A quote from Charles Dicken’s A Tale of Two Cities best summarizes the current economic recession:
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was a the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way – in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only”
Graduating seems like a pretty scary deal, where you seem to question what ‘s next in life. This is particularly true when you’re graduating during the worst part of the economic recession when no one’s really hiring. What are the options left for fresh graduates? Well here’s a couple that I can think of:
1.) If you’re luckily enough to have parents whom are entrepreneurs then you might consider moving back home and help with the family business (at least you’re ‘working’)
2.) Find a sales part-time just to make some money while looking for a ‘real’ full time job
3.) Take on freelance jobs (or jobs that are contract based)
4.) Volunteer at non-profit organizations that are in your field of interest (karma will come around in a full circle)
5.) Start your own business either by yourself or with a group of friends who shares the same aspirations as you do
6.) Find a company and pitch a proposal to them
At first, graduating seems like a nightmare (especially when you turn on the TV and all they talk about is the economic recession and blah blah blah company is laying off X amount of people) but in reality, its not AS bad as it may seem. It’s true that finding a job is hard but there are many ways where you can make your skills a valuable asset to a company. Rule number one in finding a job is to take initiative, the medium between being aggressive and overly passive. If you’re just being a sitting duck and wait for an employer to magically appear and say “You’re hired!” then I wish you good luck (or that you are one of those few 1 in a billion people whom has extraordinary luck). If you have the talent or skill sets that a particular company would benefit from, let them know.
According to the banks, the economic recession is at its end (another words, we’re starting to see more light from the end of the tunnel) and for business; this is where they would bring in new blood into the company and to carry out projects that will help them increase their profit and gain advantage amongst its competitors. The biggest question that they want answered is what’s the next big consumer trend. By understanding human behaviors as well as the social interactions with new medias, companies can expand/tweek their product lines/services to increase their revenues. If you know what the next big thing is then you, my friend, will be good shape in finding a job when no one is really hiring.
Finding a job maybe intimidating, but if you try hard enough, your effort will eventually pay off. In the mean time, you just need to stay focused on your goals, understand current happenings and have confidence that one day you’ll have the career of your dreams.
- Chun-Lam
Very well written. Have been closely associated to the exact situation I can relate to it and agree that it is not that difficult to find a job in the times of recession. One has to adjust to few things in the beginning say lower salaries than expected, long travelling time, etc., but once it gets going everything follows the suit. Nice article , hope many others read it too, and hopefully the suicide and crime rates come down which mainly blame less employment ratios.
Thank you for reading my article, it’s great to hear that there are others out there who see opportunities that are just waiting for someone to take on and explore its potentials. Best of luck to you!