Earlyface

If you have long graduated and you are wondering why you never thought of these hacks, it’s never too late to imbibe them. Like they say, hindsight is 20/20 and it’s easy to reminisce on what you could have done differently that would make this change less stressful. The fact is that you can regain lost time with these tips:

Life

1. Make good use of your mornings

This is especially for those who are job-hunting, or working part-time. It’s so difficult to motivate yourself to get up early for yet another day of applying to jobs. However, you must. If you stick to a set time of waking up, your body will naturally drop into a routine meaning you’ll eventually wake up naturally at the time you need.

2. Take each day as it comes:

After university, you are likely to slip into your own world, a world where you think you are inadequate. You will face issues, issues of self and issues of career. Take each of these issues one day at a time and take them as challenges remembering that each challenge faced with determination has an expiration date.

3. Keep building and making friendships

Making friends after university is hard, but meaningful friendships make a big difference on almost every aspect of your life for decades to come. So make an effort to stay in touch with the friends closest to you now and make new friends even as you get busy with work.

Much more than that, make friends who are in strategic positions whether they are the gateman or the MD of a company. Don’t write the driver of a boss off as that may actually be your connection to the boss. Let such friendships be strategic but don’t be scheming.

Career
4. Have a social media presence
The one thing that all job advice websites and forum will tell you to avoid, almost like the plague is social media. This is mainly because most of the employers these days conduct an online research practice, for each of their employees. But hear us out on this, while you can definitely make the internet a liability to your CV, you can also turn it into an asset. Conduct something similar to a SWOT analysis for all of your social networking accounts and start clearing off the junk.

For instance, you can definitely create an excellent LinkedIn profile, which will be sure 10 pointers for recruiters. Sharing tweets as well as tweeting anything and everything that is relevant to your industry, makes you come across as someone who knows their stuff really well.

5. Twitter can get you a job
Just as LinkedIn, Twitter is one such social networking site, which can help you stay strong in the game. As it happens to be the most popular micro-blogging site, it is the best choice for everyone who is anyone and wants to keep the world updated about their activities. This is where a number of companies and recruiters post their latest news, openings, and vacancies and so on. But this isn’t a life hack yet, what makes it the best life hack is the fact that you can make something called a Twitter List. All you have to do is create a Twitter List and add all of those accounts, which usually post the kind of jobs you are interested in. Thus there remains no hassle of going to each page and checking out their updates.

6. Keep getting additional skills

We have said severally that your degree is not the end of your skills acquisition. Work on increasing your skills from soft skills to HTML. You could become more hirable from acquiring certain skills like programming, app development, business planning and development. This will not only broaden your job and career options, it would also make your brain more active and you, happier. Never stop learning.

Money
7. Improvise: Once you are out of university, one thing is certain – the days of overburdening your parents with your financial responsibilities are behind you. Now you have to make do with what you have. That one shirt and one suit, use it continuously. Have a walk in a park with you and your significant other for dates or a movie night at home.

8. Borrow most things: Whatever you can manage to get free, get it. First, you should always pack your lunch for work. Not only will you save a ton of money, but it’s also a lot healthier. You can borrow books from the nearby library instead of buying. Living on a tighter budget means you have to add a bit of creativity and do away with certain ‘unnecessary’ expenses.

9. Invest in a second degree: If your career requires that you take up a second degree, then you need to make plans towards it be it in a foreign university. Simply getting a first degree these days is not enough to put your foot in the door of your chosen job. Choose wisely the university and course. A good second degree can be gotten on a tight budget.

Remember, it’s not going to be easy but one day, you will look back on this crazy phase and give yourself a pat on the back for how far you have come so stay on course!