I want to thank Rebecca Florey from Carnegie Mellon’s Career Center for setting up a great event the other night at her school.  I spoke to about 30 students on my new book The 7 Things I Wish I Knew Before I Graduated.  The students were extremely engaged in the session and gave me a number of things to ponder as I try to help college students with their careers.

What can you do if you know what your career passion is but are not in a position to act on it?

My answer was, if you know what you want to do but cannot get out of where you are then I would suggest waiting until the timing is right.  How many small business owners wanted to start their company years before they actually could because they had to wait for capital?  Or how many actors knew they wanted to be actors but had to waiter for years until they found their big break?  I don’t believe in coincidences in life.  If you know what you are called to do then if you are indeed called your passion will come to fruition in due time.  Patience truly is a virtue.

College graduates are kind of expected to “have their act together” when they graduate.  What should we do if we don’t have a clue what to do with our life after college?

Isn’t that the question of the ages for all college grads?  I can think of three people I graduated with who were scared to death to graduate.  They didn’t want to face to realities of growing up.  They were quite comfortable with living the college life.  For many students graduation brings more grief than it does jubilation.

If you are in the position of fear rather than excitement after graduation I would suggest taking it slow.  Don’t jump into the first job that comes your way.  Explore your options, determine what you like to do and do it.  Don’t just take a job because you will need to start making student loan payments six months after graduation.  If you can move back into your parent’s house for a time, do it.  Save your money.  Or if the thought of moving home causes stomach pains you might be able to find a cheap apartment with a friend but please don’t look for rooms at Trump Tower.  Stay conservative until you determine what you are suppose to be doing with your life.

I think the biggest thing to remember is that you don’t need to know everything about life after graduation.  Face it, you are still young, and relatively ignorant of how life works.  Find an experienced successful person that you trust and get some good advice from them about life.  Don’t try and do things as a lone ranger.  Get good advice from someone who “has been there and done that.”

Thanks again CMU for bringing me in to speak.  I look forward to seeing you again!

Justin

I flew in to Richmond Virginia last night in the middle of a snow and ice storm.  While we were landing the cloud cover was extremely thick.  Most of the time once you get below a certain altitude you can begin to see the ground but on this particular night we could not see the ground below us until we were only a few hundred feet off the ground.  In other words the pilots were essentially landing the plane with very little visibility.  I am very glad they have a good training program to know how to do this.  I am sure everyone else on the flight felt the same way.

Do you feel like your job search experience is like landing a plane in the middle of a snow storm with zero visibility?

Here are some thoughts on navigating your way through your job search experience

• Understand your strengths and weaknesses
• Determine what you are truly interested in doing for a living
• Set manageable career goals
• Speak to other people who currently work in that field
• Get the proper training or certifications need for that job
• Understand the industry you are hoping to work in

These are just a few thoughts on making sure you are not trying to navigate your career through the fog of bad weather.  What are some other pieces of job search advice do you have for someone who is looking for a new job or making a career transition?  Feel free to comment below or send me an email to justindri@gmail.com.

Thanks

Justin Driscoll

I had a very interesting conversation at lunch today with a friend of mine who I now work with and went to college with that sparked an idea that I would like to share.

We had a very intriguing dialogue about how colleges do not prepare students for the real world. My friend went to college for a technical degree in information technology management. He said with his own mouth that he doesn’t remember anything from college nor does he use any of the skills he learned in college. Frankly, I don’t remember much from my classes either.

Do you feel the same way? Are you using the skills you learned in college? Do you remember what you learned? Is it applicable in your day-to-day work?

His feeling about college was they were training him to be a CIO rather than an entry-level employee. Let’s face it; new college graduates are at best entry-level employees. This statement is especially true if students do not have any experience under their belt before they graduate. One of the chapters in my book, The 7 Things I Wish I Knew Before I Graduated, is titled, Real Life Work Experience Matters More than Textbooks. The basis of the chapter is to illustrate the point to students on how important it is to gain real life work experience before they graduate. At the end of the day academics are not as important as experience when looking for a job. In the technology industry, especially in smaller companies, they expect students to be able to hit the ground running with little training. So, how else are they going to be able to do this outside of have some type of experiential learning?

