By Daily Press staff
This summer, 1.4 million new college graduates will be flooding into the job market after receiving their diplomas. The good news is that it’s the strongest job market we have experienced in five years. The bad news is that many of those graduates will be unprepared to begin careers successfully.
“Career counselors on campus don’t necessarily give graduates the tools they need to build rewarding careers,” said Wendy Adams, a career coach. “Some predict that we will have the most unskilled, unprepared workforce in professional history. If the individuals entering into our workforce do not feel personally empowered and equipped for success, both they and the organizations they support will suffer.”
Adams, with co-author and husband Gene Pometto, penned the recently released book, “The Coach Compass, Navigation Tools for Career and Life Success.” She makes the point that recent grads need to formulate some kind of strategy before embarking on their careers.
Her book provides sound strategies that could potentially set today’s graduates on a rewarding career course by breaking down the career lifecycle into 12 potential positions. It gives abundant examples of how each of those positions can be comfortably navigated in positive, growth-promoting ways, and conversely, how the lack of self-knowledge and motivation when overcoming obstacles may eventually lead to apathy, stagnation and disappointment.
“You can really choose how successful you want to be by clearly defining who you are, what you do, and what you want. It’s what you make happen.”
Adams advises graduates to pursue a career that makes the best use of their talents and passions.
“As you ponder the next big step in your career, weigh it in terms of how it satisfies you both personally and financially,” she said.
She offers some suggestions for recent graduates: ■ Decide what you want out of your career and draw up a plan “on paper.” ■ Articulate and map out what you have to offer potential employers. ■ Use your personal connections with professors, business associates, and even your parents’ friends in order to promote your value and expand your reach. ■ Continually emphasize your potential. To the question “how successful do you want to be?” Adams and Pometto say: “You decide.” The future is literally in the hands of graduating students and it will be up to them to decide where they want to go from here.
“While parents, peers, teachers and mentors may have had to opportunity to encourage you, you are ultimately the one that will need to address the barriers that prevent success from happening,” Adams said.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on June 22, 2006. Read the original PDF.