FIRST JOB series: Are you starting in the right circle? Starting from the bottom to get to the top

In a world where Facebook's Mark Zuckerburg is the talk of the business world and young Hollywood icons like Justin Bieber and Taylor Swift have their own luxury homes, it can be easy to forget that most successful people really do start from the bottom. 

As a young person in today's world, it can be easy to feel this invisible pressure that you are supposed to "make a name for yourself" before you hit your 30's. 

In reality, I've talked to and interviewed a lot of successful people, and a common thread I see over and over again is that they were all willing to start from the bottom in order to do what they really wanted to do. 

I heard this best explained from one of my mentors. He wrote a version of the following illustration on a white board that I've attempted to create for you on Paint (excuse my poor paint skills - I actually worked really hard on this...lol). 

This may not make any sense right now, but follow along the illustration while I explain (I'm going to explain this in terms of a metaphor/story, not to patronize you, but to have some fun and make this chart/illustration come alive. I hope you enjoy!)

Once upon a time there was a college graduate named Blue Square. Blue was so excited to graduate college with his BS in Business and Marketing and couldn't wait to share all his Blue potential with the world. He found himself on the outside, in the unemployed zone. He searched around this zone and saw many many yellow circles. Every yellow circle had a green circle and a red circle within it. He really liked the red circles, but found he couldn't get into them without getting into the yellow circle first.

So he roamed around the outside to try to get into different yellow circles. There was one yellow circle labeled "engineering." Another "nursing." Another "education." Another "business." He couldn't decide. 

So he thought long and hard about what he wanted to do, and who he was. The more he learned about himself through reading books and talking to mentors about their jobs, the more he realized he liked marketing. So he found a red marketing circle he really liked - vice president of global marketing for a big sports apparel brand. 

But he couldn't get into that red circle. Everyone told him he needed more experience in the yellow and green circles.

But the yellow circle did not sound as fun as the red circle. In fact, many of the jobs in the yellow circle sounded plain awful. While Blue was a very humble guy, he still kind of felt like he was "too good" for the yellow circle; he had a college degree after all - wasn't he supposed to jump right to red, or at the very least, green?

But every time he tried the red and green gatekeepers told him he needed more yellow experience. 

Finally on his own, the bills were starting to pile up and it was time for Blue to start paying back his student loans. He needed to get a job in one of those circles.

Finally, Blue was invited to a circle. An insurance company circle offered him an   invitation to their green inner circle as an insurance salesman. Blue could pay his bills and get into a green circle! He was so excited. That same day, however, he got an e-mail from his college mentor Dr. Orange Triangle, who told him about an invitation into a yellow circle internship program with a large sports apparel brand circle that paid a very small stipend.

What do you think Blue should do? 

Your answer may vary based on your philosophy, and there are a billion different external factors that come into play as our lives are much more complicated than little blue shapes. However, a deeper explanation of the chart (pictured again below) might help (note: every navy dash on Blue's journey represents time passing, learning from experience, and hard work). 

As my mentor explained to me, in order to get the kind of job you are looking for, you first have to define it - and then - you have to get into the right circle (i.e. industry). You can also think of it as getting on the right "ladder," as people often reference a career path as "climbing the corporate ladder." Just climbing any ladder (i.e. or entering any circle), however, is not guaranteed to lead you to the kind of job you want.

For example, if Blue gets into the insurance business, he will get into a green circle, but he will be stuck inside a very specific industry (i.e. circle), learning very specific skills. If he wants to move forward in insurance - that will be great. However, if his goal is really to get into global marketing, he will one day have to make the jump from that inner green circle into an entirely new large circle (i.e. industry), forcing him to back into the outside and have to start from the bottom in a new larger circle industry. 

This can be done, but if Blue goes on to get married, buy a house, and/or have kids while in the green insurance circle, he will have a very hard time making the leap back into the outside to find entry into the global marketing/sports brand apparel circle - a circle in which he most likely would have to start from the bottom yellow circle again. 

However, if Blue takes the internship, he will start in the outer yellow circle of a sports apparel brand where he will be able to learn about what he wants to do, and meet people in the green and red circles in that industry. He may have to travel around that yellow circle for a long, long time, doing things that are unglamorous and that do not make a lot of money. 

But as my mentor told me, for those who stick it out long enough at the bottom, get to know people, learn as much as they can, and work harder than anyone else, an opening in a green circle will eventually manifest. 

And then the process repeats to get into the red circle (i.e. some version of your dream job).

This takes time, and can be fraught with difficulties. As you travel around each circle you may try and fail to move into the next circles in your industry. This can be frusterating. But the key is that if you are in the industry where you wan to be begin with, as you move around and learn and work hard from the bottom, you will be building experience so that when an opening does arise, you will be ready. 

