Congratulations. You’ve graduated and want to start a successful career. As a recent graduate, you’re leaving the meritocracy of higher education and are about to enter a highly competitive workforce and try to build a successful career. Not only does Canada yield one of the most educated populations on Earth, which means that your competition probably has the same degree as you, but we’re also absolutely terrible at connecting peoples’ skills and training to our economic needs. Clearly, you are in need of some career building tips for recent graduates.
Luckily, you’re reading this blog.
Career Building Tips for Recent Graduates
Mike, Kurt and I have faced similar challenges (e.g. “this unpaid internship makes it difficult for me to pay rent”) and smashed through similar barriers (e.g. “wait, my History degrees aren’t awesome professional credentials and people don’t pay writers?!” and “what do you mean broadcast journalism isn’t a growth industry? Doesn’t everyone listen to radio documentaries by public broadcasters?”). And we’re here to help.
As you transition into the world of work consider these three excellent tips from three guys who have been where you are right now, know what it takes to stand out from the crowd, and have years of experience hiring people just like you.
John’s Tip
Build Your Career with Great Stories
Part-time work. Going on exchange. A thesis or major research paper. Conferences. Intramural sports. Road trips. Parties. Backpacking through East Africa. Heartbreak. These experiences – and ones like them – create great stories. The problem, though, is that very few college and university grads have taken the time to reflect on these experiences, the stories inspired by them, and how they relate to a thriving career. Your stories will showcases great examples of when and where you communicated effectively, how you worked on a team to achieve results, when you led volunteers, and probably a few instances where you failed, too.
Take stock of your stories through personal reflection and by asking the people whom you trust the most their opinion(s) of your adventures, too. Once you have honed your ten or twelve best personal and professional stories, practice matching their outcome with what your audience wants to hear – for example, you might think that negotiating a ride from Marseille to the Italian border during a French transit strike is just another “insane travel story”; hardly, such an example reflects the ability to communicate in another language as well as use powers of influence and negotiation.
Standing out during job interviews, networking events, informational interviews, first dates, dinner parties, and volunteer experiences requires the ability to speak and write positively and enthusiastically through stories.
Michael’s Tip
Clarify and Focus your Goals
You may not know what you want to be, but you can probably picture how you want to be. Actually having a goal is a pretty key aspect to reaching that goal. Explore how you hope to live five, 10, and 15 years down the road so that you can understand what you’re actually working towards.
Do you want to work in a specific industry? Do you really want to live in a specific place? How many hours a week do you actually want to work right now, and how many do you want to work at 30, 40, 50, 60, and beyond?
Ask yourself a thousand questions and answer them honestly. As you develop a better understanding of where you really want to be you can start making small decisions that move you towards your long-term goal. Even if that goal is a meteoric rise to wealth and power there are a multitude of small decisions you’ll need to make to progress along that path.
The job you get can be one in a series that evolve into your original goal, or it could be something you do for the rest of your life. Best you understand which you would prefer and make decisions which move you along the right path.
You’ll be doing both of us a favour. If you don’t know where you’re headed I can’t plan around your advancement, let alone help you reach it.
Kurt’s Tip
Volunteer to Build Your Career
It’s time to start building your network beyond the “college crowd” you’ve spent the last four years hanging out with in the quad/library/pub/dorm/coffee shop. One of the quickest ways to expand your network and develop relevant transferable skills is to volunteer for an organization or cause that you believe in.
Try to find a way to make sure this volunteer experience will take you (roughly) towards a career day hope to work in. If you want to be a communications or public relations person, consider volunteering to do research or online writing for a local non-profit. If you want to go into sales, consider seeking out an opportunity to do volunteer fundraising calling. If you are all about human resources, consider a volunteer opportunity which will allow you to interact with people as a mentor, coach or community support person. Regardless of what you choose, make sure to attack your volunteer work the same way you would a job, with professionalism, a positive attitude and lots of “can-do” energy.
Some Final Thoughts about Work Ethic
Many of you reading this post are twentysomethings – man, those were the days! A wise woman once told me that “there is no work-life-balance; there is just life.” Live your life, sure, and be absolutely certain to have a blast during the years after college/university. Because fun is important. The decade after university is the period of your life when you can – and should – work your hardest.
If you want to know what it takes to achieve your career potential, though, here’s more or less what it takes to build an awesome, balanced life: make friends and have fun with them; get paid for a job where (realistically) enjoy 50-60% of the tasks and work really, really hard at it; volunteer for an organization or cause that you believe in; get board or governance experience; invent something and/or start a passion project; have an adventure; and find about five mentors off-whom you can bounce ideas and goals for the next decade.
By doing all of these things – not some of them – you will make a strong transition from school into the world of work.
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Photo Credit: kevin dooley via Compfight cc