Posts Tagged ‘experience’

Today’s quote comes from Aldous Huxley, who was the author of the classic book Brave New World.

I thought that it was appropriate given that most New Grads struggle with overcoming a perceived lack of experience when competing for jobs.

Experience is not what happens to a man.
It is what a man does with what happens to him.

~ Aldous Huxley

One of the things that drives be crazy when I speak with new graduates is that so many of them are looking for their “dream job”. While I can’t fault anyone for wanting this, I don’t feel that it is realistic at this stage. There are two reason for this. The first has to do with your personal experiences. The second has to do with your experience level (from an employers perspective).

First, without any real experience, it’s difficult to know what you really want to do with your life. When I was offered my first ‘real’ job out of school, it was in sales. I had been convinced when I graduated that I wanted to be in sales or marketing, so I thought that this was the perfect thing for me. I was sure that I had found my dream job.

Well, that simply wasn’t the case.

While the company I was working for (a Fortune 500 technology company) was rated one of the best employers in the country, I quickly learned that sales wasn’t for me. Every morning I woke up with knots in my stomach knowing that I hated what I was doing. I was miles away from my dream job. Ultimately, at this stage in my career, I just didn’t know what I was looking for.

Second, going back to the experience factor, an employer is likely not going to hand over the “key to the shop” to a relatively untested new graduate. You may have all of the education in the world, but without real world experience, employers will test you with smaller tasks before giving you more responsibility. Hopefully, this will lead to your dream job.

In my opinion, it’s far more realistic (and potentially rewarding) to be focusing on finding a rewarding career. A rewarding career is something that you will not only enjoy doing, but get rewarded fairly for. My personal belief is that if more new graduates spent more time looking for a rewarding career instead of their “dream job”, it will avoid a great deal of stress and frustration.

So look for a rewarding career first and save your dream job for a few years down the line.

Agree? Disagree? Leave a comment below!

In the last post I outlined the six steps to a successful job search. As a refresher, they are:

1. Preparation
2. Networking
3. Finding an Opening
4. Application (Resume and Cover Letter)
5. Interview
6. Offer/Acceptance

Today we are going to introduce the topic of “Preparation”.

In short, preparation is all of the work that is put in before you even start to look for a job. Before you interview, before you create a resume or cover letter, and before you even look for open positions, you will be preparing for your job search.

Preparation can take many forms. It can be the act of gaining work experience that will go on your resume. It can be time set aside for personal assessment (in order to clarify what it is that you are looking for in a job). It can even be setting up an area to work in that will allow for an effective job search.

Ultimately, anything that you do that prepares you for your job search can be considered preparation. It may be conscious (actively volunteering in order to build your resume) or subconscious (learning from listening to the shared interview experiences of your friends). Either way, it is not only vital to a successful job search, but it is critical to ensure that you find the right job for you.

Thoughts? Feel free to leave a comment!