What are your next steps?
Finding a job has always been hard. Without a doubt, it will only get harder from now on for young people and graduates.
Employers expect ‘experienced’ graduates!
Unfortunately, employers are continuously driving up the experience inflation.
Whether we like it or not, the reality is that the amount of work-related experience and skills required to secure entry-level jobs will only be increasing. There is an expectation that fresh graduates have some years of related work experience just to secure an entry-level job.
This will be a full-on Catch-22 for many. Here’s how the conversation will play out:
“No, you can’t have that entry-level job”
“Why?”
“Because you don’t have related work experience”
“But I just graduated from college. Is this an entry-level job?”
Starting your own business while at university or college
Organisations are looking more and more for an entrepreneurial mindset from the young people they hire. They want employees who can develop, create value, and contribute positively to their workplace.
Entrepreneurship can equip students with the necessary skills and experience to secure their future jobs. They will learn operations, marketing, finance, etc. – all of which is relevant to improve their future employability. There are more benefits to entrepreneurship, freelancing or starting a business while still studying in college or university.
This quote sums it up – “One year in a startup experience is worth seven years of an MBA”- Anonymous
The quickest way to build your achievements is to start a business, on-line or off-line, that is related to your course or field of study. This could mean applying your computer studies to develop a new software solution or developing your marketing knowledge to provide freelance services to student societies. Think creatively!
Even if you start a business in college and it fails, it’s a huge plus on your resume. You have learned and achieved something, when most students have not.
Starting a business will show employers that you are proactive, creative, and driven – just the type of employee successful businesses are looking for.
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The benefits to starting a business at an early age include:
(1) Until you have tried entrepreneurship, you will never know what the future holds. Gaining entrepreneurial skills, experience, and connections will have far more options and opportunities for you to choose from.
(2) It doesn’t require any previous experiences, just hard-work and commitment to self-learn and learn from making mistakes and learning more about yourself. What’s so good about it is that there are no job interviews and applications – you are your own boss!
(3) It looks good on your resume and LinkedIn profile from an achievement point of view. Creating and managing a business essentially helps add more tangible achievements to your resume.
(4) It creates a source of income while you are studying or when you are trying to find a job. It is also an additional source of income when you are already working in a job. If you dedicate your time and have the commitment to succeed, you will be surprised at how much profit you will be making.
(5) Establishing and building your personal brand before your graduation day especially when your occupation is dependent on establishing a brand.
(6) You gain valuable professional and business skills and real world experience. Starting your own business is the perfect way to develop and practice all skills you will want to be able to demonstrate when applying for graduate jobs – teamwork, professional communication, time management, project management, problem-solving, creativity, etc.
If you choose a freelance niche that is related to your course of study, you will gain valuable hands-on experience in that field, something that coursework alone cannot give you. The more work you take on, the more skilled you will become.
(7) When you start your own business while you are still at college or university, you will be well-placed to make full use of the ready-made professional and academic networks higher education institutions provide. Tap into alumni organisations and professional networking events to enhance your networking and business opportunities.
(8) Many universities have well-developed systems and resources in place to support entrepreneurial students. In some cases, this means a dedicated ‘start-up hub’ where students can develop ideas and seek guidance from faculty members and industry partners, perhaps even gaining start-up funding or financial support.
(9) The sooner you fail or make mistakes, the sooner you will succeed. Failures are essential for your growth especially when you take positive learning from them.
(10) Having a portfolio of successful achievements or projects gives you a huge advantage when you start looking for entry-level positions upon graduation. Most employers find candidates with at least some experience under their belt far more compelling than those with high academic scores alone.
(11) You are in more control of your work life. You can decide how much freelance work you can take on at the moment and take on additional work whenever you have some spare time. Unlike part-time employment, you have no boss determining your hours and no odd hours you have to settle for in order to accommodate your academic schedule.
(12) It expands your career options. If you have had progressive success during your college years, you may want to consider freelancing as a permanent career. You will have had plenty of time to determine if you have what it takes to pursue this – time management, self-discipline, desired income potential and the ability to continue lifelong learning in your niche.
On the other hand, if you have made the choice to become employed by an organisation, that option is strengthened by your experience.
You may able to take a career position with an organisation and continue to freelance on the side. It is a great way to compare two careers while active in both and make a better decision for your life’s work.
