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All good things must come to an end

May 12th, 2010 :: Robin Ferrier

by Patrick Madsen

Image: CarbonNYC / David Goehring Flickrstream. Creative Commons

Finishing up this stage of your life seems like the easiest thing to do, but many forget to look at what’s involved with the next stage. Life after college can become a real bear if you are not ready for it. Many of you are beginning to feel the pinch of student loans coming soon, to worry about the big move to somewhere new, or even to fret over the lack of a job to transition into. Stress will creep into your mind, this is normal—but there is something you can do to lessen the effects it may have. Prepare yourself as early as possible.

Thinking about the future is always the hardest part because you are never sure what you are leaving out or forgetting. Let’s generally talk about what you are going to need:

Budget: No longer can you just spend money on whatever you want at the moment. Bills will begin to fall on your lap – not only for those pesky student loans, but also for rent, utilities, and food… you know, all those things mom and dad used to cover! Create a budget so you can figure out how much money you’ll have left over each month after you pay your bills.

Insurance: Make sure you have health insurance, car insurance, renters/home insurance, and even disability insurance. Extras could include vision, dental, and even maternity insurance. If any of these are not included in your benefits package, then you might want to measure the pros and cons of having it.

Sharpen the saw: Keep mentally, spiritually, and physically fit. Exercise and proper nutrition, no how busy you are, will assist you in coping with stress and living a healthier life. Remember to use those vacation days! They exist for a reason.

Office Politics/Culture: Observe your surroundings and find where you fit in. Do not come in like a gangbuster and expect to change the world. Remember there are formal and informal rules throughout each job. Pick your battles… your job is not your life!

Thinking of the future: At some point you are going to want to retire… or will be forced to. Consider your future when planning your budget or career. Start saving now. Think about IRA plans, mutual funds, stocks, and a comprehensive portfolio to make sure you are comfortable as you age. Remember to plan for extras such as family, car breakdowns, moving expenses, sudden illness, or whatever else life throws our way.

Let me leave you with a few things my father liked to bore into my mind. Remember, this is a man who has been in the work world for more than 35 years — most of those years with the same company. He has had many experiences and passes these experiences on to my siblings and myself. So here they are for you:

10 commandments of my dad

When you get done with work, be done.
Be prepared for the working world.
Understand what it is you want from life and take it.
Have a life.
Network, network, network.
Continue to learn new things so that you never get bored or stuck.
Respect your boss, don’t kiss ass.
Don’t be the same as everyone else. Those who are different get seen the most.
Relax… after all, what’s the worst that can happen?
Sometimes we have to do things we don’t like… SOMETIMES

Have a lesson you’ve learned from a parent, professor, friend, or your own working world experience? Add it below in the comments section.

Patrick Madsen is the Director of Programs & Education in Career Services at the Johns Hopkins University Carey Business School. He manages the Programs & Education curriculum to include career advising services, speaker series, brand management training, and other events to help students prepare themselves for the world of work. His background includes a degree in Psychology from North Carolina State University, a masters degree in Counseling from East Carolina University, and a doctorate in Organizational Leadership/Student Affairs from Nova Southeastern University.

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Tags: first job, graduation, insurance, Life Transition, networking, Patrick Madsen, Personal Brand, post-college, reitrement, Reputation, Working World
Posted in Life Transition, Networking, Patrick Madsen, Personal Brand, WhatsNextGenY, Working World | 1 Comment »

My First Job… or Learning to Appreciate the "Menial" Tasks in Life

April 8th, 2010 :: Robin Ferrier

http://www.flickr.com/photos/valerianasolaris/ / CC BY 2.0

A recent post by blogger Tom Madrecki has generated some conversation — both on the blog and in other outlets — so I thought I’d respond by reflecting on my experience at my first job.

Like Tom, I left college ready to take the world by storm. After all, I had a college degree. What more could I need in order to make my mark on the world, right? Yup, you guessed it. That would be a big, fat WRONG.

I quickly learned that college degree = menial labor when it comes to your first job. And though I wasn’t happy about it, since my parents made it clear that a paycheck was key to my survival, I knew I had no choice. (I grew up in a very practical household. Aspirations were great and all, but first you paid the bills!)

My first job was as a literary assistant at a literary agency. Don’t get me wrong, I got to do some fun things. My favorite was reading the unsolicited queries from authors seeking representation and writing memos as to why I thought the agency should or shouldn’t sign the authors as clients. But that was a small fraction of my time, and it was often done at night or on weekends because the other, menial, have-to-get-done-now tasks took priority during the work day. These were things like inserting my bosses’ fixes to book contracts (using a typewriter!), answering phones, filing, ordering supplies, organizing (read: cleaning) my boss’s office, sending royalty checks and statements to clients… tasks I’d always thought of as “secretarial” — the sort of thing I’d gotten a college degree to AVOID doing.

At the time, I hated those menial tasks. Now, I can appreciate them for what they were: an incredible learning experience.

