Graduate School for Unemployed College Students

This post is in response to new graduates I have spoken to in recent months. I hope that it gives them another perspective on what to do in the interim. In times of the Dip, leaders stick to their guns or give up.

Fewer college graduates have jobs now, than at any other time in recent memory, according to a report by the National Association of Colleges and Employers. The annual student survey claimed that 20 percent of 2009 college graduates who applied for a job actually have one. So, what should the disappointed 80% of the graduating population do?

You may continue with a post-graduate degree. If you earn a scholarship, just do it! It can be a plus in your resume. Alternatively, what about a post-graduate year doing some combination of the following (not just one, how about all):

1.    Spend up to twenty hours a week running a project for a non-profit organisation.

2.    Teach yourself Java, HTML, Flash, PHP and SQL. Not a little, but attain mastery.

3.    Volunteer to coach or assistant-coach a kids’ sports team.

4.    Start, run and grow an online community.

5.    Give one speech a week to local organizations.

6.    Interview guests and write a regular newsletter or blog about an industry you care about.

7.    Learn a foreign language fluently.

8.    Write three detailed business plans for projects in the industry you care about.

9.    Self-publish a book.

10. Run a marathon.

A striking exampled of continuing education opportunity would be Seth Godin’s vision to start a 6-month Alternative MBA course. His nine selected students learnt, in a self-directed way, key skills of being an entrepreneur, freelancer, marketer and businessperson. It was Godin’s attempt to help leaders change the world. Basically, he opened up his office to this team of young people to participate in a customised MBA program to learn everything they could from him about business. Go to the SAMBA Blog to read their numerous insight, hindsight and foresight.

If you wake up every morning at 6a.m., give up television, and treat this list like a job, you'll have no trouble accomplishing almost everything on it. Everything! When you do, what happens to your job prospects?

(Source of inspiration: Seth Godin’s Blog)