Yay! You’re starting the wonderful journey to employment. That’s awesome. If you are like me, and have an unusual frame of reference for engaging with the normal social stuff, there can be huge barriers in your path to becoming employed. The truth is that we have a bit of catching up to do just to get a foot in the door for job interviews. Sometimes, the advice from usual career management places can feel discouraging, because extra activities and School Captaincys may have been very far from your experience as a teenager. I’m going to try and break this down to the absolute basics, so if you already have some of these steps covered – I’m honestly a little bit jealous because you’re doing better than I was.

Get Social Skills

This is not as easy as it sounds, but it’s the first step. You need to learn the basic steps to professional interactions. The main skills you’ll need will differ from job to job, but assuming that you’re starting in something customer facing (like retail or services) the following will definitely apply.

1. Good handshake. Practice with either a friend or the corner of a cushion. Keep your posture straight and eyes up while extending your hand pretty quickly out in front of you. For interviews it’s more or less expected that you’ll put your hand out to shake first. When you stick your hand out, don’t wipe it first because that looks super gross. Keep your hand open and relaxed, but as soon as they grasp your hand, start firming up and sort of stiffening everything. The best thing to do is practice about 100 or so with a friend. You’ll get the hang of it and a good handshake is a skill that never goes out of style. In the post-Covid era, you may be able to get away with an elbow bump, but lots of people still see the handshake as the standard.
2. Eye Contact. I can’t stress this enough – employers see making good eye contact as a sign of openness and honesty. Average rule of thumb if you’re talking to someone is to look them in the eye at least 70% of the time unless they’re gesturing at something. If you struggle with this you can look at their eyelashes or eyebrows and it will help a bit. To break down your barriers, a good practice exercise is to find a person, or even a picture of a person on a screen, and look them dead in the eyes for 5 minutes. It’s very confronting, but practice it a few times and you’ll find it much easier in the actual social setting.
3. Dental and Personal Hygiene. Employers notice this stuff because it speaks to your care about other people. If you care about other people in your social setting you will try to have nice teeth and be as clean and sweet smelling as possible so that you don’t annoy them.
4. Posture. Stand up tall, especially if you are tall and AFAB. AFAB people can accidentally adopt a smaller posture. Employers typically don’t want this because it means that customers might think they can walk all over you and you won’t represent the employer’s interests. Shoulders back, chest forward and head held high.
5. Arm and Leg Swing. This is a weird one, but neurotypical people who are well socialised swing their arms a bit when they walk and also match gait rhythms with each other naturally. If you’re not used to it, just focus a little and you might want to literally practice walking beside someone to get into the swing of things.

Get A Goal

Do you want to work in a supermarket for the rest of your life or are you going places? Employers, even for starter jobs, want to hire people who are motivated and have their act together. It’s essential that you seem confident about your future and that the job you’re applying for is going to help you get there.

1. Five year plan. If you don’t already have one of these, you need it. Chances are, you don’t want to be working in the exact same job in five years. This can actually be a huge mindset difference. In the real world, people understand that happiness usually comes alongside growth and change. So if it’s a bigger company, maybe your five year plan is to climb the ranks and be promoted to x position a few rungs up on the latter. If it’s a temporary job, maybe you’re making ends meet while you study at university for your dream job doing x. Employers don’t want mindless drones, they want business partners. Another truth is that if an employer wants someone willing to stay in the same spot for 5 years, you probably don’t want to be working there because you deserve better.
2. Day to day goals. What do you want to bring to this workplace that’s positive? Maybe you’re really good with numbers, or you’re smart, or you’re funny, or you’re kind. Then make those your day to day goals at work. e.g. “I’d like to make my coworkers laugh today.”
3. Make it clear that you WANT THE JOB. It’s a great idea to actually tell a potential employer something like “I’m really excited about this opportunity to interview, because I’d love to work with you”. If you don’t make it clear that you want a job, it’s less likely that you’ll be hired into one.

Resume Building

At the end of the day you have to beat out 50 or so other potential applicants, minimum, just to get an interview. Put in the time and effort to make your resume good and honest.

1. Tell the Truth. Don’t lie on your resume or try to fluff it up with half-truths. Don’t be afraid to tell the truth about who you are and what your current skillset is. People in general will respect that so much more than cagey answers or evasion – if a potential employer gets even a hint of suspicion that you’re lying you usually won’t get hired. And if someone is being mean about a lack of experience, you don’t want that job anyway.
2. Make an effort to improve over time and demonstrate that. Go ahead and do as many free community classes as you can and add those, volunteer, sign up to TAFE, go to uni or even start doing uber. Literally anything you can do to show you’re genuinely motivated and a good person will do wonders.
3. Make it look good. Find a graphic designer or use Canva.com or go to a free make-a-resume class. You need something nice that will stand out, don’t blurt everything out on a plain WORD document. Most people like a one-page resume these days, so don’t be afraid to condense.

On The First Day

Ok, so they’ve agreed to try you out, congratulations! As much as possible, remember that your first day goal isn’t just to learn the job, it’s actually more about figuring out how to contribute to the positivity of the workplace. Which usually means making friends with the people at the same level as you and being respectful to the bosses.

1. Arrive 15 minutes early and stay 15 minutes late – no matter what they told you at the interview.
2. Introduce yourself to everyone and make small talk with everyone. You will be exhausted but this level of socialisation on a first day is expected, try and prepare yourself as much as you can. It will settle down after the first week or so.
3. Unless you’ve been expressly told to, usually don’t bring like a massive home cooked lunch – just stick with something that you can leave in your bag like a sandwhich. Ask someone where the best spot to get food is on a lunch break.
4. Drink water only unless you’re used to coffee and/or red bulls already, and find out where the bathrooms are early on so you don’t panic.
5. Ask if there is a group chat going that you could be added to.
6. This may be super emotional, so try to prepare yourself to cope with that in a healthy way as much as possible. Have some snacks and good recovery time planned for yourself.

Warmest,

Rose