Decades ago, the college degree was all you needed to gain some real momentum in your career. Today, that’s not true. The degree has become part of an integral plan. Without sufficient development of this plan, graduates will find themselves with just a piece of paper with their name on it.
Trina Thompson. Surely you’ve heard her name by now. Thompson, a 27-year-old graduate of the Bronx’s Monroe College, is seeking a refund on her tuition after failing to find a job. She sites the school’s inability to live up to its end of the bargain, and not doing enough to find her a job. The information-technology student blames their Office of Career Advancement for not providing her with the leads and career advice it promised. Sitting at home, unemployed, with $70,000 in student loans, I can certainly understand her pain.
Thompson feels that the university has obligations to its students. To some extent, I do too. One issue that universities should address is the amount of time between labor market studies for the programs they offer. When a program, such as the MBA, is created, the university must perform a labor market analysis to show the demand for such a program. On a periodic basis, this analysis is reviewed and possibly redone. The period between these studies can be quite long. One college in Chicago performs this study about every five years. As we’ve seen recently in the markets, this can be too long to capture the real demands for specific skill sets. Industries can come and go in less than 5 five years. Academia should take another look at this policy.
I imagine Thompson’s law suit won’t get very far but we can learn a few things from it. Let’s make a few observations and suggestions on what Thompson could have done to make her lessons in the legal arena unnecessary.
As a non-traditional student, the bachelor’s degree should have been an addition to her career plan. That is, it shouldn’t have been the plan itself. A college degree is symbol. It identifies you as one who has learned a specific set of skills. Hopefully, this new skill set complimented her work experience or was part of her desire to develop experience in a newly chosen field. In either case, the course of her should have been understood and planned.
A good career plan would have included research into the experience needed to gain the desired employment upon graduation. One graduate I interviewed for my new book, The MBA Owner’s Manual, learned a very hard lesson about this. He chose to change career fields. After graduating from NYU’s Stern school of business, he found that he couldn’t get a job in private equity because the industry wouldn’t accept him without previous experience in the field, such as an internship. He didn’t have the experience, so he didn’t get into his chosen field. Again, the degree is a necessary credential, but not the only one.
With experience in the field in mind, Thompson should have begun working on gaining experience once she started the degree. Internships are the best way to “try out” a new industry. If it was in line with her existing experience, Thompson should have been using mentors or an advisory team to assess how the degree would have impacted her career. Many graduates I’ve spoken with over the years have found great success by identifying, seeking and gaining the support of advisors. These can be people from various organizations that are at various levels in the industry you seek to grow in. While there was once a day organizations helped with this, today is well beyond that time.
Moving on to the job search strategy, it’s important to focus on a few things. Three key factors include resources, credentials and timing. Resources are where Thompson seemed to fall a little short. The college you graduate from should be a good source, since they know what companies usually hires their graduates. This is something you should find out when you start, not when you finish. Resources for a good job search should, not only include the college, but other resources such as recruiters, alumni groups, on-line sites and job banks, friends, family and your network.
As we create the job search plan, it’s important to know what credentials are required for the positions you seek. This will help determine what resources are required. For example, if you have direct experience in the desired position, you could apply directly to the company’s Human Resource department. If you don’t meet their requirements, you may seek to connect with people inside the company in positions similar to what you seek. Use them to get a referral to HR.
Lastly, timing is critical. Waiting to the last minute to perform a job search isn’t a good idea. Thompson got a bachelor’s degree, which usually takes about four years to complete. It’s useful to implement a search that uses all four years. The problem is that we always think we have time to do this and the market will be there when we arrive. It’s difficult planning four years into the future. Staying close to the market is a good way to ensure your plan stays on track. A good network (e.g. people in the market) can help you steer around obstacles, especially those you can’t see. There’s nothing like creating a plan for a time that doesn’t exist when you get there.
It’s not necessary to take your career to a higher court. You can take charge of your own career by following the aforementioned guidelines. Your career is an ever-changing work of art. Your technical skills won’t always be the guiding force. Softer skills may become more critical than your hard skills from time to time. Take those years of academic work to build the expertise to judge the market yourself. Leave the other judges in the courtroom.
Author:
Todd Rhoad, MSEE, MBA is Director at BT Consulting, a career consulting firm in Altanta, and can be reached at todd.rhoad@blitzteamconsulting.com.
