I have sisters and brothers who are either in college or about to begin. I'm writing this post to them. I'm writing because I want them to know what life is really like, and to be prepared for the moment when they take their diploma, walk off the stage, and realize that life is not what they had expected.
Your whole life everyone around you has said that you can be anything you want to be. And that's true, but they didn't tell you everything. There's a big part they left out. All they have done, really, is given you a treasure map with a big "X" in the middle, but no path to follow. It's great to stare at the big "X' and know the treasure's out there, but it becomes depressing when you leave college, with your degree, and you realize that the degree doesn't have a path on it, either.
Then you'll wonder if it was even worth it. You'll think, "I have a degree. I know stuff. Why won't anybody hire me?"
When you start to think that, please remember that your degree is not worthless. Every degree, from the liberalist of liberal arts to the nerdiest BS, has distinguishable merit. You know how to think, you know how to write, perhaps you know some math. But you don't know how to get a career.
Isn't it funny? The one thing you need--the path to the "X"--isn't taught to you in college.
They teach you that life after college is like a game of checkers: you only move forward. But that's a lie too. Life after college is more like a game of Monopoly.
If you remember, in Monopoly, the goal is to collect as many properties as possible. These properties can then be used to earn you profit; they can be traded to further your goals; they can be used as collateral in a bankruptcy. They can do almost anything once you have them in your possession. But they do nothing if you pass them buy (especially if you go to jail).
Monopoly is a game of collecting. The more properties you have, the more value your collection is worth on the board. The more houses you own in a specific sector, the more your profit from that property grows.
Now, please don't think I am telling you to graduate and then immediately take out a loan and build a hotel on the boardwalk. That's now what I'm saying. But, you do need to build on the board, just not houses or hotels.
You need to build relationships.
80% of jobs are given to friends, relatives, or good acquaintances. That means that, out ten resumes you submit, eight of them are thrown in the trash before they're even read. Eight.
That's why I laugh when I hear about resume classes on campus as being the ticket to success in the job market. Especially when, statistically, 80% of employers don't give a crap about whatever "power font" you choose. Most of the time, the only thing that sees your font is the trash can.
My wife works at a law firm that recently posted a job opportunity for a second legal secretary. In one hour, she got 75 resumes. By the end of the day, she had a stack of resumes. Let me ask you this question:
Pretend you are her, and you've just read 50 resumes that have the same business jargon/nonsense. And the 51st has this sentence:
Objective: I am a self-starter who desires a rewarding position with a well-established firm that will give me opportunities to advance and demonstrate my experience.
Would this crap, over and over again, start to make you laugh? Would you be able to take this "self-starter" seriously? That's the problem with relying on resumes. A good resume on the top of the stack is effective; a good resume in the middle of the stack is funny, and a good resume on the bottom of the stack is annoying.
So how do you get your resume to the top of the stack? Someone has to put it there.
Now here's a fun statistic: zero. That's the percentage of people who wrote or called my wife personally, asking for a minute of her time to meet and talk about the job. And the funny thing is, her boss asked her if any of the resumes made a special impression.
Your name on paper is a word. But, when associated with your face and personality, your name becomes an powerful impression.
This post is getting long, so I will cut out for the night. But this should get you started on the right path. I have a system I will write down in future posts for you to help build, manage, and sustain relationships. Your success after college will be determined more by what you do after school than what you do in school. If you're the person that comes home and turns on the TV with a box of Lucky Charms until you fall asleep, then have fun playing the resume game. Just don't use the phrase "self-starter." It will be a lie.
Oh, I almost forgot to tell you what the path to the "X" is.
You can be whatever you want to be. You just need to know the right people.
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