Want a Job? Grab a Cup of Coffee.

I don’t want to say that I was lied to growing up, but I had faith that society had more stake in my life than it actually did. The truth is, society is lazy and the formula it provides for us does not always put us on a path to our best professional selves.

After high school, my only goal was to get into college. It was literally all I worked for and when I got accepted, I felt successful. Once in college, my only goal was to graduate and when I achieved that, I felt successful. Now that I have graduated, my only goal is to get a job. I have assumed that my successes through school would have set me up to have a pick of careers, but I can’t even land an interview.

The traditional structure of schooling does turn results for a lot of those that follow it, but I don’t believe that it places people where they truly want to be. The problem is that most kids within my generation of millennials are not seeing a positive return from their time in traditional school. For our generation, optimism is not the problem, as 88% of millennials are optimistic about finding a job. Education is not the problem either, as millennials are about to be the most educated generation in history.

You can blame it on the recovering economy, or the cultural gap between millennials and older generations, or even the idea that many millennials simply don’t want to work hard. Whatever the reason for our underutilized millennial workforce, we must find a solution.

Currently, 37% of 18 to 29-year-olds are unemployed or out of the workforce, the highest share among this age group in more than three decades. The majority of us who have been feeling optimistic about finding work are being painfully let down.

But how can we as a generation of innovators change this?

One solution is to master the social skills that are not taught in college. I stopped looking at job boards and applying to random jobs on the internet, and instead, started seeking out companies that inspire me. I simply reach out to the founders and politely ask if they would be willing sit down over a cup of coffee and talk with me about their industry, and believe me, people love bragging about their work.

In the past year, I’ve met over 50 inspiring entrepreneurs with the “coffee-meeting-method”and have been offered 8 internships. I learned that making friends with the founders, rather than applying to a position online and merely following up, is a game-changer.

“People like to hire people that they like. It’s pretty hard for somebody to fall in love with a name on a resume.”

Also, for the companies who were not hiring or offering internships, after 4–6 months, 3 founders reached out personally asking if I was available to join as an intern. The greatest benefit to meeting all of these entrepreneurs was realizing the crazy amount of potential within myself. Since December, I’ve decided to co-found my own company, Eyesight Collective. Eyesight is an online course platform helping students, just like me, learn real-world professional skills so that they, too, can realize their own potential. Many of the entrepreneurs I’ve met through the “coffee-meeting-method” have become close mentors, helping me along with my own process.