(13) It reduces confusion and indecision. A large number of college students embark upon a major field of study, put in at least four years of study, and then take career positions. Only upon graduating that they realise that their career choice was all wrong. Yet, they are stuck, having invested all of the time and money. Many of them stay in those careers, in quiet desperation.
Freelancing helps you ‘test’ your suitability for a career. If you find that it is not right for you, then you have the chance or choice to change your major, perhaps put in an additional semester. In doing so, you can graduate in a career that you already know you like.
Intentionally building your achievements
Everything you do after leaving high school and during college or university is about intentionally building an outcomes-focused resume that is filled with your achievements that you can showcase and tell your prospective employers about.
When you have completed your formal education and trying to secure your first job that is related to your field of study, your resume and work portfolio must be all about your achievements that are specifically related to what you have studied.
This is where you must start with the end in mind – a resume full of achievements, not activities or busyness that does not tell the reader anything about your abilities.
Remember to show, not tell – show that you have delivered tangible outcomes and can do so in the future.
Intentionally engineer your achievements as early as possible. That is your key to success.
You can do so by using the “accomplished [X] as measured by [Y] by doing [Z]” format. It is all about showing what you have done not just telling what you can do. Future employers want tangible results that they can rely on.
Examples of achievements are as follows:
(1) Increase server query response time by 15% by restructuring the API.
(2) Grew revenue from 15 small and medium business clients by 10% QoQ by mapping new software features as solutions to their business goals.
Here’s your action plan
First off, know thyself. The more you know about yourself, the more you can find solutions to this problem of “I don’t know what to do with my life; I have no idea about what jobs I should look for, or where to start looking online”.
Knowing more about your strengths and personality can significantly improve your competitive edge over other job seekers, land yourself a job that is related to your field of study upon graduation, and future-proof yourself better.
Thereafter, it is a matter of researching, finding, and matching potential occupations that may be aligned to and supported by your strengths and personality.
Allocate lots of time to conduct in-depth due diligence and desktop research. Specifically evaluate their job content, employer demand, long-term outlook, and future trends.
Unfortunately, there are no short cuts in securing your income and future and minimising your risks. The only way to reduce uncertainties is to conduct in-depth due diligence and putting in place mitigations.
It will be time well spent considering that it is about your future employability and success, and your job and income security.
Contrary to popular opinions, job security is not dead if you have the appropriate strategies and plans in place to mitigate your risks. People don’t plan to fail but they fail to plan for their future.
Unfortunately, people do wait or procrastinate – then it is too late to turn the situation around.
From your due diligence, select an in-demand occupation that has good prospects for growth and supported by your strengths and personality.
In doing so, you are intentionally securing your future, job, and income. The outcome that you are seeking is to be job-ready and future-ready and to remain employable throughout your working life.
Once you have a list of well-researched short-listed occupations, talk to people about them. Verify the findings from your desktop research. Humans can give you different perspectives and information that can’t be found by sitting behind a desk. They give real-life examples that can enrich your understanding of occupations. Plus, it is an opportunity to exercise your interpersonal skills!
This is where parents of young people can help by making or creating the right connections within their networks. They can proactively help their child connect with people in the profession.
Networking is now considered the gold standard for securing a job over online job applications as many job vacancies are never advertised. There are just too many job seekers out there to flood hiring managers’ inboxes.
Based on human feedback, you may pivot or amend your short-listed occupations. The saving grace is that it is better to change now than later when you have already invested lots of time and money.
It will be a continuous cycle of desktop research and talking to humans until you have arrived at that occupation you want to start your career in.
Once you have decided to embark on that occupation, take the shortest possible time to complete the required formal college or university education to start in that chosen occupation. Aim for four years or less of higher education.
The reality is that more and more employers are expecting young people to have a higher education. This is a good thing as higher education can open more doors and opportunities.
Consider the requirements for gaining your professional qualifications needed to legally practice in your occupation. For example, an accountant requires a CPA professional qualification that takes three additional years of study and mentoring after graduating with a university degree. That’s a minimum of six years of study.
Spending more time in a college or university will only increase the amount of your study loan debt – especially if you don’t have spare cash lying around. As the cost of education (including the cost of living) is ever-increasing, it is not surprising that the total amount of study debt owning per student debtor has also increased. So too is the number of debtors as more students stay on to study!
The decision to take on large amounts of debt at this early age should not be taken lightly. Rather, young people should minimise the taking on of huge debts at this early stage of their life. These debts can have a profound negative impact on their lives right into retirement if it is not managed and paid off.
