The first week of April is the week when many of those who have applied to college will receive their admission letters. How exciting! Do you remember receiving those letters in the mail?

The application part of the college experience hasn’t changed: getting good high school grades and SAT scores, acquiring letters of recommendation, preparing applications and essays, applying to safe schools, stretch schools, and the like. With the exception of the use of technology, this is identical to the experience generations before have had. In fact, the college experience, for the most part, hasn’t changed much (again, with the exception of new technology) – registration, course requirements, exams, parties, Spring Break, professors, and tuition bills.

This experiential familiarity has lulled many parents, teachers, grandparents, and guidance counselors into not seeing the most radical change facing our students: The relationship between college and career has been permanently altered. For all but a small percent of occupations, the linear path between college and career is now obscured.

In this new employment reality there is a far greater emphasis on the skills you possess, rather than the job you occupy. There is a broader use of contingent workers for all but the most critical positions. There is a differential investment in training and development for employees in the highly critical roles.

This new reality has broad implications for anyone in school today, especially those in college where education is often a significant personal and/or family investment.

If you are currently employed, you have seen this unfold over the past decade as employer-driven employment stability has become a thing of the past. If you are new to the labor force or a current student, it may appear like I am asking you to catch a moving bus. There are, however, some things you can do to increase your chances of starting your career on a solid foundation at the time of graduation. Three, in fact, are most important:

1. Build your skills. Employers once hired on potential and developed employees along the way. While some of that still occurs for targeted occupations within companies, most now hire those with demonstrated skills and competencies (differentially investing in those who occupy the most critical roles). The more tangible, valuable, critical, and unique your skills, the better and more secure you will be. My advice is that you spend your time in college demonstrating both potential (i.e., get great grades) and tangible, valuable, critical, and unique skills. Your stint as a college DJ or debate team member may demonstrate your communication skills. Your time as a research assistant may demonstrate your facility with data analyses. Your willingness to take an extra few classes in Mandarin may give you a valuable language skill.
2. Build your network. I am always stunned when I have a corporate guest lecturer in a class and students do not use that time to build a relationship with the guest. Guest lecturers agree to do talks because they want to interact with students. Alumni association networking events include a motivated group of alumni who want to meet students. Professors often have projects that will help students both gain skills and build their networks. Imagine that the acquisition of a well-cultivated professional network is as important as anything else you do during your college experience. This network will prove to be highly valuable upon graduation and beyond.
3. Stay active in the process. Past generations could ride the transition from college to first job through promotions with comparative ease (peppered with an occasional downsizing or layoff). As companies will continually to re-configure work to compete in this global economy the career management process will be yours to own. (Competition is only getting more intense.) Translation: stay active in acquiring new unique and valuable skills, keep building a professional network, and develop multiple income streams based on your talents. Own your career destiny.

I’d be willing to bet almost everyone reading this knows someone who is college-bound or recently started college. If so, please let him or her in on these changes by passing along this blog post. College is an expensive but highly valuable career investment. I want every student to squeeze every ounce of value from his or her experience to begin a career on a positive and solid foundation.

Wishing you success,

Paula