Recession-Proof Graduate is written by Charlie Hoehn and is an essential read for gradutaes everywhere on becoming employable in this tough new post-subprime world.
Highlights:
Not one professor had taught us how to buoy ourselves through a recession.
Being "recession-proof"
- The economy won't dictate what kind of job you think you can have.
- You aren't forced into soul-sucking work that causes you to hate your life in your early 20's.
- You can work with people who are a lot smarter than recession-proof. you and actually continue learning and growing.
- You can work on projects that you truly care about. Apply the principles I used, and you'll soon find yourself with
- And most of all, it means you have greater control over more opportunities at your feet than you ever thought what type of lifestyle you ultimately want to create for possible. yourself.
Getting a job the old-fashioned way:
There will always be good jobs.
Career Builder, Monster, and Craigslist will do absolutely nothing during that first month most graduates will use to search for jobs.
Anyone who expects great results from these websites is an "It's a recession -- there idiot (admittedly, I was one of these idiots for a few weeks) are no good jobs, LOL!"
In fact, there will always be good jobs. You're just looking in all the wrong places. The truth is that these sites are intended for the masses --
Don't compete with 35 year olds. Any promise of a halfway decent job will result in that And then you remember: "I have friends!" company receiving hundreds of resumes. If you really need to get a job right out of college, look for offers through your network. "Excellent communication skills"? Give me a break.
What about finding work that you'll actually care about? Not only do the people in your network know and trust you (unlike job posting sites where you're a faceless resume), Choosing your own path they will actually want to help you find something decent.
So, what should I do?
We all want to wake up excited for our work. There are other paths you can take after college, of course. I'd like to believe, however, that all of us want to work on things we genuinely care about and live a life that isn't being held back by a job we hate, right?
The benefits of free work:
Free work: zero competition, projects you love, and no dead-ends.
And what's more important to note is that you apply for an In terms of rapidly advancing your career path and finding internship the same way you apply for a job. work that you actually care about, there is one option that stands above the rest. That option is… You send in a resume, do an in-person interview, and if you secure the internship, youʼre given menial work from 9-5. Free work.
Enjoy grabbing coffee and filling out spreadsheets for the next three months, sucka.
Rescue your employer from a sea of mediocre job seekers. From a psychological standpoint, free work is extremely powerful. This is because the employerʼs expectations are always going to be really low:
A high-paying gig or free work? Contrastingly, if you had approached them expecting a high-paying gig right off the bat, they would have been the person (although that can happen), but rather to build a slightly wary and approached the situation as a clear-cut healthy relationship and earn their trust. It's harder to do that business transaction. if you approach them with a sales pitch right away. Virtual free work also allows you to work in an environment.
Throw away your resume, you won't need it anymore. When you do the free work remotely, you communicate '
Six ways to becoming recession-proof
1. You have to prove your worth.
STEP 0) Stop acting like you're entitled to a paycheck. This is step zero, because it shouldn't be a step at all. You need to understand that college degrees are
2. What kind of lifestyle do you want to create?
STEP 1) Choose a few areas you'd like to work in You can sidestep your way into almost any Stay true to yourself, and industry if you meet the be mercilessly honest right people and work about what you really with them. want.
3. Get yourself some skills. If you know the career path you're walking on will You need to have actual skills that are both in high demand eventually squelch your interests or desired lifestyle, just (in your desired industry) and slightly difficult to learn.
4. You don't have to be an expert, but you do have to be good. Seriously, if you want to be making six figures right after I'm not an expert in video editing, or web design, or online college, go learn how to put out huge oil fires in the marketing, but I'm solid at all three.
STEP 3) Build your online presence.
