Copyright © 2004, 2009 by Donald Asher. All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Ten Speed Press, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York. www.crownpublishing.com www.tenspeed.com Ten Speed Press and the Ten Speed Press colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Asher, Donald. How to get any job: career launch & re-launch for everyone under 30, (or how to avoid living in your parents’ basement) / Donald Asher. p. cm. Rev. ed. of: How to get any job with any major : career launch & re-launch for everyone under 30, or, how to avoid living in your parent’s basement. 2004. 1. Job hunting. 2. Success in business. 3. Career development. I. Asher, Donald. How to get any job with any major. II. Title. HF5382.7.A839 2009 650.14—dc22 2009012096 eISBN: 978-0-30779768-1 v3.1 For Danaelle and Nora Note: The names of some, but not all, of the students used in the case studies have been changed. Some conversations and details have been reconstructed from memory and are based on more than twenty years of experience helping students launch their careers. Acknowledgments I am indebted to every career center staff member who has ever advised me and shared resources and tips and techniques with me over the years, and this is literally hundreds of dedicated professionals. At the risk of omitting major contributors, and there have been so many, let me call particular attention to my debt to Dr. Robert Greenberg, NACE Fellow and former director of career services at the University of Tennessee, and founder of the Professional Development Series sponsored by the University of Tennessee and used by career centers nationwide; Russ Coughenour, current director at Tennessee, who is carrying on the fine tradition; Alan D. Ferrell, director of executive education at the Krannert School of Management, Purdue University; Midge Browning, director of academic and career advising at Principia College (and the one who first called my attention to the fact that the current generation does not identify with the word “career”) and her colleague James Brandt; Tom Francis, formerly director of career services at Swarthmore College, and an early influence; renowned educational consultant Dr. Howard Figler; Julie Kern Smith with the career center at Reed College; Anne Hardin Ballard, director of the career center at Linfield College; Bob Fisher, managing director, National Education Empowerment Foundation, Inc., at www.collegecareerlifeplanning.com, who provided valuable criticism of the first edition and improved this book; Dr. Orlando Taylor, dean of the graduate school at Howard University, on general principal; and Denise Rhiner, my long-time research assistant. I also want to express my appreciation to Louise Paradis at Portland State University for material she shared with me from her excellent career development game. Veronica, Chris, Michael, Kirsty, Lorena, and Phil, you know who you are, and I want you to know I appreciate all you’ve done for me on this book and on all the others. And I will forever be grateful to my mother, Dr. Ruby Ausbrooks, a colleague and an inspiration; Dr. Judy Jones, my mentor for decades; and Lisa Bertschi, my astoundingly wonderful wife. CONTENTS Cover Title Page Copyright Dedication Acknowledgments PART 1 You Need to Reconsider Everything You Know about Your Employment Interests 1 Life Planning versus Getting a Job 2 Yes, It’s All about You 3 What Gets You Excited? Your Top Five Issues in This World 4 A Little Future Visioneering 5 Advanced Issues in Life Planning: More than Enough Ideas 6 A Different Kind of Choice PART 2 Finding Out about Your Interests in the Real World 7 Prepare to Learn More 8 Are You Ready for Networking? 9 Volunteer and Internship Opportunities 10 Summer Jobs, and “The Most Important Summer of Your Life” 11 More Education 12 How about High-Risk Choices? PART 3 Now It’s Time to Actually Get a Job CASE STUDY: How I Got My First Job 13 Start with a Job Target 14 Visualize the Job You Want 15 Troubleshooting Your Job Search 16 The Job Interview In Conclusion About the Author PART 1 You Need to Reconsider Everything You Know about Your Employment Interests Choose a job you love and you will never have to work a day in your life. —Confucius 1 Life Planning versus Getting a Job Most college students want a job when what they should really want is a little life planning. What is life planning? Life planning is conducting a process of self-discovery and then matching what is discovered with the career marketplace. Life planning is different from getting a job. Getting a job is a process of finding paid employment, whether or not there is any match whatsoever between the employee’s skills, preparation, interests, or long-term goals, plus whatever is involved in performing on the job. Getting a job is a good end product to life planning, but is not an end in itself. It is, to put it simply, not the point. The point is the self-discovery and the matching. College students have no special claim on this. A thirty-year-old, single working mother has the same opportunity to choose to get another job or choose to go through a bit of life planning. So has a fifty-year-old college professor considering leaving his tenured position. So has a sales executive with a Fortune 500 company. But college students have a unique opportunity to do this right. You have the opportunity to do this right at a juncture that can lead to a lifetime of increased happiness. Some of the mid-career executives I work with in my career coaching practice are miserable. I am struck by what a high price poor early career decisions can have. Employment is a huge part of adult life. Between the end of college and the onset of retirement, a career takes up about 100,000 hours of our lives. That’s a lot of time to be miserable. And that’s not counting commuting. You will not spend that much time with your kids, should you choose to have them, or with a spouse, should you choose to have one. A job doesn’t have to be the most meaningful thing in your life. Perhaps your family or your religion or your volunteer or community work will be more important to you, but nothing is likely to be bigger in terms of sheer volume of time. It is a tragedy, of Shakespearean proportion, to be miserable on the job. On the other hand, if you find jobs you love, you’ll never work a day in your life. You’ll notice I wrote “jobs” in the plural. You will need to find many jobs after college.