Posts Tagged ‘college graduates’
Co-authors Emily Bennington and Skip Lineberg, two influential bloggers and speakers in the business world, have written Effective Immediately (Ten Speed Press, 2010), a valuable guide for recent graduates who, as the subtitle says, want to “Fit In, Stand Out, and Move Up at Your First Real Job.” As an instructor to college students majoring in business, I have learned that most of them lean towards taking the fitting in approach, when in fact the combination strategy of fitting in and standing out — deftly selecting times to blend in or make compromises, and yet seizing the opportunities to be creative or call attention to yourself — is actually one of the surest roads to success. And by success I mean being able both to contribute to your team and advance and improve yourself on a fairly regular basis.
“Find your inner Gene Kelly” is lyrical advice. The authors examine Gene Kelly’s dancing in attempt to discover what made him seem to “float” above the his peers. They claim his edge was “incremental,” noting that small things, like the consistent polish of his shoes, the angle of his cane, and the crease in his pants made all the difference. That attention to small detail, taken together “seemed to make his dancing effortless.”
The theory of the incremental edge, by the way, echoes one of Malcolm Gladwell’s key arguments in The Tipping Point: that small changes in presentation can often make a big difference when it comes increasing the appeal — and ultimate impact — of an idea or product. You just have to figure out what changes to make depending on your audience.
Among Bennington and Lineberg’s list of sample “Gene Kelly dance steps:”
- Use superb grammar (hooray for that!)
- Complete assignments early
- Give a small gift to your clients (your favorite business book or flowers) on the anniversary of your partnership
- Keep your desk spotless at all times.
If you — like me — consider that last item too tall an order, come up with your own deft moves. It’s a fun exercise and, as they say, incrementally, but also immediately, effective.
Here’s one word of advice for college students thinking ahead to graduation and recent grads still looking for a job. And it’s not - as young Ben (Dustin Hoffman) was advised in the 1960s movie The Graduate - “plastics.” It’s “internship.”
While barely 30 percent of employers consider a college transcript useful when evaluating a recent graduate for employment, two-thirds of them would consider a supervisor’s assessment of an internship or community-based project “very” or “fairly” useful in evaluating their potential for success, according to a survey by Association of American Colleges and Universities. Be sure to keep copies of your positive evaluations and offer them as part of your packet of application materials.
Selecting an internship with a focus on science and technology, or one with an international flavor, can help a new graduate applying for a job stand out from his or her peers. The percentage of employers who want colleges to place more emphasis on these areas are 82 percent and 70 percent, respectively.
In addition to impressing prospective employers and gaining valuable experience, interning gives students a chance to examine a chosen career field from the inside out. Based on what they learn, they may decide to pursue a slightly different position, or even switch fields.
Those interested in moving to a new city may find that securing an internship before searching for a full-time job may make for a smoother transition.
Internships and co-op programs have become powerful recruiting tools for employers, according to research by The National Association of Colleges and Employers.
While budget cuts and downsizing have forced employers to hire fewer interns, the programs have become an important pipeline for new talent. Among the findings of the most recent NACE study, published in March 2009:
• About 35 percent of full-time entry-level college hires from the class of 2007-08 were from company internship programs.
• Employers extended offers of full-time employment to an average of 67.7 percent of their 2007-08 interns. More than four out of five of their offers, on average, were accepted, the highest intern acceptance rate NACE has reported since it began collecting data in 2001.
• Most internships (98.6 percent) are paid. The average hourly wage in 2008: $17.13.
This post was first published as a “Quick Study” column, available on philly.com and dozens of daily newspapers around the country.
