Most career advice suck!
It’s a fact!
Why?
Most of such advice is centered around two things
Follow your passion
Connecting to a network and using it for job opportunities
As you may have already familiar from my previous posts “follow your passion is crappy advice”.
May be such an advice is too much old for this generation.
In the past, during the generation of our parents, loyalty was rewarded more.
They maintained loyalty with just a single firm to have a lifelong employment.
If you do some case studies, most of your parent’s generation may have worked for a single company in their whole career.
Hiring in the past was based on university degrees and potential.
If they say they are passionate about writing and have a degree in journalism, most probably they would have hired to a media firm.
Right now, the challenges for the young employees are different.
Your GPA Doesn’t Matter!
As being taught by the follow your passion model, most college students think of having a great GPA and learning what you are being taught would help you to get a job. As we said, in the past that trick always worked out, but not anymore.
Having learned a skill and waiting for someone to pick them up is a waste of time in this economy.
The truth is, nobody is coming for you.
There is no prince charming in this story.
There are no rescue boats.
What I learned from some of my friends and family members is that, no employers asked them what was their GPA!
What they all wanted was a good concrete skill that was molded in the form that can be sold!
With the follow your passion model, people tend to stick to one kind of job that is closer to their “passion”.
You may have a skill or knowledge about something and you wait for the perfect job that relates your skill.
This is nonsense. That perfect job is not going to come along!
When you see an opportunity you should never be hesitant about taking down that opportunity.
Whatever job is that you should go for it.
Then you have to mold that job into the job you want.
Market Yourselves
Also the advice of using a network for job opportunities are also nonsense.
I have heard that, you should carefully create your Facebook wall overtime.
Especially if you are looking for a professional job.
I don’t even understand why in the world employers would check the facebook wall of their potential employees.
Building a Facebook wall by sharing and forwarding images with awesome sentences typed into it, is something that every 5 year old with a smartphone can do.
May be employers are using it as a strategy to assess the people since it is the only way that is left.
But instead if you can create a blog and share whatever that defines you on your blog, is much more helpful to you than your Facebook wall, at least for your profession.(Not many professionals own a blog these days and I wonder why!)
So, my alternative two those two crappy career advice are the following
Do not follow your passion unless you can sell it.
Build a business model rather than following your passion.
Do not wait for a perfect job that relates your previous knowledge or skill.
Be open to any disciplines of work and try to connect between them,so that you generate more value.
Make yourselves branded and market yourselves than waiting for someone to pick you.
Create a blog or website that showcase your work and sell whatever skill or value you can generate over your website.