I learned more about the business by performing what I’d before thought of as “menial tasks” than I ever would have otherwise. One reason was that I decided if I had to do these things, I would do them well. (Not to mention I had a boss who was a stickler for details.)

What I found was that once I proved I could handle those detail-oriented tasks, my boss gave me increasing responsibilities. I was given the opportunity to edit one of the proposals, which was so much fun. And eventually, she asked me to supplement the public relations activities being done for her authors by the publishing houses. It was my chance to shine… and boy did I. It’s the reason I have the career I do today.

So what’s the moral? Or morals?

Those “menial tasks” you may think are beneath you right now present some of the best learning opportunities… if you let them.
Everyone has to work their way up the ladder, and sometimes that means taking a job that isn’t “ideal” just so you get your foot in the door.
Oh, and those “menial tasks” you think are beneath you? Trust me. They aren’t. Those “menial tasks” are often part of some of the most difficult jobs out there, and it takes a special person to be able to do them well and do them gracefully. (Case in point: When my current boss’ assistant goes on vacation, I handle my boss’ calendar. It’s time consuming. It’s challenging. I do it without complaining, despite being 10+ years into my career. And I’m always more than relieved when her assistant returns!)

Now I’m going to call on all of you. Please comment below and share your first job stories — both the good and the bad. I’m sure we’re all learn something from what you have to say.

Robin Ferrier is the editor of What’s Next, Gen Y? and Communications Manager for the Johns Hopkins University Montgomery County Campus. She is also the President of the Capital Communicators Group and the co-chair of the Marketing Committee for the Tech Council of Maryland. She has inadvertently become a frequent career / professional / job hunt resource for friends and colleagues due to a career path that has included five jobs in 12 years.

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Tags: first job, job hunt, Job Search, post-college, Reputation, Robin Ferrier, Skillset, Thomas Madrecki
Posted in Job Search, Robin Ferrier, WhatsNextGenY | No Comments »

A Reality Check for Soon-to-be-Grads

April 6th, 2010 :: Robin Ferrier

by Sarah Morgan

http://www.flickr.com/photos/18425359@N03/ / CC BY 2.0

One of the What’s Next, Gen Y? bloggers, Thomas Madrecki, recently posted about trying to figure out what to do upon graduation.

Few things are more obnoxious than hearing from someone older that you’re mistaken because of your youth, so it’s with misgivings that I set out to do exactly that, especially because it’s obvious that Thomas is both intelligent and successful and I don’t want to take issue with him in particular. But what struck me in his post was this:

“The idea, of course, is that work-place competition and increased selectivity in turn engenders more successful paid hires in a tightly budgeted and relatively small industry. All of that is well and good, but even for the most confident of applicants, the idea of heading to a new city with no guarantee of long-term growth or a permanent job is a potentially worrisome hurdle to overcome.”

This started the wheels turning for me. Yes, competition and selectivity IS well and good. And “worrisome” is, often, a fact of life. The thing is, the system is not set up to care about the feelings of new entrants to it.

What bothers me is that frequently, undergrads are called out for having unrealistic expectations or for being entitled — and nobody fixes it. There are increasingly job-specific undergrad offerings, but still, no Reality 101. Sometimes parents or internships explain what you’ll need to wrap your head around, but many times, graduating seniors are in for a woeful shock.

So here I am to shock you. You don’t have to like what I’m going to say. I didn’t. But please believe that the sooner you accept it, the sooner you get through it.

You will be lonely at first. Your career so far has been education, in the company of a peer group that was growing together. You won’t have that company in the same way again, and it’ll be a jarring difference in life.

You will be the butt of jokes about your youth. These include, but are not limited to, references about musical acts, fashion trends, and which president was in office when you were born.
You will make friends with whom you have far less in common than your friends to this point. The work force makes college — yes, every college — look like a military school of conformity.
You will not understand where your coworkers are coming from.

You will have to do what your elders will refer to as paying your dues. This will be maddening. You’ll have a thousand very good reasons why it’s nonsense. It will happen anyway.

You will lose out on something due to office politics, outside relationships or tenure.
You will have to work later than your boss.
You will have to do stuff that is boring.
You will not get paid as much as you want.

You won’t know anything. Yes, despite all that you just went through to learn all that.

You will only use about 15% of your degree. The rest of what you find yourself doing will come from your experience with clubs, roommates, activities and internships.
You will want to use the theory that you learned. Nobody has the money or the support to work on those theories.
You will do things because that’s how your boss wants them, even when you have a better idea.

You will have to fight to be taken seriously.

You will get the same reaction as a precocious child at the grown-ups’ table when you first begin to try to contribute. Keep doing it anyway.
You will learn to get to the point faster. There aren’t any more assignments where you have to hit a maximum. Cut everything you want to explain in half.
You will, in five years’ time, either laugh or cringe about 90% of what is upsets you right now (just think about five years ago). Keep this in mind before unburdening yourself on your coworkers. They’ll be understanding, but you want to be taken seriously, not just understood.

Please don’t despair. I’m only telling you the bad parts on purpose. You’ll see them coming and they won’t sting as much. And you can enjoy the rest of it that much more. The good parts are fun and surprising and there’s no need to prepare for them. Congratulations and have fun!

