You’ve completed your courses and polished your résumé, but how do you build marketable job skills and leverage your credentials to score a great job? Here are five tips to help you stand out as an exceptional job candidate, land the initial interview, and build your professional expertise:

You may have a dream job in mind, but don’t automatically turn things down just because they’re not exactly what you’re looking for. Pick up a variety of experiences and responsibilities as a young adult, and those will help you make connections, develop your professional skills, and inch closer to that ideal job you’re aiming for.

In interviews, you will almost certainly be asked about your school experience, previous jobs you’ve had, and other things you mention in your application. So before any interviews, look over your résumé and think about what you might say if someone asked you about different points.

Both in interviews and the workplace, effective communication is crucial. During most interviews, your résumé will be a good conversation piece, but the focus will mostly be on you personally. So if you are able to show diplomatic communication, personal tact and overall likability, people will notice. Those same communication skills will help you succeed and perform well in the workplace, too.

Don’t treat homeschooling as a liability. Don’t say things like, “Well, I was actually homeschooled,” or “I didn’t attend a normal school.” Instead, think about the interview-worthy character traits that homeschooling has given you—things like independence, creativity, self-motivation, problem-solving, etc.

You might be proud of your pre-calculus grade or your cumulative high school GPA, but so are thousands of other job candidates. Emphasize both in your résumé and your interviews what non-academic experiences homeschooling allowed you to do. What learning experiences, leadership roles, or involvement in non-profit organizations have you picked up through the years? Describe how those experiences positively shaped you as a young adult.

We believe that families have the God-given right to raise their children and that homeschooling is the best education model, no matter what homeschooling style you choose. To those of you who are a few years off from graduation or just starting out, this is the time to join THSC to take full advantage of our money-saving member benefits and homeschool support. We are all about homeschooling families and want to encourage you on your journey, whether you are just starting homeschooling or have been doing it for years.