I think we give far too much credit to young people to know how to do the following:

• Look for a job
• Create a resume
• Write a cover letter
• Articulate what they want to do for a living
• Understand how business works; (since all they have done for the first 20 or so years of their life is sit in a classroom and study)

How can these new graduates, dare I say kids, know how to do any of this by the time they are 20 if all of their attention has been on tests, test taking, homework, and memorization?

Here is my proposal for change within four-year traditional colleges. Adopt the following experiential learning program for their college to ensure their students are workforce ready when they graduate.

Year One: Two semesters of academics
Year Two: Academics in the fall; Co-Op for the entire Spring Semester
Year Three: Academics in the fall: Co-Op for the entire Spring semester
Year Four: Co-op / Academics for the entire year

The schools should structure a co-op program so that all of their students not only get the academics they need to be successful but more importantly the experience that will allow them to apply their academics in the real world before they graduate.

The school should have a team of people who structures agreements with companies in the area who will hire X number of their students every semester so that they have a rolling group of students in their company from that school. That way the students will know and the company will know exactly what will happen and when. This will allow the company to always have projects available for the students to work on and it will allow the school to place their students in willing companies.

Nearly every student I speak to tells me the same thing.

1. They have no idea what they want to do with their career or the degree they just paid thousands of dollars for.
2. They are not sure how to leave the classroom and enter the boardroom. To them it is one big mystery. In fact many of them are plain scared.

In my opinion there are only two ways to combat this confusion
1. Old-fashioned mentoring by industry professionals or
2. Hands-on work for the students before they leave college

If anyone else has any other ideas I would love to hear them. Please email me at justindri@gmail.com

A great gift for students!

The 7 Things I Wish I Knew Before I Graduated!

The book that will help your find your passion and not your job!

I wrote this book with the intent of helping other people find their career passion in life. The lack of direction amongst people is staggering. The large majority of people do not have a clue about what they want to do with their career. They are simply working in a job to pay the bills. The seven chapters outlined in my book are designed to give the reader industry-guided career advice. Is it the end-all book for career guidance? No, but I encourage you to read it and apply what I suggest to see if there aren’t truths within.

You will learn:

• How important it is to meet the needs of the company in order to get hired and keep your job.

• How important it is to have real life work experiences rather than only academic knowledge.

• How relocating to another area of the country or world can open up doors of opportunity that aren’t available in your backyard

• How innovative people are going to continue to be the leaders in the 21^st century and beyond. The lack of innovation can kill a career.

• How integrity and character still matter in business regardless of the countless examples of unethical behavior that is sweeping the business world.

• How important it is to be willing and flexible enough to be willing to change throughout your career. Change is rapid in these days, so those who fight it will ultimately lose the battle of life.

• How to find your passion in life and not your job! Work does not have to be a four-letter word that you have to do until retirement. It can be fulfilling and rewarding. The question is, are you doing what you love or are you just doing what you have to?

The most successful and happy people at work are those who are living their passion!

Order Justin’s book today to reap the benefits of a successful career!

I thought I would share a link to an article where I was quoted as an author for the first. In this Sunday’sPittsburgh Tribune Review. The Trib, as it is know here in Pittsburgh, is the second largest paper by distribution size in the Pittsburgh area. Local writer Bill Loeffler from the Trib did a great job writing the article. Along with me, he interviewed a few college career counselors, and a human resources representative, to get our perspective on how students can use career services to further their career goals earlier in their college career.

He brought out the fact, through the interviews, that many students do not focus on their careers until they have to; which is usually after graduation. The article is a great resource for any student in college or high school and that has not begun thinking about their future career.

Click here to read the whole article.

I came across a great report the other day entitled, “Are They Ready to Work?” It was prepared earlier this year by four organizations:

The Conference Board

Corporate Voices for Working Families

Partnership for 21st Century Skills

Society for Human Resource Management

The report looks at the readiness of new entrants to the workforce. They determined this readiness by surveying over 400 employers from across the United States during 2006.

The major consensus and opening line of the Executive Summary was the following: “The future U.S. workforce is here- and it is woefully ill-prepared for the demands of today’s (and tomorrow’s) workplace.”

