Now That You Graduated What Do You Do?

Congratulations! You've made it through the tangle of papers and tests and are now in possession of a shiny new diploma and probably a small mountain of debt! But no worries right?  You are all set to go get that killer job in what ever field you spent the last four to eight years studying about.

Did you know that most college graduates don't actually end up in the job of their dreams? Though these statistics are improving lately, the job market prospects for 2015 graduates is some what better than those for the last couple years, most graduates can expect to be under employed. According to Think Advisor:

The rising demand for jobs requiring a college degree  has “continued to push down the unemployment rate for recent graduates” and “has also finally started to help reduce underemployment, though the underemployment rate remains high,” the Fed economists write. The underemployment rate for recent college graduates is now 44.6%, which is down about two percentage points from last summer but up from around 38% in 2000, toward the end of the dot-com bubble.

Forbes, too, is pretty bleak about their assessment of the prospects of college graduates mainly due to the amount of debt involved in acquiring the education to begin with (the average student loan burden of graduates is $30,000).

This is one of the ripple effects of student loan debt: you might have to take a job below your education level to keep up with the payments. A heartbreaking 20% of college graduates with student loans eventually give up on their preferred line of work to get a better paying job to help pay off their debt.

So the next question is what can you do about this? 

My suggestion might be going against the norm but why not look at the situation and use it to your advantage? You know going into the job market that you are going to be under employed. Look for a position that will cover all of your basic expenses but not require so much of your time that you can't start a side business related to your field of study?

Network marketing is a great way to start small and expand.

The goal to making money, which is after all, the reason we all work, is to get to a point where you are able to leverage your assets versus your time and skills.  We all start out in the work for money quadrant that Robert Kiyosaki talks about in Rich Dad Poor Dad

So, early on in my life it was my poor dad who always said to me, "You know Robert, go to school, get a high paying job..." And so my poor dad's core value was to be an employee. He wanted a job security, promotions, steady pay check and all these.

And so it was my rich dad who said to me, "You know, Robert, if you really want to be rich, learn to build businesses." It made more sense to him to work hard to build a business. Something you own, and something you pass on from generation to generation to your kids.

Get access to the full length movie Rise of The Entrepreneur here

In the meantime, according to USAToday there are five skills you should hone up on before you go job hunting:

1.  Your people skills - the ability to converse, to make eye contact, to speak in complete sentences, to recognize one's responsibility, to listen to another perspective — equal fairly decent job prospects
2.  Your leadership skills - Sixty-three percent of millennials want to lead in the workplace, according to The Hartford's 2013 Millennial Leadership Survey. But this is another area where they seem to be falling short, say employers. Forty percent of companies looking to hire new graduates say that this group needs better leadership skills.
3. Your written communication skills - While 65% of recent graduates are confident in their writing skills, according to the American Association of Colleges and Universities survey, employers are less sanguine, with only 27% of them reporting that recent college graduates have the written communication skills needed to succeed in the workplace.
4.  Your public speaking skills - Sixty-two percent of students surveyed by the American Association of Colleges and Universities said they were well prepared in the area of oral communication. Just 28% of employers felt the same way
5.  Your problem solving skills - When researchers at the Council for Aid to Education recently tested the problem-solving and critical thinking abilities of college seniors at more than 150 schools across the U.S., they found that although the majority demonstrated adequate skills in this area, 40% were deficient

Capitalize on the connections you made during your college years. Take advantage of the internet and help others succeed...you will find success too. As Zig Zigglar used to say:

If you help enough people get what they want, you will get what you want too.