Dr Jeff Cornwall

Carl Lavin, managing editor at Forbes.com, has posed a question to those of us in the blog network:

Recently, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported a jump in the unemployment rate to 10.2%.Some economists think we could be looking at 10.5% by early next year.  

Given these grim forecasts, how do you counsel recent college graduates and others entering the job market for the first time in this employment climate? Is there any advice or strategies you find particularly useful?

I tell my students and recent alumni that the age of entitlement is over. 

For my students — those who study entrepreneurship — this is not necessarily a bad thing.  The best chance they have to forge their way in this long a deep recession is to find their own path.  For many it is starting their own business.  While this is a tough time to start a business, it is a time that will highly favor those who know their way around the entrepreneurial block.  Entrepreneurs can no longer rely on the wave of high economic growth to carry them.  But if they have studied what we offer them in our classes, and applied it properly, they have a much better chance than the average entrepreneur of making it in what has become a cold and difficult world.

Even if a young person entering the workplace is not going to start a business, they need to look at themselves as a product that they are introducing to the market.  What are the needs in the market? Which of those needs do they have the ability to address?  How can they position themselves to take advantage of the opportunities that are out there?   

And rather than assume that the ideal job that will offer them instant fulfillment and gratification is just around the corner — because it is not — they need to view their career just like a scrappy, bootstrapping entrepreneur approaches them market.

Here are some tips:

1. Take what the market gives you.  A bootstrapping entrepreneur may have lofty dreams, but recognizes that you have to start somewhere.  The first job, like most first ventures, is just the first step of a long journey.  But, you have to be willing to take that first step if you even hope to move ahead and have a chance to reach that ultimate destination. 
2. Start with what you know and who you know.  The best strategy for launching a first business is to start with something that builds on your experiences and your knowledge.  The same is true about a career these days.  You best next job, or first full-time job coming out of school, is most likely going to build from experiences you already have had and people you already know.  It may not be glamorous, but its a job.
3. Work with the resources you have.  The millennial generation seems to want to have what their baby boomer parents have spent a career accumulating, and they want it now!  Follow the path that my young bootstrapping entrepreneurs follow.  They are used to being poor college students, so they keep that lifestyle to help bootstrap their first venture.  Their recognize that their personal overhead is really part of the business overhead.  The lower their overhead is, the quicker they can reach break-even.  The same is true with a job.  Keep your lifestyle in poor college student mode — it will open up a world of jobs you might not otherwise consider.  Those jobs will eventually open the door to better ones.  Sure the pay is not what you had hoped you might see, but your goal is to get a track record and become economically independent — period.
4. Keep on bootstrapping for years to come.  Experienced entrepreneurs learn that bootstrapping can come in handy even as a business grows.  Good times are eventually followed by bad ones — crises can, and will, happen.  Bootstrappers have a good record of weathering the tough times.  So young people entering the workplace should keep that same attitude.  Don’t assume that all the times ahead will be rosy.  Prepare yourself for future tough times.  Over a long career, more than one tough time will happen.
5. Cash is King!  Save, save, and save some more.  A healthy bank account is a wonderful buffer from life’s slings and arrows.