall Street Journal.

But the national projections for recent graduates is cooling with a nearly 6% drop in projections from last year, according to a recent survey by National Association of Colleges and Employers, a group representing college career advisers.

David Powers, assistant director of internships at the University of Texas at Arlington, suggests freshmen begin to craft their resume by looking at where they are and where they need to be. He suggests that students study the resumes of professionals in their industry and identify the gaps and the skills that they need to gain to be competitive in the job market. 

A part of effective resume construction, he said, is using the key words that employer search tools scan for. Powers has seen technology play a greater role in the hiring process.

“Most employers will start the interview process with a virtual interview or even a prerecorded initial interview where you have a prompt to answer on camera,” said Powers. “You’re going to have to really get comfortable on camera and understand how to present yourself well on camera.”

One of the keys in landing almost any type of job is developing soft skills, including written and verbal communication, teamwork, collaboration and facility with technology. One key element, Powers said, is coming to the job with a problem-solving mindset. 

“I’ve always heard from employers, ‘We need problem solvers, not just problem identifiers,’” said Powers. “When you find a problem, when you find an issue, bring along the solution.”

And there’s the evergreen solution to finding a job: building your network. Internships are one way to develop those industry connections, and it’s also a path to home in on the skills needed for the job.

“The old cliche is you can’t get a job without experience, and you can’t get experience without a job,” said Caldwell. “Really, internships solve that problem.”

On-the-job experience as an intern means that students can gain the skills and professional references that they need. Internships are also opportunities for growth, where interns can 

identify gaps that can become opportunities for them to test their teamwork skills. As a student moves through their academics, they can identify key courses that can help them develop the skills that they need.

“I encourage people to take an extra class if you don’t have that skill set, and you’re looking to get into the industry,” said Wright. “You need an extra credential these days.”

Career counselors shared a common piece of advice: Look at your job search as a project. It helps to see it in terms of a timeline, with time-specific goals. Hopefully, in a few months, a graduate has landed the right job.

“The more you’ve done preparing, the better equipped you’re going to be to compete in a challenging job market,” said Caldwell.

Shomial Ahmad is a higher education reporter for the Fort Worth Report, in partnership with Open Campus. Contact her at shomial.ahmad@fortworthreport.org. 

At the Fort Worth Report, news decisions are made independently of our board members and financial supporters. Read more about our editorial independence policy here.