If You Want Your Dream Job, These Are The 15 Career Mistakes You Need To Avoid

1. Thinking in a straight line. There will be bumps, there will be curves, there will be turns. The earlier you start learning how to navigate the curves, the better off you will be.

2. Posting horrible things on social media. The internet is not your diary. The internet does not forget, either. Post accordingly.

3. Sending an email without spell checking it first.

4. Sending an email with the same email address you had in high school. Gmail is your friend—use it.

5. Calling it quits when someone tells you “no” or “thanks but no thanks.” You will get turned down—that will happen. You will never get your dream job if you listen to all of the rejections.

6. Turning down internships while you’re in college because you want to go on a vacation or spend time with your friends from high school. That’s just silly. And it’s time and experience that you can never get back.

7. Acting like you know everything. You don’t. Be open to the lessons that surround you, to the information that people can offer you. Everyone can teach you something, even if it’s what not to do.

8. Speaking badly of others at a networking event.

9. Speaking badly of others in a crowded restaurant near your potential place of employment.

10. Speaking badly of others in a happy hour situation.

11. Speaking badly of others in an interview.

12. Speaking badly of others in any situation where you’re supposed to be proving that you’re the best person for the job. Gossip is not an attractive skillset to most employers. Plus, it’s just a bad idea.

13. Using a resume that hasn’t been updated since your freshman year of college. Would you want to read that? No? Then why would a potential employer?

14. Not curtailing your resume to the position. Think about what makes you perfect for the job, then put that on paper.

15. Getting into the mindset that you don’t have the right “degree” for the job. Unless you’re going into law or medicine or teaching, there is no specific degree that will prepare you for exactly what you’re going to do, so be prepared to think outside the confines of your diploma.