Seven Simple Steps to Landing Your First Job
Let me take a moment from promoting startups to promote something else (but related) I’ve been working on. My new book Seven Simple Steps to Landing Your First Job went on sale this week (available at Amazon and the nascent 7steps1job.com). For new graduates, starting a career is a more daunting prospect now than ever before. Somewhere north of 15 million people are out of work in the United States alone, and while the economy appears set to roar back into form, job growth continues to lag. With a couple million people emerging from college and grad school each year, those numbers paint a bleak picture.
I have often talked about startups as an engine for job growth, but I haven’t said much about where the people come from who fill those jobs. Although I think it’s healthy for people to take a shot at starting a business, it isn’t always for everyone, and some people have better ideas after a couple of years experiencing what it’s like to work for someone else. No matter what path people take, entrepreneurship and jobs are closely related.
Boulder entrepreneur, investor, and neighbor Brad Feld gets this:
In the short term, welcoming young college graduates into your entrepreneurial community has a huge impact on local economies. If young college grads start up new companies rather than take jobs at existing companies, they create obvious short term job growth. If any of these new companies grow, they create additional job growth. In addition, it keeps smart, well educated people (college graduates) in the local community.
Some people will start businesses, and some will work at them. Either way, it’s about expanding the size of the pie.
Related articles
- 5 Tips for My Career-Clueless College Self (wisebread.com)
- Startup America (avc.com)
- Looking for Jobs in All the Wrong Places: Memo to the President (blogs.hbr.org)
