Contact with companies By Rosa van der Vleuten & Désirée van den Berg

Advice from the Career Committee

Would you like to incorporate an internship in your Bachelor’s degree or gather relevant work experience another way? Approaching companies can be scary, especially if you’re being brave and taking a leap towards bigger businesses. In collaboration with our very own Career Committee, here’s some tips to become a wanted candidate!

NETWORKING

Use networking possibilities, such as career events or networking events

Knowing someone on the inside, or even knowing someone that knows someone on the inside gives you a huge advantage! Even contacts that might not seem directly useful at first might come in handy, sometimes it turns out it’s a small world after all.

Add people you have met on LinkedIn and be active on LinkedIn

This gives you two advantages: the first is again, networking! Adding someone on LinkedIn gives more of a feeling of connectedness than just haven spoken once. This also gives you an easy way to message any of your carefully networked contacts.

Make sure your LinkedIn profile is always up-to-date

Your LinkedIn doesn’t only show your past work experience, but also gives an impression of how engaged you are with certain topics and what you value. Next to what is actually on the page, just the degree to which your LinkedIn is up-to-date and orderly already gives away quite a bit about you.

Be proactive—are you interested in a company, get in touch

This shows your genuine motivation and interest and establishes you as someone who takes initiative. Regularly, a company might not have information on open positions on their website or they might not be hiring. But they might want to make a spot for an indispensable asset such as yourself.

Do your research about the company: do their values and goals match with yours?

You don’t want to find out after getting hired or at the job interview that you want to go a completely different way as the company wants you to. In order to feel at home in a company, it has to feel like you’re working 21

towards the same thing together. Be critical, and if you sense a disconnect in values and goals between you and the company, you might want to reconsider.

CONTACT

Use your network if you can, since it provides an easier entry

Remember all that networking you just did? Here’s where it becomes useful!

Ask questions to your contact person about the company and position you are interested in

This is an easy way to get information about your potential new job, and the info will above all be more nuanced and true to life than the job application or company website will be able to provide.

Remain professional in all communication (email, phone, face-to-face)

This might seem obvious, but it’s extremely important. The way you interact with your chosen company already gives away bits of information about you as a person. Especially if you’re doing an open application, the first interactions will determine if you’re worth making time for.

Show your motivation always

This goes for all the advice above, but don’t focus only on the interview or on polishing your resumé: every interaction with your chosen company gives them information to work with. This is why you should always try your best to come across as a motivated person. Even if you don’t actually feel motivated, you might trick yourself into it!

Make sure to keep frequent contact

This not only shows your engagement, but also ensures you don’t get drowned out and forgotten. Good luck, and we’re rooting for you!

The Career Committee is responsible for many formal activities and assisting with the acquisition. As a member of the Career Committee you organize formal activities such as company visits and a wide range of workshops focused on teaching and developing soft and hard skills.

If you have any questions, ideas, comments, or tips for the Career Committee in general, please send an email to career@svflow.nl