Remember the Big Picture: A Word of Advice for Recent Graduates

Posted by Michael Sexton on 6/8/2007 at 7:12 AM
Posted in Success

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Congratulations, June grads! You are about to start one of he most energizing periods of your life. What could be more exciting than taking what you have learned and creating a productive and interesting life?

If you are beginning to look for a job, I'd like to offer two pieces of advice.

First, keep the big picture. Your first job will probably not turn out to be the perfect job for you. But I am certain that it will offer you opportunities to learn many important lessons. Perhaps you will learn about a certain technology or about how to sell. And you will certainly learn how to work with other people and get ahead. So even if your first job has some shortcomings, it can equip you for greater things later on.

Second, remember that you don't have to get everything right the first time. Take the pressure off yourself. You are about to test some new waters. As you do, you will probably find that you will need to learn some new skills, get some new training or even drop back and try a different field. That's fine. Success is about progress, not perfection.

Those points can be difficult to keep in mind just now, when people are expecting great things from you. But if you keep the big picture, stay flexible and keep moving ahead with optimism and energy, you are going to have one terrific time of it, and one terrific life.

Best wishes from all of us at Trump University.

Michael Sexton is President of Trump University.

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3 Comments Post a comment

Posted by member1600131 on 06/08/2007 2:54 PM

Michael:
Good suggestions to grads on time!
I have taken interview of many fresh grads and carefully observed fresh graduate behavioral phenomenon. I have found three types of graduates: Confident, Confused and Coward. But one thing is common to all of them - they hardly are prepared to choose their first right career job.

The Confident grads are confident on their knowledge they acquired and know what they can do. But still they don't know what else they will have to do.

The Confused grads are confused on the knowledge itself what they acquired. They don't know where can they apply their knowledge. And don't know what they are capable to do.

The Coward grads are afraid to even tell what they know, afraid to apply, afraid to attend interview and even afraid to take up any job assigned.

I think, at least for a year or two after graduation, they should devote themselves on understanding the real business, knowing people, knowing jobs and knowing themselves. They should test new waters as Michael rightly mentioned here and prepare themselves for right jobs. I am sure this will cast them as real gems then after.

Cheers,
Rajesh Shakya
http://www.rajeshshakya.com
Helping Technopreneurs to excel and lead their life!

Posted by BarbaraK on 06/12/2007 1:32 PM

Michael:

Great advice for new grads. My son just graduated from Radford U with his BSc in Biology. My advice to him:

1. Decide what you want first, before applying for jobs. If you don't know what your "ideal job" is, you can't find it. Get as clear about it as you can. As you said, your first job may not be the ideal job, but try to get as close to it as possible.

2. Go to your parent's friends and associates and get their advice about job hunting. Learn from their wisdom.

3. Network, network, network. My son remembered a fellow student whose father works in an industry that he's targeting. He contacted the student who in turn, put him in touch with his father, who happens to be the VP of a very large company. The gentleman offered to review my son's resume and made very important suggestions on how to improve it. As a result of his improved resume, my son was contacted by a recruiter for a large company, within hours of posting his resume online. This truly shows the power of networking!

4. Apply to as many jobs as you can, in your ideal job category or industry. Try to develop as many leads as you can.

5. Write thank you notes after every interview. Mail them the same day.

6. Stay optimistic that you have great talent and that people will want to hire you for their company or organization!

That's the advice I've been giving my son. He's got an important interview on Thursday of this week. We're all keeping our fingers crossed!

Barbara Keddy
President, Be Great! Marketing, LLC
http://www.BeGreatMarketing.com
http://www.IncomeArchitect.com

Posted by member1503954 on 06/14/2007 12:34 AM

i agree with your point of view Michael, eventhough i think that perfection has a lots of things to do with success. You don't have do do everything right from the first time, but you have to do it right sometime :) . By the way, i graduate this June, and i am going to start my own business in 2 months. I dont want to waste my time... i think big , but i will start small

Sincerely yours,
Marc Germani

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