With a job market that's as unpredictable as Katy Perry's hair color, a college student might feel like her every decision is do-or-die. So one of the biggest decisions, declaring a major, can be enough to send you into a quarter-life crisis. Lindsey Pollak, college-to-career transition expert and author of Becoming the Boss: New Rules for the Next Generation of Leaders, shares her tips on how to plan ahead while you're still in school — without driving yourself insane. For more advice, come to Cosmo's Fun Fearless Life Weekend! Buy your tickets at FunFearlessLife.com.
Does your major really determine what you end up doing as a career?
One
of the biggest career myths out there is that your major is essential
to your career path. I've met biology majors who became accountants, I
have met English majors who became doctors … I have seen any major lead to any
career. Of course, this doesn't include graduate school — certainly if
you want to be a lawyer, you have to go to law school. But as an
undergraduate, there are so many paths. And what matters more than your
major is the internships that you do and the real experience that you
get in an industry. So I say major in what you really want to major in.
Your major is absolutely not the primary factor in getting a job in a
vast majority of fields. Recruiters tell me all the time that investment
banks are looking for art-history majors, and accounting firms are
looking for marketing majors. Your tangible work experience matters more
than what you've studied in school.
What
would you say to a student who's choosing between studying something
they love and studying something that's going to give them a great
salary and job security?In my opinion, there's a third alternative: minor, double-major, or take a significant course load in what you might call career-driven or career-helpful topics. You don't need to give up on the subject area that you're passionate about, and I don't necessarily think that choosing a major entirely based on career path is smart. The world is changing so much — something that is a really hot job right now may not be hot in two years. But in this day and age, it's wise to take classes, or even a minor or double major, in something like business, marketing, accounting, computer programming, or computer science.
What are some essential skills a student can pick up from their studies that will make them attractive to potential employers or recruiters?
The biggest gap I see — by far — between employer expectations about skill sets and what Millennials offer is communication: written communication — the ability to write professional emails and documents — as well as oral communication — being able to speak face-to-face and being able to present in front of a group articulately. When you ask employers what they want, it's those "soft skills": client service, etiquette, communication, negotiation, persuasion. If you can learn in college how to write and speak, you will be far ahead of the competition in any industry. Virtually any major should give you those skills.
Let's say someone is majoring in a topic that her parents tell her is never going to make her any money. How can she maximize her time and her classes so that she's picking up skills and traits that are attractive to employers?
The biggest trend now in interviewing is where people ask you, "Tell me about a time when you failed and overcame that failure." So it helps to have examples to draw from, of overcoming challenges, of filling a skill gap — realizing you had a gap and learning how to fill it. It's really gathering examples and experiences of how you deal with people, how you deal with differing opinions, how you run a project from beginning to end. And the trick is talking about what you've done in college in a professional way. So rather than saying, "So, like, in my sorority, we were having a party, and nobody showed up…" you say, "We had a marketing challenge. We held an event, and we didn't have many attendees — here's what we did. We did additional internet marketing through Facebook ads, we put up posters on campus, and we invited each person to bring a friend for half price." It's talking about what you've done in business terms.
What would you say to a student whose main concern is finding a job that's stable and in high demand?
I'm always wary of telling students to go where the jobs are. Certainly that has to be one factor, but you don't want to start in a particular company that's not a good fit just because you heard that they employ a lot of people. Health care is a huge and growing field now, but if, like me, you faint at the sight of blood, you don't want to get a job at a hospital just because you heard it's a good job. This is a personal opinion, but one of the things I'm really a fan of is a company with strong campus recruiting and a system for training new talent. So look at companies that have entry-level development programs, that have management training programs, that are used to attracting and retaining young people. Enterprise Rent-a-Car comes to mind — they're the number-one employer of recent college graduates. Accounting firms, consumer-packaged goods companies, financial-services firms, and advertising agencies are some other examples of companies that are used to having a lot of young talent.
If a student is interested in a field that has a scary "dying" industry reputation to it, would you steer her away from it? What tips would you give her?
First of all, they have my eternal sympathy and compassion, because that's a really frustrating place to be. But being young, I think you have an opportunity. I don't think any of those industries are going to die and not exist. I think they're going to morph and be disrupted. So find the organizations that are disrupting it. Find the energy and the exciting places to be. Or you can go to a traditional company and know that you have got to keep your eyes open, get that training, and always be very versatile in terms of what your next step will be. It's not a terrible idea to go to a newspaper for a couple of years and get those skills, but know you're going to apply them elsewhere; know that you will be in the digital division of the Washington Post. I also think using a tool like LinkedIn or your college career center or alumni center is helpful. Find people who were in that traditional industry, and find out what they did next. What was that a path to? And in some cases, you can skip the "dying" industry, and move right on to where they applied those skills elsewhere.
What's a job-hunting resource you'd recommend?
There's a really great tool on LinkedIn called the LinkedIn Alumni Tool, if you go to LinkedIn.com/alumni. You can look up your university, and it will tell you the top 30 or 50 employers of people who have graduated from that college. It's really helpful to know which companies have traditionally attracted a lot of graduates from your school. You can also segment that by major and say OK, people who majored in English at UConn, for example, tended to go to these 20 companies. I think sometimes there's a certain urge to reinvent the wheel, when there's so much you can learn from previous graduates of your institution. Sometimes that's a good path to follow, especially if it's your first or second job. If there are a lot of people who have taken that path, there's probably a reason. It doesn't mean it's guaranteed or that it's always the right fit for you, but why start from a limitless number of companies to work from? Why not narrow down your list to some that you know have recruited successfully from your school?
What's your top tip for someone who's about to declare their major?
Talk to three people who are already in that major, and ask them the pros and cons. Then do a gut check about whether you feel like that's where you want to be. Do your research. Do not just sit in your room, throw darts against the wall to pick a major, and hope that you're making the right choice. Research with people who have done it. Don't make your choice in a vacuum!
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