Graduating from a mediocre school… and still landing your dream job.
Here’s your 10-point guide.
In 2004, I wore a cap and gown, held a large rectangular piece of paper, and smiled for the camera. On that day, I had no idea how I was going to land a job that made me happy. And I genuinely thought that my degree from an unpopular school was going to make the road ahead incredibly difficult.
Fast-forward almost a decade later, and I’ve learned a tremendous amount from dynamic and not-so dynamic people I’ve met along my journey. This 10-point guide is for the 18-year old me who wishes he knew everything I know today.
1) Your degree means nothing
Unless your university makes U.S. News Top 10 headlines annually, you are NOT guaranteed gainful employment and the best companies will not be coming to campus to woo you. Stop looking at that over-priced piece of paper and thinking it owes you something or will get you where you want to be. If your only qualification for a job is your degree, all other degrees from schools that you didn’t get into will trump your degree.
Depressing? It shouldn’t be.
One of my most successful friends never went to college. He is now a VP at a hot company at the age of 26. His first boss never got an undergraduate degree either. And he just sold his 3rd company for millions. I beat out applicants from Harvard to land my first prestigious internship, and now regularly beat out people with more impressive and advanced degrees for high-priced consulting gigs.
What you have to offer is more than your degree, and the rest of this guide focuses on how you can stand out from the rest.
2) Build clubs, volunteer, start something — that doesn’t offer a paycheck
A common misconception for college graduates is that your career starts when you receive your first salaried job and a “real” paycheck. That mentality keeps people from doing big things at a young age.
Your career begins when you start proving your worth. That local radio show you started. That blog about Duck Tales with 5,000 readers per month. That charity raising money for a new library. These are all part of your “professional experience” because they show that you can execute and are not afraid to put your work on display for the world. It takes dedication, problem-solving, and job-related skills to keep any project moving over time and — contrary to the opinions of many — it’s even more impressive when these projects don’t come with a regular paycheck. If you followed through with these projects because of pure passion, an employer will trust you with putting that energy toward their company’s objectives and hope you’ll infuse their office with similar passion.
It also shows that you’re a self-starter. The toughest part of hiring entry-level employees is that you have to show them how to do every little thing. Through supporting a radio audience, building a blog, and raising money for charity, you’ve already proven that you know how to motivate yourself and figure out solutions on your own. To an employer, that translates to being able to analyze, execute, and solve problems with ingenuity instead of needing a manual.
3) Begin your career before you begin your career
The internet allows you to display your strengths to the world with very little effort. You can showcase how well you’d perform at your job before getting an employment offer. Don’t believe me? Let’s play a game.
Anish, I want a career in Investing.
Build a site showcasing your weekly stock picks. Choose 5 stocks every month and give a detailed description of why you picked each stock. As a stock goes up and down, follow up with what has happened with each stock pick and give follow-up analysis of what you’d do next (Buy, Sell, Short, DOMINATE!)
Anish, I want a career in Social Good.
Build your own Kickstarter campaign for a cause that you’re excited about. Hit your fundraising goal and you now have a success under your belt.
Anish, I want a career in TV Advertising.
Create a regular blog with the best and worst advertisements. Detail exactly what you love about some of them, and how the rest went sorely wrong.
Anish, I want a career in Fashion.
Follow all the Fashion Weeks happening around the world and detail exactly which designers you’d love to work for, and why.
The concept of building a “portfolio” of your ideas, expressions, and talents is common in the Design world. But there’s no reason that portfolios can’t be created for other careers.
4) Do work in a real office.
Caring about the amount of money you make while you’re still in college is counter-productive. Any job you do on the side of class, partying, and short-lived romances will pay you peanuts. So when opportunities arise to do jobs that pertain to the profession you’d like to have, take them head on — EVEN IF FOR FREE. I know getting $12 per hour working at the mall sounds appealing to a starving college student. But it isn’t particularly exciting on that resume. When applying to that Ad Agency you’ve been dreaming about, being a Shift leader at Starbuck’s will not get you anywhere. But being a Copywriting Intern for a local startup will.
Nobody wants to train you on the basics of how an office environment functions. If you’re trying to work for a tech company, knowing the difference between what a Marketing Manager, Product Manager, and a Project Manager does will put you one step ahead of other applicants who’ve never sat in meetings with each.
5) Ignore money. Follow passion.
Just forget about it. Is money important? Absolutely. But probably not for another 3-5 years after graduation when big paychecks start. With the exception of very few jobs that normally only go to graduates coming out of the top-10 schools, your first salary will be shit compared to what you will make a few years down the line.
But a job is a job, right? If this article was titled ”How to be employed”, then absolutely. But if you want to pursue something you’ll actually be excited doing, don’t follow the paycheck. One job may pay a few thousand dollars more than another right out of college. But ask yourself:
Is this job really what I want to do?
