Why Applying for Jobs is NOT a Waste of Your Time

You may be thinking, of course applying for jobs isn’t a waste of time when you are actively seeking a job and in this case no of course it isn’t. However, as a university student who has applied for a good number of jobs throughout my four years in higher education, I have always felt that while doing so I was wasting either my spare time, or time I could be spending studying.

If you have applied for a job in recent years then you will know that it is a long and arduous process, especially if you are taking it seriously and putting the most amount of time towards it. It’s for this reason that I have come to think of the process of applying for jobs, from the online application from all the way through to the interview or assessment centre, that I could be doing more useful things with my time.

Only recently have I realised that all of those hours spent updating my CV, completing online application forms, preparing for interviews, attending the University of Leicester Careers Development Service meetings, and attending the interviews and assessment centres themselves is that I was doing something very useful with my time, preparing myself for future job opportunities.

I can now say after a long four years of both studying and applying for jobs that I am now very comfortable and hopeful, in myself, that once I have graduated I will be able to successfully apply for graduate jobs and not be nervous about any of the step I will have to take to get it, including those daunting interviews.

In reflection, I wish I could go back and tell first year Shannon that the time spent applying for job in the coming years should been seen as being productive and going towards a larger goal, even if I wasn’t successful. My tip to anyone who may feel the same way as I have for all those years, is to look back at the very first job you applied for to see how far you have come and as proof that yes, you are learning from the experience along the way.