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METRO CREATIVE GRAPHICS

There, there. Don’t fret. Old Valley U. will help you land that special job after you graduate. But first, you must be our intern-slave. We take our coffee with cream and sugar.

Congratulations! You're a college student. You are being groomed to become a productive member of society and, if you work hard enough, you just may graduate.

But once you walk across the stage in that silly outfit and get that piece of paper, what does it really get you?

You need to find a job to pay off all of those loans you spent on tuition, books and beer, and a bachelor's degree alone isn't going to get you one.

Finding a job after graduation is a tall task, especially in our changing world and with the state of our economy. Luckily, you're reading this article and it is going to give you some tips and tricks for finding that all-important first job out of college.

Here are seven things to think about that will help you get out there and make some money.

Start early

You're lazy. Can't blame you there. You want to wake up, put on pajama pants, maybe hit the classroom and then head back and flip on "America's Funniest Home Videos." But if you want a career at some point in the next decade, you need to start thinking about doing some internships, and Jeff Silver, University of Massachusetts director of career services, wants you to do it now.

"I like students to begin doing internships sophomore year," Silver said. "UMass is one of the few institutions in the country that allows up to 18 credits to be gained through internships. It's unheard of. Every kid on this campus should use every single one of those credits."

Most students don't end up doing internships until their junior or senior year, if they do one at all. These students are missing out on great opportunities to meet people in the workforce, make connections, get experience and try the job they're aiming for to make sure they like it and they're on the correct path.

You don't want to be "one of those juniors or seniors who are saying, 'I wish I would have known,'" Silver said. "Kids should be knocking down our doors for these opportunities."

And if you do slack off and go all four years without doing an internship, UMass offers a post-graduate internship program, which often gets put to good use.

"They graduate and they can't get a job, so they come back to us," Silver said.

There is something to be said for trying things out, especially if you don't know what you want to do. With an internship, by the time you graduate, you will know what you want to do and will have picked up some credits in the process.

Build your base skills

You can major in whatever you want, but if you can't write well, communicate with others, work well in a team environment and think creatively, you aren't getting a job no matter how much of an "expert" you are in your field.

This is why Ursula Olender, Amherst College's career center director, thinks that liberal arts students are well-equipped to move up in their post-college careers.

"When you think about the skills that it takes to advance your career, the people who tend to get promoted into managerial positions tend to be people who are communicating effectively," Olender said. "These are people who are thinking outside the box and are creative problem-solvers and people who can manage people and money. People who have that foundation tend to move up in a very efficient way."

Don't be worried if you're not super-focused on one thing yet. Work on the basic skills that will prepare you for the workplace so that you will succeed once you get there.

"I remind students that you don't need to know what you want to do with the rest of your life," Olender said. "The world has changed."

Say 'yes'

Opportunities to gain experience are priceless in the job market, so when people in one of your desired fields ask you to do something, do it.

Carin Rank, the director of the Career Options Resource Center at Hampshire College, said that saying "yes" to opportunities "makes a lot of sense. You may be generating multiple opportunities and then you get to really think about which ones are the best for you."

You can't hide behind your major or your GPA in a job hunt. What you've actually gone out and done is what will get you paid.

"I think these days employers expect for students to already have experience by the time they graduate," Steve Koppi, director of the Career Development Center at Mount Holyoke said. "Maybe 10 or 20 years ago employers were expecting to hire recent graduates and train them, and employers still do that. But the marketplace has changed to where today employers are really expecting students to graduate with practical experience and with an internship under their belt already."

Keep your options open

A majority of students don't know what they want to be when they grow up, and that's OK. All four aforementioned career advisors made a point to say that students need to explore themselves, their skills and their values before they go out and find a job. Do what's right for you.

Olender thinks you should ask yourself, "What am I interested in? What skills do I have? What does success mean to me?"

This way, when you get a job, you'll find yourself in the right place for the right reasons.

Regardless of your major, explore different jobs when the opportunities present themselves. See what jobs and tasks are right for you.

"There's not a one-to-one correspondence between majors and careers," Koppi said. "We really encourage students to study what they love and gain the experience to be competitive in the marketplace. When you're job searching, it's important to have a strategy, but that strategy should be built on your previous explorations. When a person gets to an interview, they need to be convinced themselves that they're a great candidate for the job so that they can convince the employer."

Don't screw up your resume and cover letters

Countless resumes cross employers' desks every day and, for the most part, they are very busy people. So what is going to make yours worth spending the time to read? Your resume has to reflect who you are, what you can do for an employer and why they should sign you a check once every two weeks.

Luckily, your career centers can help you with that. All of the Five Colleges give resume help in their career centers and if you go to Mount Holyoke, you better use that help well, or you can't get help finding a job.

"We have a rubric with a set of criteria that makes a good resume," Koppi said. "Students have to meet that before they can use our job search system."

When it comes to cover letters, employers are using their time to read those things, so use your time to make it worth their while. Tailor your cover letters toward where you are applying. Default letters bug employers, said Silver.

"Students will do one cover letter and send it out to 50 places," Silver said. "Change the first paragraph, change a few lines, change something on there."

And this may be self explanatory, but also take the time to make sure there are no mistakes in grammar or spelling errors on all of this stuff. If these things are poorly written, you have no chance of getting a job (especially if you're an English or journalism major).

Talk to people

It sounds simple, and it is. So why aren't you doing it? Just by talking to people who have the jobs you want, you'll gain useful information and, most important, a connection.

"If you're talking to a lot of people, you start to get a feel of what you would be getting into, which could make your decisions a little easier," Rank said. "And out of those kinds of conversations possibilities for internships might arise."

You always hear people say it's not what you know; it's who you know, and this tip can help you with both of those things.