From a return-on-investment point of view, we need to ensure that the benefits of incurring the student debt (i.e., the ability to secure a paying job that is related to the field of study upon graduation and performing well in it subsequently to pay it off) out-weight the total financial ‘investment’ cost of obtaining the paper qualification.
Unfortunately, many people don’t look at acquiring a paper qualification as a financial investment that requires a positive return-on-investment – like any financial investments we make!
Remember that time is of the essence as knowledge gets outdated quickly and technology changes our lives so rapidly.
Informal and virtual learning will increasingly take place more frequently and intensely in workplaces (on-the-job) and at home rather than in classrooms and educational institutions.
In a dynamic market environment, individuals need to seek out continuous skills development to remain employable and relevant throughout their working life and to remain attractive to employers. That is, individuals must be constantly job-ready and future-ready.
As such, there will be an expectation for workers to continuously embark on their informal education or life-long learning programs to upskill or upgrade themselves.
Therefore, learnability is vital for people to adapt to this ever-changing world and to be continuously job-ready for the future of work.
Learnability is our desire and ability to quickly grow and adapt our skills and experience to remain employable throughout our working life. These learning opportunities will better position us for future employment and career growth. (Find out more about your Learnability Quotient.)
In an ideal world, colleges and universities should be preparing and equipping our young people for gaining their first entry into the workforce upon graduation. They also need to help our graduates meet the needs and expectations of current and future employers and be equipped for the workplace of the future.
With the job market growing more competitive and being over-crowded with over-qualified unemployed graduates (and other mature age job seekers), we must intentionally help our young people to secure their first full-time job in their field of study in the quickest possible time. Starting them on the right footing straight after graduation will only create a stronger generation of productive workers.
Instead of fighting with everyone else to get that first job, you can build up your work-related experience (and resume and portfolio) by doing freelance jobs on the side. Not only will you get paid, but you will also have far higher chances of securing your second job (everyone else’s first job).
Therefore, while you are still at school, college, or university, proactively embark on freelance jobs, casual/part-time jobs, entrepreneurship, or even apprenticeship to quickly build up your professional networks and acquire work-related experience and skills. It must be related work experience that employers in your field of study want!
Be aware that employers are continuously driving up the experience inflation. As such, the amount of work-related experience required to get an ‘entry-level job’ is increasing every year.
Casual fast-food jobs can get you started in the job market. Then quickly transition into jobs that are directly related to your field of study or within the same job cluster.
Focus on acquiring enterprise skills, which is defined as transferable skillsthat include problem-solving, communication, teamwork, and creativity. This may require you to close any skill gaps through intentional acquisition activities.
Join and actively participate in a Toastmasters Club that is organised by Toastmasters International. It is a not for profit training organisation that focuses on communication and leadership development. It offers a safe place for you to practice public speaking, improve your communication and build leadership skills.
Toastmasters are in 143 countries with 16,800+ clubs offering affordable training in improving your public speaking skills, building your leadership skills, maximising your potential, enjoying unlimited personal growth, working on networking in a small and supportive environment, practicing writing speeches and presenting in a group setting, gaining a competitive advantage in the workplace, and building self-confidence and self-awareness.
From a time, cost, and study debt perspective, college or university students should attempt to finish the course that they have enrolled in and complete it in the shortest possible time.
Until you enter the workforce and start working (getting your hands dirty!) in your chosen field of study and occupation, there is no solid basis or reason for you to change your study major mid-way or drop out of the course. An important decision like this should never be based on emotions and first-hand experience.
Rather than being pre-occupied with ‘finding’ your passion (where many people will tell you so), actively create or develop the love, passion, and opportunities for the work you do in your chosen occupation or profession. Give it time to nurture and love the job you are doing.
To facilitate this, you need to find ways to quickly enter the job market and focus on making your work meaningful by taking positive meanings from it. Once you are already working, you have gained required transferable skills that can open doors to other related jobs within the same job cluster.
All occupations have remarkable meaning and purpose if you think positively about it or look hard enough for it. For example, school bus drivers bear an enormous responsibility. They care for and keep children safe. They are an essential part of assuring that our children receive the education they need and deserve.
As dream jobs don’t exist, you need to quickly experiment with different things and make them happen for you. Focus on higher-skilled jobs that are hard to automate. Stay away from jobs that have a high proportion of manual or physical tasks.
