Learn New Skills or Find Your Career Choices are Very Limited
Two articles appeared in this weekend’s New York Times that served as a reminder that the secret to success is never stop learning. Whether employed with a company for...
In Your First Professional Job
You Can Have a Meltdown or Learn to Manage Your Transition Dara started her job with a consulting firm within a month of graduation. Excited she dove into the...
Success is an Iceberg.
In Your Job Search Reveal What Is Below the Surface. I was thinking about icebergs the other day. Perhaps because it was over 90, I had just completed 20,000...
Buzzwords or Keywords? You Decide.
Here’s the headline from an article in Fast Company featuring Catherine Fisher, senior director of corporate communications for LinkedIn, The 10 Words You Should Never Use In Your LinkedIn...
Mad Men’s Joan & Peggy Lean In
When I was assistant regional manager at The Gillette Company in the early ’80s, I tried to explain to the president why I was not going to relocate across...
You Got The Job. Before You Start, Close The Job Search Loop
You sent off your cover letters and resumé and completed the required online applications. You conducted informational interviews, talked to people in your career field who connected you to...
COLLEGE EXIT STRATEGY PARENTS NEED TO WORRY AS MUCH ABOUT GETTING THEIR CHILDREN OUT OF COLLEGE AS GETTING IN
As parents are discovering the hard way, many have focused too much on getting their children into the right college and not enough on transitioning into the professional workplace. Parents are motivated, but are unsure how to help. In investment language, parents overlooked the college exit strategy. Business people understand businesses need long-term planning to improve the odds of success. Individuals plan for retirement to have a clear idea of what funds and options are available once a decision is made to leave a career and job. Planning for college requires the same rigorous long-term strategies. Understandably, parent endeavors are focused on getting their children into college. But with ongoing economic pressures dimming employment prospects, parents and college students need to adopt a more businesslike approach to moving through and out of college. For many, there is no college exit strategy. An exit strategy is not about a college student declaring a major. It’s the plan to improve their chances of finding a professional job suited to their education and degree, talents and interests. Parents understand looking for a first job is very different today. And they’re right. The rules and norms of searching for a job have changed. It’s not easy to keep up with all these changes—it moves fast. They also know it takes more than a resumé for today’s college students to land a first professional job. When it comes to preparing for that first professional job search, parents say the most important things needed to prepare are understanding what employers are looking for; having the right connections; knowing how to communicate professionally and persuasively; focusing on a career area; and creating a job search strategy. Again, they’re right: These are the knowledge, tools and behaviors college students need to land their first professional job. The development of these knowledge, tools and behaviors occurs over the entire time a student is in college, not simply in the last year. Just as with the college admission process, parents and college students are seeing the need to develop an exit strategy to move through and out of college. There are specific steps every college student can take during school and afterwards to dramatically improve their chances of finding a professional job suited to their talents, interests and education.