We can get so obsessed with being in a certain circle, making a certain salary, and doing a certain job with a certain level of status. In the end, the learning process should be the most important part. While paying the bills is definitely one of the vital reasons for getting a job, it's vital to remember that getting into the right circle to begin with - even if that means starting from the very bottom - will most likely lead to an increase in pay throughout your life. 

Because if you start in a yellow circle for which you have little interest or dedication, your chances to move up in position and salary decreases significantly - because you really won't be able to compete with those who are interested and engaged in the larger circle. 

So wherever you are, whether on the outside and unemployed, at the bottom in a circle you love, or near the top in a circle you hate, there is always time to explore. It's almost never easy, but it's always an adventure. 

FIRST JOB out of college: what you do vs. who you are

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Where are you going to college? What are you majoring in? What do you want to do with your life? What do you do? When are you getting married? When are you buying a house? When are you having kids? 

The typical party questions. The ones we get sick of answering, and yet always find ourselves asking.

Because it's just part of our social construct. It's a safe way to move a conversation forward.

But, more often than not, they cause us great anxiety when we don't feel confident in our answers. They make us worry about what other people think. They make us worry that we are not where we should be in any given stage of life.

And I never felt this pressure more than when I was looking for my first job out of college. 

For the first time, I was supposed to be able to answer the question: what do you do? And I felt like my entire identity was wrapped up in the answer.

I had been in school my entire life. I was always a student. It was pretty easy to answer the early questions (especially once I figured out my major). I felt confident in my identity as a student - you are going places, you are learning, you are smart.

And now, it was time to get a job that said: college paid off, you are making money, you are successful. 

I couldn't find that job. I felt overwhelmed. I felt like I had failed. 

And then I read two simple things that transformed my perspective:

1- "People always ask 'what do you do,' how many people ask you 'who do you want to be?'"

This came from one of the quarter-life crisis books and it reminded me that no matter what job I had, I could still be myself. I could still do my best, give my all, and continue to learn. I was not my job, I would never be my job, and I would be much better off focusing on being the kind of person I wanted to be, contributing, learning, and not being so caught up in how other people perceived me based on my job. 

2 - "Live the Adventure"

This came from the biography How to Be Like Walt by Pat Williams. I highly recommend reading biographies of people you like and find someone who really inspires you. Walt Disney is one of those people who inspires me because of his ability to dream big, risk everything, and maintain a childlike whimsy. 

This quote reminded me that finding a job was an adventure. I looked at Walt's life and it was fraught with failure, tragedy, risk, and disapointment. He didn't wake up one morning and build Disney World. His first job was not running a billion-dollar business; his first job was a huge failure. 

Your job is not who you are. Your job will change a lot over the course of your lifetime. Who you are may change too. But it's important to keep things in perspective, remembering that you can make a great contribution in any job. It is an adventure. And like any adventure, it will be scary, hard at times. You will get lost. 

But the great part is, when you realize it's just an adventure, it becomes sort of exciting. You have the zest and motivation to keep going, to blaze new trails, to learn from those who have gone before, and to endure. 

So don't put too much stock in what you do. Never feel like you have to be embarrassed at a party when someone asks what you do. State it proudly, and talk about what you love about it most (even if you hate most of it). 

And remember that your job says a lot less about you than you think. When people ask you what you do, they are really just trying to make conversation. Try to move that conversation to other things, and realize that a job is just a job. It changes. It moves. It pays the bills. But you can take who you are with you to any profession, and let the adventure grow you. 

Subscribe to the FIRST JOB summer series here to get each new post the second it goes live, as well as exclusive tips/links just for subscribers! =)

FIRST JOB out of college: how to find one, get one, change one, and learn from one (and not lose yourself in the process)

Subscribe to the FIRST JOB summer series here to get each new post the second it goes live, as well as exclusive tips/links just for subscribers! =)


It’s officially summertime for college students, and for all the graduates of the class of 2012, it’s time to get that first “real” job.

When I first embarked on this process when I graduated with my B.A. the summer of 2009, I was hit with a tidal wave of emotions, all stemming from this one question: What the heck am I going to do with my life now?

To cope, I read stacks and stacks of books on how to find a job. I went on dozens of informational interviews. I scanned online job boards late into the night. I sent my resume out into (what felt like) the black hole of online job applications.

And I had never felt more insecure and horrible in my life.

Before I go on, I think it’s important to mention that this is a first-world problem. My husband and I will semi-jokingly quip to each other “first world problem” when the other is complaining about something going wrong in the apartment or with our cars, like last week when our wireless internet wasn’t working. It’s a first-world problem. It’s a problem that, in many ways, we are lucky to have. It’s a problem that, when compared to so many other problems in the world, is just not that big of a deal.

