{"id":1180,"date":"2013-11-22T10:33:34","date_gmt":"2013-11-22T18:33:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/judipiggott.ca\/blog\/?p=1180"},"modified":"2016-05-25T10:42:06","modified_gmt":"2016-05-25T17:42:06","slug":"comment-on-five-critical-mistakes-students-make-networking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/judipiggott.ca\/blog\/comment-on-five-critical-mistakes-students-make-networking\/","title":{"rendered":"Comment on ‘Five Critical Mistakes Students Make Networking’"},"content":{"rendered":"

A couple of years ago I commented on a post by Rick Chung<\/a>\u00a0on his blog post about students who are networking to find a job and develop a career. There were a number of comments about how hard it is to find a career, especially in the creative sector, and it sounded like people were not getting good results from their efforts. Here is my response:<\/p>\n

Extremely difficult does not mean impossible. Doing things that don’t work, but doing them more frantically doesn’t\u00a0get better results, it just keeps you busy. It is revealing that VMT\u00a0(another commentor on Rick’s post) speaks of finding a career as though it is\u00a0something concrete, ‘out there’ waiting for you like the Orient Express if you can just find the right platform. It’s more like a scavenger hunt and you’ve lost your list of items! Decide to have fun anyway.<\/p>\n

VMT and others, your skills, your energy and your ideas are valuable to us. We need you, but the welcome mat that is\u00a0laid out is not in the form you expected. I’m sorry about that, but really, the sooner you lay aside those\u00a0expectation and begin to see the real opportunities around us, you’ll start to do more productive things with your\u00a0time. Don’t panic now, just as you have finally gained control of your own life. You’ve just been ill-prepared for\u00a0the way work works these days.<\/p>\n

Corporate job creation is a thing of the past. There’s a million and one small\u00a0businesses in your town, without the time and possibly the tools to find you, but they need help, too. Go see what you can do for them. Even employees need to be entrepreneurial these days.<\/p>\n

If you can shift gears from thinking that what you need is a job into seeing that a job is only a means to an end, I\u00a0guarantee your conversations will improve. A job is only ONE way of meeting your real needs: for income, for\u00a0purpose, for advancement of your goals and aspirations, for learning, for citizenship, etc. It gets easier talking\u00a0to people about yourself AND you will get better results from netweaving if you talk about your passions, goals and\u00a0aspirations rather than focus on whether or not the person you are talking with can connect you with a job. If you\u00a0need ‘a job’ and I don’t have one for you, what is left to discuss? Don’t short change an opportunity to connect, it’s an investment in yourself. And if you\u00a0can’t say what your aspirations are beyond getting a job, I’m not sure I’d know how to connect you to other nodes in my network.\u00a0Reconnect with yourself and what matters to you, so you have something meaningful to share.<\/p>\n

I don’t think it’s true that ‘kids today’ or students in general are not willing to put in time nor work hard, They\u00a0have just been fed a lot of bunk and had little time to learn how things really are with everyone yelling in their\u00a0ears “stay in school” like it guarantees you anything. And from what Rick describes, the behaviour is green, it’s simply an outgrowth of the indoctrination\u00a0they’ve received throughout the school years.<\/p>\n

Learned behaviour is a result of the process they’ve been put through. Which includes being raised in a time where\u00a0letting kids have paper routes (business experience) or free outdoor play time (group\/team dynamics, negotiation and\u00a0leadership) have virtually disappeared. Replaced by structured time, training, tutoring, and being managed by others\u00a0day and night, newly minted grads are used to others intervening on their behalf, so (they)\u00a0can be clueless when that ‘agent’ isn’t there to make things happen.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, many of our brightest young things will have succeeded in this outmoded system through achieving high\u00a0grades and beating others out in competition, and thereby earning their place to the next level in the game. This is\u00a0not the way things actually work in the world of employment, there’s no right answer, no ‘beating the level’, no\u00a0‘cheats’ that will get you there faster. Credentials are a screening tool to make the number of applicants manageable.<\/p>\n

For you young ones who have artist hearts with a desire to create, and had hoped to satisfy your inner artist, your\u00a0parent’s concerns AND authority’s edict to get a real career, you’ve cleverly taken degrees and diplomas in film,\u00a0design, broadcasting, etc. that you have been told will get you work in the creative industries. Even to be in\u00a0demand in a creative economy.<\/p>\n

And so it must feel like the ultimate betrayal when you finally get through to the end of the ‘sausage factory’ (as\u00a0Sir Ken Robinson calls it) and those people are not returning your calls. It IS a form of betrayal, but you will get\u00a0over it if you can shift gears.<\/p>\n

I can’t believe that we – parents, teachers, counsellors, faculty advisors – \u00a0continue to perpetuate this disservice\u00a0to our young people, but it’s worse when you are burdened by student load debt and feel trapped by it.<\/p>\n

Now, if anyone in the demographic I’m talking about has actually read this far, you’ve clearly disproved Rick’s\u00a0claim that you are not willing to put in the time or work hard. Feel free to like or Tweet the comment or visit my\u00a0website and let me know it’s not all in vain! You know how to Google, right?<\/p>\n

I do agree with Rick that the tools are out there to help you, but what is missing is direct encouragement that you\u00a0can find the right tools, or that you will know them when you see them. Including those within yourself, to let go\u00a0of what everyone has led you to believe and start seeing things with fresh vision.<\/p>\n

Just because the world you find\u00a0isn’t the world you were told about, doesn’t mean it isn’t a fabulous land of OTHER opportunities, Think of it as an\u00a0unexpected frontier. Find the adventure, be curious, follow your passion and approach everyone as though they are\u00a0the most interesting person in the world. Even yourself. Share with us.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A couple of years ago I commented on a post by Rick Chung\u00a0on his blog post about students who are networking to find a job and develop a career. There were a number of comments about how hard it is to find a career, especially in the creative sector, and it sounded like people were […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[10,26],"tags":[140],"class_list":["post-1180","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-careers","category-professional-development","tag-networking"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/judipiggott.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1180","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/judipiggott.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/judipiggott.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/judipiggott.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/judipiggott.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1180"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/judipiggott.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1180\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1410,"href":"https:\/\/judipiggott.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1180\/revisions\/1410"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/judipiggott.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1180"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/judipiggott.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1180"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/judipiggott.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1180"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}