Unlike Amy Poehler or Chris Anderson, Harvard overlooked me as a commencement speaker for 2011.
That’s okay. I had a short speech planned just in case they’d called. But, as I mentioned, they didn’t.
Here it is. Abbreviated for your skimming pleasure:
- Don’t focus on a great company for your first employer. Look for a great manager, instead. (This is not actually my advice; it’s from one of our past interns, Brian Elliott.) After spending two years helping me research great workplaces, Brian said the number one thing he’d learned - and would apply to his job search - was, “I have to find a great manager, because they will have the greatest impact on my development.” Gosh, that kid was smart. At least as smart as any Harvard kid.
- If you insist on also looking for a great company, look for one that hasn’t done massive layoffs in the last few years. Companies that shed large percentages of their people either (a) don’t care about their people, (b) have poor planning skills, or (c) hang onto losers for too long, and then use a bad economy to fire them. You don’t want to work for a company that treats employees this way. It will crush your soul, and we need you and your hopefulness to power our future. So, look for companies like Resource Interactive. Sure, they lost some clients in the recession, but they don’t fire employees. They figured out how to relocate them to other projects in the company.
- Remember: bigger companies are not necessarily better companies, or more secure places to work. Your parents might be telling you to find a job with a big company because - when they came of age - that was a safe bet. But it’s not anymore! For you, an optimal organizational size is a company with 100-250 people. Why? Because it’s small enough that people really get to know you. (Of course, if you’re a slacker or a bum, a large company will be perfect for you, because you can hide out there, and no one will see you.) Your parents mean well, but they may be a little out of touch with the new realities of today’s job market. Maybe, you can strike a deal and work for a company that’s becoming large, like Rackspace or Groupon.
- About that second language everyone is pressuring you to master… Yes, Mandarin is important. Spanish, also. But I think you should learn to write code. Put down your iPhone for a second and answer this question: Isn’t your generation’s language digital? Exactly. So I ask you, Can you build an app? If not now, when? If not you, who?
- Go retro. Have meetings in analog. Your future bosses are already bitching to me that you have no social skills and “hide behind screens” instead of doing face to face meetings. Doing in-person meetings isn’t just old-school; it’s how things really get hashed out. It’s how knowledge is transferred and comraderie is created. And you need all that stuff in the first years of your career. So, pull up your big girl or big boy pants and haul your ass to meetings. Take an old fashioned pen and piece of paper. (You can always take a photo of your notes and load it into Evernote later.)
- For god’s sake, learn to be concise. Here’s a parable to help me explain: When someone asks you for the time, don’t tell her how the watch was made. Just tell her what time it is. Here’s an easy way to get started. The first line of every email you write should start, “The purpose of this email is….” Try to keep it to a paragraph. If you need more than a paragraph, ask for a face to face meeting (see #5 above.)
So, that’s it. Let me know how it goes. My email is rr@nextgenerationconsulting.com. Please use the first sentence of your email to tell me why you’re writing.
P.S. J Weber, I’ll give you the secret decoder ring to yesterday’s blog in a future post.