If we didn't live in the country that we did, with open-access to education, a diverse economy, and the ability to choose what we want to do, how to spend our time, and where to share our talents, we wouldn't have this problem of figuring out what we want to do with our lives. We are lucky to have this problem. 

But with that being said, if you live in a “first-world”, first-world problems are still real problems. They are still your problems. And it’s okay to go after solving them. It’s just vital to always maintain perspective so that you do not dwell in the depths of hopelessness when in reality there is so much to be thankful for.

However, when you’re in the depths of self-doubt, it’s hard to be thankful.

Our generation was told we could do anything we wanted, be anything we wanted, and that if we graduated college we would get a high-paying job.

So we proudly walked down that aisle in the cardboard-square hat. We listened to a triumphant and hopeful graduation speaker. And then we walked back down that aisle with our shiny new diploma, ready to shine all our great potential and make a difference and a contribution in the real world.

And then we trip and fall flat on our faces, scraping our limbs on the concrete.

While I mean this metaphorically, this actually happened to me last week while walking from my car to my apartment on the last day of my job at the community college (I’m now a full time author, blogger (hooray!), speaker, and consultant). I stepped awkwardly on the concrete path leading up to my apartment door, and WHAM, before I knew it I was on the ground, with all my office supplies strewn across the path. 

I  laughed at myself at the time and felt so thankful no one was around to see. But – it made me think about how I felt three years ago when I first was looking for that job.

How I felt like I was constantly falling on my face. And how I worried that everyone would see. 

When we can’t find a job or are in a job we don’t like, we feel inadequate, like we aren’t contributing what we actually have to offer the world. And often, it makes us feel embarrassed and sad and alone. 

When I was looking for my first job three years ago, I found comfort in a lot of books that defined this general feeling of awfulness and insecurity as the “Quarterlife Crisis.” Essentially the books said that in our 20’s we struggle to find our identity, and in this new post-graduate stage of life, we tie our identity closely to our job, which causes stress when we can't seem to find the "right" job. 

And while these books coined the phrase, created the awareness, helped post-grads understand they are not alone, and comforted us that by no means does our job define who we are - I still needed to pay the rent. I still needed a job. I still felt lost. And I didn't really know what else to do.  

So this summer (along with the other content I’ve mentioned such as transfer student and professional success stories) I am going to be doing a series on finding, getting, changing, and learning from your first job out of college.

Highlights: 

• What you do vs. who you are
• Why starting from the bottom is vital to getting to the top
• What do you do if you hate your current job?
• When do you just take any job vs holding out for your "dream" job?
• Secrets of current successful professionals on how they got their dream jobs (hint: their dream job is almost never their first job)
• How to turn a first job you dislike into a dream job
• How to organize your job search process 
• How to find a professional mentor
• When to take unpaid internships
• When to choose grad school
• How to do informational interviews at companies where you want to work
• Why most jobs aren't filled online & how to use the internet to get them
• Why people hire their friends and how to make more friends
• How to know if working from home/being an entrepreneur is for you
• Reviews on some of the best job-hunt and post-grad books
• How to change your job

And as your first FIRST JOB tip for today - start reading anything you can about finding a job. We read and study for classes every semester. And yet we often forget to use those skills to read and learn about many areas of our lives. Turn your first job search into a class for yourself, and dedicate the time and effort necessary to get an "A." To start, I hope you'll keep up with this series :) 

The series will be peppered throughout the blog this summer, so if you want to be sure not to miss one, you can subscribe specifically to the FIRST JOB summer series here. 

You can also join me live Monday, May 14 at 9pm ET for YouTern's #InternPro Twitter chat! The theme: "I'm graduating…now what?!"

If you get a degree, you get a job…right?

A few days ago I did an interview with Mark Babbitt, founder of the innovative internship search website YouTern. I wanted to talk to Mark about the upcoming conference YouTern is putting on called 1KV (one thousand voices). This conference will bring together college students, post-grads, and young careerists who realize, as Mark put it, that being negative and complaining about the economy isn’t in our best interest. The economy isn’t going to change; we have to change.

So YouTern is bringing together a group of like-minded individuals who are ready to make a difference in the world and find success in a time when it can seem so far away.

Why does success feel so out of reach for young careerists and post-grads, and even some college students? Because, as Mark put it, his generation “lied to us.”

Mark boldly admits that his generation told young people that if you get a degree, work relatively hard in college, you will get a job. And not just any job, but a great job!