7. Your blog gives people something positive to read when they Google you.
How to get started with your own blog. a) Go to Wordpress.com and click "Sign up now." The main point is to create a website that puts you in a very people use Blogger, others use Tumblr, but I've found employable and positive light (unlike your Facebook account, Wordpress has the cleanest look and most flexibility for which has pictures of you taking beer bongs to the face). customization. If you want to use your blog as a way to get employers interested in you, I suggest you write about things that they'll [Note: If you want a blog thatʼs really easy and even simpler than Wordpress, use Tumblr or Posterous. Those two are the find valuable and relevant. So you can write about your past experiences in a particular field, things you're learning about, user-friendliest of all the different platforms.] current projects you're working on, etc. Just be honest and donʼt over-inflate your accomplishments.
b) Pick a domain. You can choose any name for your blog, but I highly recommend setting your full name as the domain An important thing to keep in mind, though, is the quality and address (the benefits to this are obvious). To do this, enter frequency of your posts. your name as the username in the Sign up process. So if your name is Phil Sampson, have your user name be 'philsampson.' This will set your blog's address to Above all, you need to philsampson.wordpress.com, which you can easily convert into philsampson.com with a $15 payment. focus on putting out good Obviously, if your name is very common, you probably won't content. be able to own that domain and will have to choose something else. A half-assed blog is more of a liability than anything. And I donʼt think itʼs super important to post really often – you just need to make it into a hobby youʼll enjoy. If that means
c) Start blogging. You can post about anything you want. writing one long post every two weeks, so be it. Just make it a regular part of your routine while youʼre searching for work.
Brace yourself because it's not easy.
STEP 4) Find a way to pay the bills, and cut costs. Even if you have a boring day job, you can make extra need your help for the next several months. That can be income on the side by using the skills you've learned. devastating if you don't have a bunch of other clients lined up. For me, I do online marketing consulting, occasional website design work, and freelance video/audio editing.
Postpone getting paid now, for amazing opportunities later. I'm telling you all this because, well, doing free work can be Do you want a steady paycheck at a job you're not crazy financially straining. It's not easy to see your friends buying about, or are you willing to temporarily postpone payment in multiple rounds of drinks for a bunch of people at the bar order to have access to amazing opportunities that will pay off because they're getting a consistent paycheck each week. big in a year or two? At some point, you will want to stop with the free work and just get a normal job like everyone else. Ignore that
STEP 5) Research your target, and reach out to them. Doing free work will be tough on your bank account for a brief period, but you'll make huge gains in the future and less. will simultaneously advance your career path in the direction you want it to go. You can approach the “high-hanging fruit” that no other graduates will be going after. Less competition means a Ultimately, it's your decision. better chance of you getting work.
Pick your target. In my opinion, a person taking the free work route should try to work for a successful entrepreneur who is still on the Before you reach out, upswing. There are many reasons for this. however, you need to do First of all, entrepreneurs tend to move at a breakneck pace compared to the corporate world. They are not a lot of research on them. interested in pushing papers; they want to get things done fast and make change happen.
Write them an email that goes something like this. 1. Greeting Doing free work is 2. Courteous introduction that shows your genuine interest and delicately about building alludes to all the research youʼve done on them healthy relationships with 3. Several specific examples of free work you could do that will have a measurable impact on them people you want to learn from and work 4. Your call-to-action: on projects youʼre interested in. So be “If you like these ideas, Iʼm genuine. happy to do them. Iʼd also love to talk to you about the possibility of doing more projects with you in the future. Can you talk this week?” 5. Sign off
Propose ideas that are valuable in the employer's terms. Whatever ideas I propose will somehow be tied to skills I make sure to propose ideas that are valuable in the of mine, but phrased in a way that's beneficial to the employerʼs terms. I DONʼT just say person I'm emailing. "Hey, I've got these skills, you should I make sure to explicitly say why the ideas would improve pay me for them." their current efforts, and why they need me to execute those ideas. Write emails to a few people you want to work for with Even if the person thinks my thought process is slightly this mentality: flawed, the email will still be very hard to turn down. "How can I frame my skills in a way Very few job seekers take that's highly valuable to this person?"
Free work becomes paid work. Finally, before you set up a deal for doing long-term free Let them know that at some point, you'll need to switch to work, you have to lay down a deadline for when the "free some form of reimbursement for your hard work. work" transitions to "paid work."
[From the Great Books Series. Also see The Success Manual - Encyclopedia of Advice, which contains summaries of 100+ Most useful books.]
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