Does this job lead me down an amazing path I’ll be happy with when I’m 30?
If you’re unsure of what career paths are possible from a particular job, go to LinkedIn and simply search for people who’ve held the same job. Look at how their career paths developed. If their career paths are not interesting to you, be strong and look elsewhere.
Just like your college degree, holding out for a great opportunity is an investment in yourself. And goddamnit, you’re worth it.
6) Don’t Settle.
Example time.
I was the Vice President of my university’s American Marketing Association. If you commit to being a leader in your college’s Marketing association, you likely are interested in a career in Marketing. When graduation came around, a majority of the group members took jobs in anything but Marketing — because they were easy to get and paid more short-term than any other job. These jobs were mostly doing commission-only sales, filing claims for insurance companies, or administrative duties. I opted to not get a full-time job and went into my 3rd internship (2nd unpaid). Of that group, I’m the only one doing Marketing to this day.
Attending career fairs at a low-ranked school are an exercise in humility. After seeing the Philip Morris booth at my school’s career fair and pretending to be proud of other students accepting un-fulfilling jobs, I knew that my pool of opportunities had to be better than what my school put in front of me. Low-ranked universities are a hotbed of equally low ambition. Do not fall into that trap and take the first thing that comes your way.
I landed my first salaried job by sneaking into Stanford University’s Career Fair. Don’t be afraid to “crash” a better university’s career events.
7) Differentiate
This is a special category that admittedly is difficult to attain. It involves doing something at a very young age that sets you completely apart from the competition.
A friend of mine ran for the City Council of Berkeley at the age of 19 and came in 2nd place. Who does that?!? That fact itself just screams of him being someone exceptional.
When hiring for an Marketing internship at a $100B company, I received a never-ending supply of resumes from students at top universities. The person I eventually hired was voted Woman of the Year by her Junior College before transferring to UC Berkeley. That helped her stand out from the pile.
If you can put something similar on the table that just simply shows sheer will and accomplishment at a very early stage, you will be impossible to ignore and immediately looked at as someone who will accomplish amazing things. Not gonna lie, this isn’t particularly easy.
8) Get out there, shake hands, and smile.
The biggest disconnect between students from great schools and mediocre schools is understanding how important networking is. Alumni from top schools populate the C-Suite of every major company you could want to work for. Your alumni — not so much. So get outside of the safe confines of your campus and attend events.
Meetup.com, local professional associations, newspapers, and specialized websites all post events going on in your area. If you live in a small city without much going on, grab a similarly ambitious friend and make the trip to professional events in more happening cities. When you show up to these events, do not be timid because you’re the youngest person in the room. 2 things you might not realize are that:
- Everyone is impressed by you even showing up.
- Everyone will want to help you out because they were all in your shoes at one point.
Stand up tall, be confident, and close every conversation asking if you can enter their email addresses into your smartphone (bring a notepad if you don’t have a smartphone) in order to keep in touch. After the event, send a simple email thanking each person for chatting with you and re-iterating the fact that you’re looking for a really great job. You’ll be surprised how many “Hey, my friend could use someone like you” email responses you’ll get.
9) Learn to speak confidently. Learn to interview.
Here is a little clue: most people are terrible at interviewing. They squirm when asked difficult questions. They do very little research on the company they’re interviewing for. And they have trouble staying on topic without falling off onto random tangents. The lack of confidence, communication skills, and preparation screams.
My point — the bar is low regardless of what university the applicant came from. Get above it. Here are 2 ways to prepare for your interviews:
a) Look at the qualifications section of a job you’re interviewing for. Go through each qualification and write down a real-life example of how you meet each of those qualifications. All of those projects I made you take on in the examples above (*giggle*) should give you a lot of great experience to touch upon. Talk about these real-life experiences in your interviews.
b) There are a lot of “top 10 common interview questions” lists online that are standard for entry-level job interviews. Find a good one and answer each of the questions with real-life examples. When asked one of these in an interview, simply recite your pre-written answer.
10) Excel. PowerPoint. Excel. PowerPoint.
Want to be the perfect entry-level employee? Become a master at Excel and PowerPoint before you start a new job.
I’d put a heavy emphasis on Excel. Your specific industry may vary, but a majority of jobs in the business world utilize an incredible amount of data-crunching in Excel. The overflow of work in Excel is very often why companies need to hire entry-level employees. If you can prove you’re an Excel pro through a specialized certification or past projects, your stock will rise tremendously as a candidate.
A close friend is part of the extremely elite 75th regiment of Army Rangers. These are the good guys featured in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. He is in Excel and PowerPoint daily.
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Graduating is an exciting and scary time for everyone. But a little preparation before you make it to the podium will go a long way in never having to be a life-long employee of Boredomville.
