You can’t do well, what is not in your nature to do!

 
A recent Newsweek article, “Millennial College Graduates: Young, Educated, Jobless”, (Leah McGrath Goodman / May 27, 2015) validates the need for transition work with college graduates. The article states an estimated 2.8 million university graduates will enter the U.S. workforce with a bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees. This is happening as America’s unemployment rate is at a low level. McGrath suggests we hold off celebrating because the millennial generation is lagging behind the general workforce in job placement. What does this mean for this year’s fresh outs?
 
Making the transition from education to a career is no easy target. A college student’s chosen field of study provides excellent clues about what they will face in a career position. While you may like a field, even love it, there will be some courses within a curriculum that seem like you will never grasp, or feel you will not pass the course easily. You may even secretly hope you can get someone else to do this work! These struggles are indicators of areas within a given field that are not your strength and may be a tough spot in your career.
 
A student graduated with a Bachelor of Science in commercial design. Her mother had noted her interest in people and their environments since childhood. Mom was right; her daughter was passionate about the field of design. However, she did not understand the ultimate impact of courses such as drafting, where layers of mathematical details would be strenuous and the creation of detailed construction drawings was not easily achieved. During the school years, many students are just glad a course is over, so they can forget about the stress of work that is against their problem solving grain. At the time of her job search, the design student was able to demonstrate and communicate her education and skills but soon after employment realized the tedium of daily hands-on detail was becoming a real energy drain. This organization required an employee to excel one level at a time, in order to progress in their career. There would be no opportunity to transition to other responsibilities without excellence in her current position, and after two years the student had to start the job search over. At this point, she wasn’t just dealing with another transition, she also had to overcome feelings of failure. It was time to learn the unique way her strengths compliment her education and skills in a new role. Once she understood her unique abilities the search for a new role was in clear view.
 
We have the great pleasure of helping enthusiastic grads avoid the assumption that they will do the work they love because they love their field. The level of competition in today’s job market demands that job seekers know more about their abilities than education and skills. Job seekers must know how to communicate their problem solving strengths or natural methods of getting things done. Why? Because while education and skills are blended with relational and motivational strengths to glean the best candidates, your potential employer must then determine whether you are the right fit for executing the potential role.
 
You must also discern whether the role will enable you to work according to your execution strengths, is the role right fit for you! Right fit requires two things; knowledge of your natural problem solving method, or MO, and your ability to communicate it within the context of a role. Think of transition from education to career as three parts; (1) education and skills (job applications) + (2) personality-values-motivational strengths and (3) execution strengths (interviews). Now you can determine your true advantage in the job search and make the transition to your first career position a lasting one.
 
Contact us at FIREPOWER Teams – with our expertise, we can help make sure you are on the right path!