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Okay so here is my situation. (Sorry it is a longer post)
Education
-Finishing Sophmore year in college
-Major in Leadership (Basically Business)
-Minor in Spanish
Job Experience
-I also work at my university in the alumni office.
-I do adminstrative work as well as design and marketing.
Skills
-Adobe Creative Suite (again I do a lot of design work)
-Microsoft Office (That goes with the administrative aspect of my job)
-Those are my main things...
-I also speak spanish pretty well though not 100% fluent.
Okay so that is sort of what I'm dealing with here.
I am interested in doing something with design. I do a lot of promotional advertisement for fundraisers and events on campus and I really do enjoy doing it. Problem is I know design work is hard to find and I'm not sure how the marketing field is going right now.
Also, I have HR and general business knowledge so I always figured I could do HR, management or banking instead.
SO finally to my question. With this what do you all thing is the best course of action for me?
1. Stick with design/marketing and hope it works out.
2. Go for one of the other 3 options and just do design on the side.
3. Something else entirely that I'm not thinking of.
(Also, I plan on moving after I graduate so if you know any areas of the country that are doing particularly well in one of these industries let me know.)
1. Change your major to Business. Business is a more marketable major than Leadership.
2. Do whatever it takes to become fully fluent in Spanish before graduation.
3. Go with Marketing as a career based on where you are. However, keep in mind that marketing is a tough slog employment wise. Lots of competition for jobs.
but look into getting a six sigma certification, and whatever other ones you find out about that is the current hot thing
maybe get in the journalism club/newspaper? It's slightly better than office job since you can go out and network with community and get foot with with marketing?
mostly, figure out what kind of job you want, then structure college experience around that to maximum what it provides
job market isn't as bad as CD seems to portray it. There are jobs out there, just make sure what you do in college life is setup in a way that you can use it as a resource.
Start networking and kissing the butt of people of people who have pull in various businesses.. Seriously.
You're credentials only get you so far in this world. You will get MUCH further in your career being the patsy of a top guy in power than you ever will just relying on your credentials, resume, and hardwork and hoping it all pays off.
My advice regarding advice in this forum is to always consider the source. If their other posts are negative, unhappy about their career, blaming management and others, unhappy with how their life worked out, then you have to seriously ask yourself how following their counsel is likely to yield positive results. I'd go to a college career placement center before I came here; I don't remember who's the last person here who posted about how their boss is smart and fair, the colleagues are friendly and helpful yet productive, and the job itself is intellectually stimulating without being too stressful.
My advice regarding advice in this forum is to always consider the source. If their other posts are negative, unhappy about their career, blaming management and others, unhappy with how their life worked out, then you have to seriously ask yourself how following their counsel is likely to yield positive results. I'd go to a college career placement center before I came here; I don't remember who's the last person here who posted about how their boss is smart and fair, the colleagues are friendly and helpful yet productive, and the job itself is intellectually stimulating without being too stressful.
While I agree with the first part of your statement, let's see. My current boss is a nice guy, but is really over his head and doesn't understand what we do (we're a high tech research lab); most colleagues are pretty good (it's our people that everyone mentions the most on why they stay) and while the job can be intellectually stimulating, it is very stressful. Can't think of many jobs that won't be stressful now days.
OP, if you're thinking of going into business, try to figure out what business you want to be in and then learn that business. The problem with many in management these days is there is the basic assumption that management is management, regardless of the business. That simply isn't true. Each type of business field has it's own nuances and understanding those will make you a much better manager in whatever business field you enter. By this I'm not meaning HR vs finance for example, but finance in the engineering industry vs finance in the banking industry are different.
Find an internship during your junior summer break and after your senior year. Experience is the name of the game. Internships are necessary these days.
And as someone mentioned earlier.
Become fluent in Spanish. Bilingual skillset is a valuable one.
If I can go back to being 18-20 yrs old again. I would go to school for to learn how to speak Spanish, marketing, and how to run a business. After I am out, I would start my own practice. Screw working for someone else so that they can leverage my skill to make them wealthy. F that crap.
You gotta realize that this forum is usually dominated by the negative people because they like the attention. A thread pissing and moaning about work gets 6 pages of response within the hour while a thread about a positive experience will get maybe 5 responses in 3 days. This is why all the doom and gloom people get the most press time on here.
Trust me, the economy is fine. I and many others have never had a problem finding a job. Been working since I was 16. Been in retail, telemarketing, lab research, law enforcement, computer programming, and engineering. And I'm only 31.
MY BIGGEST ADVICE .. AND I URGE YOU TO PLEASE DO THIS!!! I learned the hard way..and try to tell all my friends this..
First couple years out of college, NETWORKING IS KEY.. DO NOT LEAVE COLLEGE WITHOUT AT LEAST 3 PROFESSORS AS GOOD RELATIONS AND TRY TO GET AS MANY BUSINESS PEOPLE IN YOUR CORNER.... YOU NEED A FOOT IN THE DOOR --- A good resume is great but honestly doenst mean a whole lot.
I WORK FOR A INVESTMENT BANK 90% of HIRES ARE FROM RECOMENDATIONS NOT RESUME POOL.. SAME WITH MY ENGIERING COMPANY PRIOR.
GET CLOSE NETWORKING TIES...PLEASE IT WILL BE WORTH WEIGHT IN GOLD
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