Now that August is here, many employers are beginning to recruit for next summer’s hires. August and September are two of the highest volume months for job postings. In these last few weeks before classes begin, it’s a great time for a job search tune up.

These five tasks are a great way to tune up your job search and be ready for your opportunity.

Add to your professional network on LinkedIn. Invite your summer co-workers and managers to join your network. Double-check that you have all your old friends, high school classmates, family, neighbors, college classmates and faculty in your network already. Strive for more than 100 people in your LinkedIn network. A robust LinkedIn network can unearth job opportunities from people you’re already connected to.

It’s also a good time to reach out to your network for career chats—short conversations with people in your industry who can share perspectives and advice on breaking in to your field.

Update your resume with your summer (and fall) work experiences. The college job market will continue to be competitive. Some jobs will only be posted for a few weeks. Having your resume in great shape now, gets you ready to apply quickly.

We are happy to review your resume with you. You can schedule a virtual, 15-minute review with an advisor. Additionally, you can try Handshake’s new AI resume review tool. (You can find it in the Jobs section. Select “Optimize resume” across the top.)

Prepare your Handshake account. Handshake has some new features for employers that can help them find you as strong candidates. You can rise to the top of their search by having a complete profile.

• Update your work experience, organizations, projects and skills.
• Add your resume and make it visible to employers.
• Update the “Looking for” section to reflect your current career interests and location preferences.
• Create saved searches and enable notifications for that search.

Practice how to tell a good story about you and your background. Whether it’s a job interview, networking, or writing a resume and cover letter, it’s important to tell an engaging story. This is a great storytelling course on LinkedIn Learning—Shane Snow on Storytelling. You can also schedule practice interview with a career advisor.

Join the talent community for employers who you are most interested in. Many employers let you register on their career page. This is often referred to as their talent community. Joining often results in job alerts for positions you’re interested in. This gets you early access to opportunities before they go to external job boards, like Indeed, LinkedIn or Handshake.

You don’t have to do any of this alone. The Career and Co-op Center offers individual support for your job search in addition to workshops and events. I want to encourage you to schedule a time with a career advisor. We’d love to help you!