The employers were asked to articulate skills high school, two-year college, technical school, or four-year college graduates need to have in order to succeed in the workplace.

The employers sited the following four skills as most important:

1. Professionalism / Work Ethic

2. Oral and Written Communications

3. Teamwork / Collaboration and

4. Critical Thinking/ Problem solving.

They grouped skills into two groups: Basic Knowledge Skills and Applied Skills (the following are not ranked but merely listed).

BASIC KNOWLEDGE

English Language (spoken)

Reading Comprehension (in English)

Writing in English (grammar, spelling, etc…)

Mathematics

Science

Government / Economics

Humanities / Arts

Foreign Languages

History / Geography

APPLIED SKILLS

Critical Thinking / Problem Solving

Oral Communications

Written Communications

Teamwork / Collaboration

Diversity

Information Technology Application

Leadership

Creativity / Innovation

Lifelong Leering / Self Direction

Professionalism / Work Ethic

Ethics / Social Responsibility

Employers stated that Teamwork / Collaboration and Critical thinking are very important to success at work; more so than any of the basic knowledge skills.

Another finding from the report was that high school graduates do not have the skills necessary to be successful at work. None of the employers ranked the skills for high school graduates as excellent. All 10 of the skills that the employers regarded as very important were on the deficiency list for high school graduates.

Two-year school students didn’t fair much better. Only Information Technology Application made its way onto the excellent list for this group.

Four year college graduates faired a little better. According to the report their excellent list was longer than their Deficient list. Also, Creativity and Innovation was one of the skills that appeared on the four year graduate students list and is considered to be increasingly important in the eyes of the employers over the next five years.

Miscellaneous Information from the Report

- More than ¼ of employer respondents (27.7 percent) project that over the next five years their companies will reduce hiring of new entrants with only a high school diploma.

- Almost 60% project their companies will increase hiring of four year college graduates

- Nearly half of the employers project an increase in hiring of two-year and technical school graduates.

To download the entire report click here.

What jobs will be in great demand over the next five to 10 years?  For now industries like manufacturing often have a bad rapt for shedding so many jobs over the past 10 years or so.  When in fact there are many manufacturing companies across the country that is having a terrible time filling their open positions.  Since I live in the Pittsburgh area, historically a very strong manufacturing town, I consistently hear from manufactures about how they cannot find qualified people to work in their companies.

I came across an article on Yahoo.com about a manufacturing plant in Emmaus Pennsylvania that is looking for a specialized group of welders.  This company is actually turning down business because of their struggle in finding qualified talent.  One of the major complaints job seekers expound is the lack of open positions when in fact the real problem is lack of positions they are qualified for.  There a ton of open positions within companies all over the world, the hard part is finding qualified people to work in these positions.

If you are looking for a job are you willing to re-tool or get some additional training in an industry like manufacturing?  A lot of manufacturing companies have apprenticeship or training programs that will give you the opportunity to get paid while you train.  Many of these jobs in manufacturing require extensive technical training that many college graduates did not receive if they majored in anything other than engineering or IT.

The jobs of the future will most likely be in advanced manufacturing, robotics, healthcare, nanotechnology, MEMS, and of course information technology.  All very technically focused.  However, our great country is facing a challenge when it comes to having enough qualified candidates to work in these fields in 2006; how do you think it is going to be in 2020?

EDIT: 12-8-06: For no particular reason I failed to mention in my original post that the event I wrote about below was the Career Services Advisory Board meeting at the Allegheny Campus of Community College of Allegheny College in Pittsburgh. I thoroughly enjoyed the meeting and want to thank the CCAC career services directors for having me on this board. It is a great service to the business community and now through this blog a resource to the rest of the world.

Below you will find a summery of complaints, wishes, and observations from about 10 employers at a career services advisory board meeting I attended today. I thought I would share some of the major points we discussed.

If you are actively searching for a job this would be a good list of items to take note of.

Be prepared for your job interview. Too many students and candidates in general come to the interview completely unprepared. Do your research on the company, know their mission statement, know what they do and why they exist, or at least know what job you are interviewing for.