But today many post-grads find their post-college job in food or retail, working alongside those who are still working on their college degree or who never got one. Many post-grads find themselves living at home. And many post-grads feel lonely, confused, frustrated, and wonder what those four years were for anyway.

A college degree is incredibly valuable. But it’s vital to remember that the single credential, the single piece of paper, isn’t enough anymore; hence, the “lie.”

What is the truth?

The truth is that you must figure out how to focus your college degree on something you are great at and find interesting, and you must build career-related experience as soon as possible.

In short, you must go the extra mile.

And I have a step you can take towards that extra mile right now. How about attending YouTern’s 1K Voices conference in New York this March 23-25? How about joining the other like-minded people who are ready and excited to do more. How about recharging yourself during a weekend that will remind you what it takes to reach your dreams, and provide you with the tools and the support group to help you get there.

And want even more good news? Because Mark and YouTern are so awesome and really like you guys they gave me a special promotional code just for you to save some big bucks on your registration (please note I am not being paid at all to talk about this…I will only ever recommend anything to you that I truly believe in and think will actually help you, end of story).

But before you scroll down to get the promotional code and sign up for a weekend that could be a turning point in your life (and also sounds like a heck of a lot of fun), check out some of the incredible and exclusive insight Mark shared with me based on his incredible experiences and success working with our generation and their career search.

• Q: What inspired you to start YouTern?

A: Mark started YouTern because he felt we were losing the “human” part of human resources when it came to searching for jobs online (ever applied for a job and never heard anything back….it's the worst!). In Mark’s previous successful start-up he had interns who got a lot out of the experience working for a small business doing actual work (NOT getting coffee) and getting mentored along the way. He found his interns were going on to be incredibly successful, and he wanted to create a portal where more businesses and non-profits committed to mentorship-based and real-experience based internships could share their opportunities. He also wanted to help the struggling populations of students who wanted professional advice and high quality mentor-based internships.

What is really cool about YouTern is that they screen all of the company’s that post internship opportunities on their site so that, as Mark put it, “it’s not some creepy guy in his garage.” While of course they can’t guarantee it will be a perfect experience, they can guarantee they’ve done everything possible to guard against the “creepy” guys and only showcase internships that feature small businesses, non-profits, and socially responsible organizations.

• Q: What inspired you to create the 1KV conference?

A: Mark realized there wasn’t a conference for young careerists who are transitioning to the professional world. There was nothing to teach college students and post-grads what to do after you walk down that aisle in your cap and gown. There was nothing gathering together people who wanted to contribute to the world in a positive way and do whatever it takes to succeed – no matter what is going on in the economy. He wanted to bring together a group of people who refuse to sink to the negativity in the news and who realize the only thing we have power to change is ourselves. And when we increase our knowledge and skills and surround ourselves with good people – our situations almost magically change. This is a conference for positive people who are ready to get fired up about how to make an impact in the world and discover success in their career after college.

• Q: What is the number one benefit conference attendees will receive?

A: Realizing that only YOU can make yourself successful and getting the tools to know HOW to make yourself successful. One of the best ways to reach success in your life is to surround yourself with positive people who will keep you accountable, as well as learn from those who have had success before you. This conference features incredible speakers (e.g. Jenny Blake author of Life After College) who will ensure that you will come out with more than just a fired-up attitude and new friends to keep you accountable – but the tools to actually know what to do and how to get your life on track.

• Q: What is your best advice for what my readers should be doing right now in order to find a great job after they graduate from college?

A: Mark said that we have forgotten that getting jobs is a competition in which only those who take it as seriously as an athlete will win. The number one thing to do right now (and one I firmly believe in as it is the heart of my book)? Networking! Because as Mark said, 8 out of every 10 jobs are being filled through personal relationships. 

So right after you finish reading this blog do at least one thing to build relationships with people in your desired field and show the world that you are taking your career as seriously as an athlete. Create your LinkedIn profile and connect with a LinkedIn group that interests you. Join a Twitter chat (I love #InternPro). Join this blog's Facebook community. Visit your career center and ask if they have a mentorship database so you can meet with a professional who does a job that interests you. Find a mentor on StudentMentor.org. And…

Register for the 1KV Conference using the promo code: CCSuccess. 

I hope to meet you there!

P.S. If you're like I was in college and are broke and have no idea how you could ever afford to go to a conference in New York, just remember that anything is possible if you want to make it happen. Get creative. And never forget that an investment in your own success is the only guaranteed investment in the world. 




To read more about Isa's personal story & how you can build relationships to: make positive friends, be more successful in academics and work, find the right people to connect with, and access the hidden job market, grab a FREE e-copy of the first chapter of Community College Success: How to Finish with Friends, Scholarships, Internships, and the Career of Your Dreams! Claim your free copy on the Facebook page!