Always lift your eyes beyond your current situation and keep them focused on other occupations in the same job cluster. This ensures skills portability and job mobility within a job cluster if you do decide to seize the opportunity and change jobs or careers in the future.
Create your professional LinkedIn profile
LinkedIn is the place to find and be found by professionals and recruiters. It has well over a million and a half student jobs and internships.
LinkedIn has dedicated websites for students, which can be found here and here.
Students can create and build their personal brand by writing articles here. Other relevant information can be found here.
Develop an effective student (or graduate) LinkedIn profile by copying across the required from your most current resume. This is effectively your online resume.
Start by connecting with people you already know including your friends, relatives, classmates, academic staff, and work colleagues. There are different ways to do this. Find the one that suits your personality and time availability.
When you do a search on LinkedIn, it will prioritise you search results depending on your degree of connection with individuals (e.g., the closer your connection, the more information you can see on their profile). Thus, the more connections you have, the greater chance of you connecting with others.
Join the relevant LinkedIn groups. These interest groups will signal to future employers the kinds of work, employers, or values you have and are pursuing.
Build up your personal brand and authority by initiating topical discussions and responding to post and discussion of other group members in a meaningful and professional way.
Follow people and companies on LinkedIn. This will also signal your interest in certain work areas. In doing so, you are also finding out about news and job opportunities related to that company and industry.
Here are some resources to get your started:
(1) LinkedIn profile checklist for students
If you are looking for answers on how to answer interview questions in line with your personality, click here.
Elevator pitch of what you can achieve for employers
In developing your LinkedIn profile and resume, you need to succinctly describe who you are and what you can do in the form of an elevator pitch.
The pitch is an executive summary of who you are and what you can achieve.
During your formative years as a student, you are constantly evolving. Your elevator pitch will, in turn, do the same. Remember that this is okay. Even if it seems to change every month, you are constantly evaluating yourself and practicing the under-rated skill of elevator pitch development and delivery (public speaking and confidence building).
Be sure to mention your goals and career aspirations. Talk about the activities you have been involved with as a result of your goals and aspirations. Achievements and experiences speak miles beyond grades and numbers.
Having an elevator pitch will take away some of the struggles and stresses that can come about when you suddenly feel at a loss for words. Having a well-planned, memorised, and go-to elevator pitch could play an integral role in making the right impression when you least expect to.
Clean up your social media profiles and posts
The reality is that hiring managers are looking at your social media activities just as thoroughly as your resume or cover letter.
In fact, they are using social media to learn more you. This includes personal social medial activities on Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, or YouTube and professional activities on LinkedIn.
Create a mentor and coach network
A mentor is someone who offers their knowledge, expertise, and advice to those with less experience. By leveraging their experience, skills, and networks, mentors guide mentees in the right direction including making introductions to others.
A mentor helps the mentee consider opportunities for career growth, gain confidence, and improve interpersonal skills. The support is based on the mentor’s own experiences and learnings, which makes them more reliable figures in the eyes of the mentees.
The focus of mentoring is to build capability.
A coach focuses on specific skills and development goals by breaking them into concrete tasks to be completed within a specified period. They focus on identifying goals, prioritising them, and choosing the right path to achieve them. In doing so, coaches help individuals become more accountable, goal-driven, and even competitive.
The focus of coaching is usually task and performance.
Developing and nurturing networks of both mentors and coaches can accelerate your growth and likelihood of starting well.
Your mentors and coaches can include a mix of friends, family, classmates, professors and other advisors in your network.
You don’t learn as much when spending time around people who are exactly where you are.
You will only learn more by surrounding yourself with people who are further along, who have been where you are, or have moved to the next level.
If you’re in your 20s, then you want to spend time with people in their late 30s, 40s, 50s, and above. They’re the ones with the answers — not someone who is 25 and still trying to figure things out for him or herself.
The final word of caution
You can have all the best skills, experience and job knowledge in the world, but if you are not motivated to do the job, you will not keep the job for long or perform well.
Besides personal motivation to work, you also need to fit in well into the company culture. You must be able to get on well with your colleagues.
As such, employers will be testing not only your skills and experience, but you’re your motivation, personality, and cultural fit.
Finally, keep in mind that technical, as well as soft skills, can be trained and learned. It boils down to how motivated and flexible you are in learning new skills or acquiring new knowledge.