Final pep talk: let’s get you hired

So, that’s it. That’s all I’ve learned so far.

You can’t keep wasting time waiting for your university degree to be as valuable you were promised it would be (or blaming your career problems on the fact that you don’t have a degree). You can’t wait for that one person to finally hire you full-time like they said they would, for your boss to give you more responsibility, for someone to tell you what to do with your life. You need to take stock of all your talents, learn why they’re useful, find more ways in which you can be useful, ask as many questions as you can, and then — and here’s the clincher — come up with your own plan on how you’re going to make moves.

Go ahead and rely on yourself. Be clever. Examine your options, and then look one step further to see if that’s really the only way to do it. Try your hardest to take what I’ve given you and keep expanding on it. Slowly but surely, I believe that you will start to see the layers in all things.

Should finding a job be this hard? Definitely not. Capitalism is wild.

But you and I both know that the world spins madly on whether you make your move or you don’t. Waiting for someone else to swoop in and save the day, historically, never seems to work out very well for anybody. This is what it is to be an #ENTRYLEVELBOSS, dear friend. You have to be the CEO of your own career. You need to do it now. No one else on earth can do that job except for you.

Keep growing. Keep building your skillset. Keep becoming excellent.

And I know you will, because … you’ve got this. Yes, you have.

We don’t all fit in this nice, neat little box when it comes to our careers. You are going to have to be unafraid to fight for what you want, and be able to eloquently prove that you are the best person for this job. And while that’s time-consuming and emotionally exhausting, it’s also kind of great. Maybe — just maybe — it means all the power is in your hands.

Are you still going to run into incompetent people who let you down? Yup. Will it happen more than once? Probably. Are you going to talk to managers who don’t seem to get why you are so clearly meant for this role? For sure. But you didn’t want to work for them anyway, remember?

In the end, it all comes down to a single idea you need to keep at the back of your head, a thought you can return to every time you feel like giving up and hiding under the rug:

They need you. They need you so, so, so, so much more than you need them.

Work hard.

Be confident.

Be interesting and, more importantly, interested.

Be unafraid to provide solutions to your employer’s problems.

You’ve got this. And I cannot wait to see how it all works out. Please email me at heyalexa@entrylevelboss.com and tell me all about it.

Big love,

Alexa