The Century of the Job Seeker

Graduates: Create Your Own Job

by Ron McGowan

The biggest mistake graduates make in their search for employment is putting all their eggs in the traditional job basket. Their assumption is that someone will offer them a job, and when that doesn’t happen, they end up unemployed, or underemployed. They don’t understand that if the only option they give employers is to offer them a traditional job, they’re making it hard to hire them.

To succeed in today’s workplace, graduates must:

• Learn how to operate as freelancers or contractors. It’s not enough to be willing to do this; you have to learn how to do it effectively. Here’s an example of the world of freelancing: http://www.elance.com
• Learn how to find hidden employment opportunities. The majority of employment opportunities today are never advertised.
• Learn how to market themselves effectively. Graduates are often uncomfortable with this but their discomfort is based on ignorance of what it is all about. The good news is anyone can learn how to do it; it’s mostly common sense.
• Learn how to create marketing tools beyond the the resume/CV that are focused on the needs of the employer they’re contacting.
• Understand the role of the Internet and Social Media tools in finding employment opportunities and in creating an online presence that will attract employers and recruiters. A good resource for this is: http://www.bradanddeb.com/works.htm.
• Create a LinkedIn account. Spend as much time doing this as you would creating your resume/CV. In today’s world, it’s just as important.

For graduates who are interested in starting a small business, thanks to the Internet and modern communications tools, it’s easier to do this than it ever has been. Today, you can operate a business from your Smartphone and it doesn’t matter if you’re doing it from your living room, or your local Starbucks.

So graduates, stop shortchanging yourselves by settling for low paying jobs in the service sector, or unpaid internships. Take a position that you’re going to find paid employment in your field, just like millions of your peers around the world are already doing. It’s largely a matter of believing in yourself and refusing to accept anything less.

Ron McGowan is the author of the international bestseller “How to Find WORK – In the 21st Century”, currently in use at hundreds of colleges and universities worldwide. The 2013 edition has just been released by Thames River Press.

Beyond Graduation: Education for the 21st Century

Should Universities find Jobs for their Graduates?

by Ron McGowan

This was the “Question of the day” CNN posed for its’ viewers on April 4, 2013. It’s a question that is increasingly being asked, in different ways, by graduates, their families, and the public. It’s a question we should have been asking at least twenty years ago. If we had, we would have significantly fewer unemployed/underemployed graduates today.

Universities have been shortchanging their graduates for years and the main culprits are the senior bureaucrats who are in charge of our education system and the senior administrators in charge of our post secondary institutes. These people have never missed a paycheque in their lives and their own work environment doesn’t look any different from what it did fifty years ago. They have no affinity whatever with the challenges their graduates are facing in trying to find meaningful employment in today’s workplace.

Here are a few examples of how universities/colleges can help their graduates:

In 2011, Tom Friedman, the bestselling author and New York Times columnist, was in India where he met Prem Kalra, the director of the Indian Institute of Technology in Rajasthan. He told Friedman that he tells recruiters for major companies to stay away from his campus. He wants his Indian students to think about inventing their first jobs, not applying for them.

In the U.K., the heads of five Further Education Colleges are working with venture capitalists and entrepreneurs to help their graduates create their own jobs. Fintan Donohue, the head of North Hertfordshire College said: “Everyone is in favour of entrepreneurship, but we’re saying is that colleges like ours need to embrace an entrepreneurial culture. We need to be producing students who embrace self-employment and who are prepared to walk out and create their own businesses.

Bloomberg Businessweek reported in 2012 that six U.S. undergraduate business schools require students to attend classes that prepare them for the process of finding work. Most significantly, these classes are embedded in the curriculum and students must complete them, just like all their other classes, before they can graduate.


In World War II, the U.S. was facing a critical shortage of ships. Henry Kaiser, the famed industrialist, said he would solve the problem by building ships in six weeks. The experts in the shipbuilding industry said he was a fool; that this was impossible. But he did build his Liberty Ships in six weeks.

That’s the kind of bold, visionary initiative we need to help today’s graduates. It won’t come from the government or the education sector. Not from a politician. Not from a senior bureaucrat. Not from a senior educator: but from another Henry Kaiser.

Ron McGowan is the author of the international bestseller “How to Find WORK – In the 21st Century”. The 2013 edition has just been released by Thames River Press and is available from Amazon and other booksellers.

Top Tips for 2012 Graduates To Find Jobs

Clean up your online presence.
The first thing employers will do is to see what they can find out about you on the Internet. Are you ready for that? They may look at your Facebook page during the interview. Are you ready for that?

Look for WORK, not a JOB.

Don’t scare off employers by communicating that you’re looking for a job and all the traditional benefits that go with it. Make it easy for them to hire you by making it clear that you are happy to accept part-time, temporary, or contract work. If you are equipped to work from home, tell them that too. It may appeal to them.

Ditch the resume.

EVERYBODY is using a resume. In your initial contact with employers, make yourself stand out in a positive way with more creative tools that are marketing oriented and focused on the employer’s needs. It’s OK to have a resume to take to the interview. But first you have to get there.

Think.

Put yourself in the shoes of any employer you plan to contact. Why would they be interested in you? What exactly do you have to offer them? Show them in your first contact with them that you know about them, the type of work they do and the industry they’re in. NEVER send out lots of resumes in a shotgun fashion.

Why should we hire you?

Assume you’ll be asked this question during the interview and be ready to answer it. Focus on the key points you made in the material you sent to them. Those are what got you the interview.

Bite your tongue.

Talking too much in the interview is among the biggest mistakes graduates make according to employers and recruiters. The more prepared you are for the interview, the less inclined you’ll be to ramble on.

Do your homework.

There’s a wealth of information available on the employer’s web site. Amazingly, many graduates never take the time to thoroughly analyze this information and be ready to answer questions about it in the interview. It will also help if you can talk about some of the key issues going on in their industry.

Create your own job.

Instead of waiting for someone to offer you a job, consider what millions of graduates around the world have been doing for years; i.e. operate as a freelancer. The following will give you an overview of the world of freelancing:

• http://www.elance.com 
• http://www.odesk.com 
• http://www.vworker.com

Finally, you may get some business ideas at: http://www.springwise.com

Ron McGowan is the author of the international bestseller “How to Find WORK in the 21st Century”, currently in use at over 400 colleges and universities worldwide.
http://www.howtofindwork.ca