Sarah Morgan has a decade of experience working in and with the top pharmaceutical companies in the world. She educates corporations, organizations, universities and media about social media; blogs at sarah-morgan.com; Twitters at twitter.com/sarahmorgan; appears professionally at linkedin.com/sarahmorgan, informally at facebook.com/profile.php?id=10908629, and in real life in the glorious state of New Jersey. (Yes, New Jersey.)

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Tags: job hunt, Job Search, post-college, questions, Reputation, Sarah Morgan, Thomas Madrecki
Posted in Job Search, Personal Brand, Sarah Morgan, Thomas Madrecki, WhatsNextGenY | 4 Comments »

The Tug of Truth

March 31st, 2010 :: Robin Ferrier

by Thomas Madrecki

cartoon of people jumping off a cliff like lemmings

http://www.flickr.com/photos/hikingartist/ / CC BY 2.0

When I talk to friends and family members about future job prospects, there is a now nigh standardized list of ideas and opinions that seems to inevitably meet the air: “You should go to law school.”

Yes, as a trained journalist and devout academic scholar, I seem to have a knack for all things research-based and detail-oriented. And ever since I began to see America’s legal system in action, there has been a part of me that readily identifies with the profession and feels I could easily become one of the thousands of well-paid lawyers across the country.

At the same time, though, I must say there is some aspect of law school that strikes me as undeniably mundane and typical. To employ a clichéd description, I don’t know if anything screams “selling out” quite like attending law school. Of course, that’s my personal opinion – but to me, it is the sum of all things “safe,” “expected,” and “what your girlfriend’s parents might like their future son-in-law to do if he isn’t a doctor or a celebrity.”

If not law school, though, what course of action might best suit my talents and interests?

With a background in editorial decision-making and writing, not to mention a decent amount of print and web design experience, I’ve naturally focused on job opportunities within those sectors. But communications agencies are tough to break into and many require that potential full-time entry-level employees fulfill an internship post-graduation. Those internships are frequently unpaid and there is an upfront emphasis on the fact that interns may not – and, in this economy especially, chances are, will not – be hired after the summer months. The idea, of course, is that work-place competition and increased selectivity in turn engenders more successful paid hires in a tightly budgeted and relatively small industry. All of that is well and good, but even for the most confident of applicants, the idea of heading to a new city with no guarantee of long-term growth or a permanent job is a potentially worrisome hurdle to overcome.

Elsewhere in the communications world, truly viable job prospects seem few and far between. There are plenty of interviews to be had, even in this tough economy, but what is missing is an easily accessible pool of entry-level positions tasked with the type of far-ranging creative work in which I have an interest. I might be able to find work as a marketing associate or as a corporate communications assistant, but the degree of responsibility – how multi-faceted an opportunity is – entrusted to me would most likely be lacking if the average job description holds any truth.

The end result is a feeling on my part that accepting a job for the sake of having a job would be, much like law school, settling for something I don’t whole-heartedly want to do. I’m a passionate person, a devoted person, and a hard-working person – but I have to believe in what I’m doing, and I have to feel like whatever I’m working on takes full advantage of all my talents and mental abilities. Perhaps from a pejorative stance that makes me highly selective and/or slightly inflexible. On the other hand, I consider this potential weakness one of my greatest strengths: Whether in good or bad times, I won’t settle for anything less than the best.

That notion of “refusing to settle,” though, brings to mind perhaps my biggest fear about the “real world” and the job market. I’m a firm believer in the pursuit of happiness – in a quest for existential meaning and philosophical understanding. Some might even say that the questions of truth – What makes living worthwhile? How can man better his condition? How does one become a hero if becoming a hero is possible? – tend to dominate my thinking on a wide range of subjects.

And so, now on the verge of entering a consumerist, very non-philosophical world (in which the bottom line reigns supreme and one’s only goal is to fulfill the demands of his job), I am somewhat concerned that any job opportunity will require me to make a personal sacrifice – to X-out or subdue the Nietzsche-loving student, to replace the self-directed author and literary critic with a mechanical businessman removed from higher, more human devotions.

Which is better? Which is more immature – to obsess over truth or to obsess over completing menial tasks?

The answers to those questions are profoundly personal, and everyone has a different opinion to share. That much has been made clear to me while I’ve searched high and low for the elusive perfect opportunity.

As for how I’ll respond to such musings, I have yet to determine what I’ll do next. I’ve come to a cliff – it’s time to jump or run…

Thomas Madrecki is a fourth-year Echols Scholar at the University of Virginia and the former managing editor of The Cavalier Daily newspaper. A true media chameleon, he hopes his extensive writing background and knowledge of various print/web design options makes him the perfect candidate for a career in brand management, communications, journalism, and/or public affairs. On the side, he’s also a former Dexter USBC High School All-American bowler (averaging about 225) and a budding, Nietzsche-adoring philosopher with a keen interest in existentialism and the pursuit of happiness. Make sure you check out his online portfolio!