Dress appropriately for an interview. There really aren’t that many times where you do not need to dress up when going to a job interview. Unless the employer tells you it is ok to wear casual clothing to the interview I would dress in business formal. Men wear blue or black suits and ladies were blue or black pant suits or skirts. End of story.

Telling candidates to apply online is NOT a push off. Companies truly want candidates to apply online. First, they have to do it this way because of company policy, and second it is a good indication if the person can follow directions and follow through with a complicated process. Some of the recruiters at this meeting said many job seekers are simply to “lazy” to apply online for a job. The consensus among the employers was, if they are too lazy to apply online then they are not a good fit for their company.

Not every candidate is a fit within every company. Every company has a corporate culture and every company is looking for people who fit well within their corporate culture. Many of them have tests or processes to determine this.

Have an answer to the question; “Why are you applying for this job.” Many of the companies said that when they ask this question many of the candidates do not have an answer. Do you?

The final major point all of the companies made was the sense of entitlement among recent graduates. Many of the graduates feel like someone owes them something now that they have a bachelors or master degree. That could not be further from the truth. One company went as far to say that your new degree will get you nothing more than a ticket to apply for jobs. It doesn’t necessarily make you qualified for those jobs; it only gives you the opportunity to be considered. Another company said your degree is only the first step in proving why you will be a good employee to that company.

- A few other topics we talked about were the importance of communication skills, inter-office social skills, multi-generational workplaces issues, and the lack of work ethic among college grads.

I was very pleased to be engaged in this discussion, but in some ways it was quite frustrating and sad. These negative comments about job seekers and especially entry-level grads were coming from all of the companies in attendance. That tells me that many companies are dealing with the same issues and not just one or two. It seems to be cross-industry, and nationwide.

If you are a job seekers make sure you take note of some of these comments listed above. The more prepared you are for your job search the better off you are going to be; and ultimately the more successful.

Are job fairs an effective way to find a job?

Have you ever landed a job at a job fair?

Do most companies go to a “job fair” to find people to fill their jobs or do they go to meet people face to face and tell them to go to the web site to apply?

If you are a job seeker in today’s job market you might want to ask yourself these three questions before you attend your next job fair.  I have attended job fairs and I have run job fairs over the years and I must tell you that I am not sold on the effectiveness them.

What I know for sure is that no one hires anyone at a job fair.  A company may take resumes from candidates to talk to them further about job opportunities but no one is going to land a job at these events.  A better name for these events may be “networking fair,” or “Career Fair.”

The hiring process is too long and drawn out for a company to make a hiring decision on the spot.  This may have been the case 50 years ago but in today’s job market the traditional job fair may need to be rethought.  This is very evident to me as an employer who attends job fairs.  Every year the attendance at most fairs is declining, even the good ones.  Job seekers are realizing that most job fairs are a waste of their time.  They can be more efficient with their time by going on line and apply to companies on their web site rather than meeting them at a job fair where these companies are going to tell them to go their web site anyway.

However, one positive aspect of any job fair is the personal interaction that one can find with a company you may want to work at.  Even if the company tells you to go to their web site you have a personal contact that you can reference when following up with that company after you applied online.  The personal aspect of job searching cannot be discounted no matter how virtual the process becomes.

If you are planning a job fair in the near future I would recommend your fair is for a niche group of companies and job seekers.  The days of fairs that cater to all types of companies and job seekers is over.  What still works is specialized events.  For example, a job fairs for technology students, engineering students, business majors, sales people, healthcare, etc…  These still work.  They are smaller and more defined.  Everyone attending will know why they are there and expect to speak to a specialized group of people.

Are job fairs dead?  I don’t think totally but as a job seeker I would really consider the companies who will be attending before you commit any substantial amount of time to the next job fair you attend.

Everday I am finding more and more reasons why ever job seeker should have a blog. C.M. Russell over at SimplyHired.com feels the same way.

He makes 7 points on why every job seeker should have a blog. I particulary like the one idea about posting a video on your web site to welcome visitors. YouTube is making it to easy for this not to be done. I am working on doing this very thing for my own web site, Justin Driscoll.net as we speak.

To read the whole article click here.