UPH fully understands that every student who has entered their final year need to prepare themselves for the professional world. Students who will soon become fresh graduates are often worried about the right preparation that will get them “noticed” by their dream company. Therefore, for the very first time, UPH Career Center held a Webinar titled “Step Up Your Job-Hunting Game in Virtual Era” with Korn Ferry, on May 5, 2020. Korn Ferry is a global organizational consulting firm which that helps its client to select and hire the talent they need to execute their strategy and show them the best way to compensate, develop, and motivate their people.

Along with UPH Career Center, Korn Ferry presents Nares Wiadnyana, Research Associate of Korn Ferry, and Melisa Soentoro, Principal of Korn Ferry to share their views to help fresh graduates reach their dream career. Here are 5 tips for fresh graduates:

First, Networking. The principles of networking are always suitable in every aspect. The wider the range of our network, it will be easier for us to develop networks and thus achieve our dream career. In this millennial era, networking is not just about face-to-face interaction, but also online. You can start by using professional social media such as Linkedin, and personal social media such as Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and many more. So, remember this: networking as 2 main areas, online and offline!

Second, Personal Branding. This should be a familiar topic for most of us. Branding is necessary for a product, and ourselves as an individual. We need a strategy for our personal branding. As quoted from Techinasia.com, personal branding means the process of marketing ourselves and our careers by creating a persona tailored for the public. Hence, according to Nares Wiadnyana, it is crucial for fresh graduates to have the ability to show themselves.

“Be visible, increase our ability in personal branding. You can start doing this by providing more comprehensive and interesting information about yourselves on Linked in such as education level, experiences, professional profile picture, and many more. Aside from Linkedin, we can use other media according to our capacity including YouTube, Canva, and many more,” Nares explained.
Aside from professional media, participants were also advised to maintain their private social media. Because these days, it is very possible that recruiters will use our social media to see “the real” us.

Third, Elevator Pitch. Create a good first impression for 30 seconds!

According to Nares, there are 3 main components in the elevator pitch: First, a description of ‘who you are’ (which includes our interest, etc.), ‘what you do’ (which includes our organizational experience in campus, hobbies, and other stories to describe ourselves), and ‘what you are looking for’ (which includes our personal target in life and career).

Fourth, Resume or Curriculum Vitae (CV). Everyone can make a CV, but not all can understand what a good CV is.

“It is a fact that our resume is often only seen for about 6 seconds. Very short. So, we have to know the best ways to make our CV interesting. There are 3 important things that we have to take note: First, make a resume according to our objective in searching for a job. We can include things like the division or position that we are looking for. Second, we should see our resume as a marketing tool. A resume is our brochure, we have to make sure that companies are interested in the things that we have. Third, try to send resume to get called for interviews,” Melisa Soentoro explained.

Fifth, understand the concept of remuneration. Of course, the main point of finding a job is to get paid. Remuneration is the money paid for work or a service. It has several elements including position, job descriptions, skills, capability, and work performance. It is important to know about the 2 kinds of remuneration, Monetary-based reward, and Non-monetary-based reward.

“Monetary-based reward is the fixed annual cash with its elements such as basic salary, fringe benefits, short term, and long-term variable pay, and other benefits. Then, Non-monetary-based reward is rewards outside the money that an employee gets, it varies according to the company’s policy. For example, there are Flexible Benefit, Workplace and Personal Development Benefit, and Intrinsic Rewards or rewards such as pride towards the company and its culture,” said Melisa Soentoro.

Through these five simple explanations, UPH Career Center hopes that final year students, as well as alumni, are ready to prepare for the professional world.

UPH will always try to provide the best and most comprehensive service by answering every need of its community, starting from prospective students, active students, and even its alumni. This goes along with UPH’s commitment to producing future leaders of the professional world.