“Oh shit, I’m graduating.”
We have all heard this — your friend who studied engineering, is now working as a business development executive. Another friend of yours who is a pharmacist is now a salesperson for some pharmaceutical products.
You can’t help but feel anxious, what are the jobs available for you out there? But at the same time you knew this day would come since the day you enrolled yourself into a marketing or business degree.
It is true that the competition is fierce out there.
And how are we supposed to stand out from the rest?
There are many professional degree holders like engineers, lawyers, scientist or even doctors, came to do our kind of jobs — marketing, sales, management, business etc.
While they can easily cross over to our domain and do sales and marketing, are we able to cross over to their domain to sell engineering machinery, pharmaceutical products, medical devices?
The answer in short is, it would be tough for us. While they can easily spend a month or two to pick up sales and marketing skills to be a good salesperson or marketer, we would at least require four to six months to get used to their industrial jargon and all technicalities involved.
Put these niche B2B industrial domain aside, what about those easily reachable and understandable consumer based service/ products?
In terms of sales, how well can you sell compared to a diploma or high school dropouts who have been doing sales repeatedly for the past few years?
In terms of digital marketing, how fast can you pick up when you are not learning much of that in school? How are you better off than those freelancers doing this day in day out?
In terms of management, how experienced are you to take up a management role and make decisions for the company? How believable are you to the stakeholders?
In terms of strategy, how capable are you to convince those key personnel in the company for buy-ins unless quoting some theories found in your textbooks and having judged as theoretical activist?
I have been through all these questions for the past 4 years upon graduation.
And here are some actions you can start taking to make things easier to overcome these “hurdles” that I wish I knew back then when I was a full-time student.
- Treat yourself like a product that you’re going to sell
Imagine this — you are building a product right now. 2 to 3 years later, you are going to sell the product to a company.
How would you design the product and what would your pitch be like?
Now, let’s say that product is you.
And the day you are selling the product is on your job interview day.
How are you going to make a pitch for yourself? How are you going to impress the interviewers? How are you going to provide value to your ‘buyers’ by solving their problems? How much are you going to quote the company?
Start by asking yourself this questions, have an ideal answer in your mind, then work upon it. Just so you can say the ideal answers out loud and proudly during your interview session.
2. Do SWOT analysis for yourself
Identify your Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities & Threads, then revisit them once every year, at least. It helps you to see yourself and the world in a fresh light. It helps you to also find the gaps between your strengths and opportunities so you can bridge the gap.
If you have not got much inputs for the first time doing it, it is all fair and fine. Just make sure that you as time passes by, you have got more and more things to fill up your SWOT analysis canvas.
If you still do not have much to fill up, it simply tells you one thing — you’re NOT taking enough actions to invest in your experience and growth.
3. Expose yourself to different domains and verticals
Try doing things that are deemed crazy or unconventional to others — attend your housemate’s lecture of different course, mingle around with friends from different background and nationalities etc.
Why?
Open yourself to explore and discover new experience, industry, fields, people etc. You would then be able to apply cross domain knowledge in your own field, which is the most valuable skill in problem solving — thinking out of the box. The fuel of creativity and great ideas.
The single most important thing that matters to you as a fresh grad is to stay curious and be open to try and absorb new things like a sponge.
4. Volunteer yourself to organize events/ do some side gigs
Volunteer yourself in any student associations, like AIESEC, JCI, Enactus etc. It offers you a brand new experiences that would otherwise left to be unfolded in your career. A lot of these youth organizations are not paying a single cent for all the work you do, but paying you in terms of social skills, management skills, leadership skills in return.
Since these are mostly not-for-profit organizations, people who join them are people who are striving for a common mission together. People who are willing to make sacrifices and to do more than others without asking for any returns. These are the people who genuinely cared to make a change - be if for themselves or others, have great attitude and outlook to life! Having these people around you in life, by itself, is a great asset.
When you achieve a team’s goal together and successfully overcame all hardships together as a team, you build an unforgettable bond with these comrades. This type of bond is 10X far more meaningful than the networking session you attended over a dinner.
Most importantly, you learnt to make things happen. With people.
With zero consequences to bear if you fail - a perfect sandbox to fall and learn.
5. Be proactive to solve problems, and get good in it
See problems as opportunities. Grab problems to solve to gain experience and do more, just so you learn more. If you’re still in university, don’t restrict your experience in your school compound and school work — you can start a small business, you can volunteer yourself, you can get yourself some summer internships etc.
Create the momentum in solving problems, cause the more you solve, the better equipped you are!
Fear not on problems, but avoidance of problems.
Because, after all, businesses only happens when people pays you to solve their problems. And marketers are selling solutions to people’s problems.
What’s better than having a head start in crushing problems and getting good in it?
Great companies nowadays hire for critical thinking and problem solving skills which are irreplaceable by machines and robots. And when you are a company’s solution to a multitude of their problems, you automatically became a valuable asset.
A book I recommend reading on seeking opportunities: What I Wish When I Was 20 by Tina Seelig.
The next thing you remember doing is:
“Oh yes, I’m graduating”
The exciting world awaits!
Thanks for reading! Hope this helps to give you an idea of what you can do now to improve your competency and cope with your post-graduation-trauma :)
Hello! The awesome team at Vecta.io is hiring! If you are interested to join us, send us your cover letter & resume at info@vecta.io :)
