From College Slacker to Dream Job to Business Owner
It turns out that going to college doesn’t automatically get you a dream job. A lot of time you don’t get a job at all. Buying an eBook or an online course won’t magically get you anywhere either. Both may help educate and motivate you. show you a path from A to B, but you still have to walk it yourself.
How I got my Dream Job, Twice!
Dream Job 1 started as an IT Help Desk position that I molded into the stuff of dreams. Within 4 years, I more than doubled my base salary from 32k to 68k per year. On top of that, I negotiated a yearly bonus to be awarded upon completion of a special IT projects of my choosing. With the bonus my cash compensation totaled 75k per year, a 134% increase over my starting salary. Icing on the cake: I earned the trust to work from home 2 days each week.
Dream Job 2 is the one I carved out for myself by starting a business. Many thanks to Ramit Sethi and his Earn 1k course for helping motivate me and give me the right guidance. I did so well that Ramit flew me to New York for an interview and case study.
In fact, I was able to quit Dream Job 1 after juggling both for a year. Now I work from home 5 days a week and finally have time for side project, or so I’d like to think 🙂
Why Your GPA Doesn’t Matter as Much as You Think
After spending some time in the real world I’ve learned that no one really cares about my college years. When I applied for my first job, I was still a college student. Funny story, I applied for a library job but ended up talking about my computer skills during the interview. It went so well that I was asked to apply for an IT support job that had just closed the day before.
I was told that a bachelor’s degree and a high GPA would be critical to my future success but I was already starting to see that social skills were just as important, if not more so. Interviewing well didn’t just get me a job – it got me a better job than I was looking for. They opened the job again specifically for me and sure, they asked for a transcript but at at this point it was basically just a formality.
This was my first glimpse of the informal job market. It turns out that the most sought-after jobs are filled this way. Tim Ferris talks about it more here: http://fourhourworkweek.com/2011/09/29/8-steps-to-getting-what-you-want-without-formal-credentials/
College is About Making Connections and Finding Inspiration.
These things often go hand in hand. Furthering your education is great, but you don’t need college for that anymore. I was so passionate about all the possibilities of computer programming and the internet that I was always a few steps ahead of my courses.
The course that had the biggest impact on my life certainly sharpened my coding skills but that didn’t change things for me. What changed things a professor that stood out to me as a mentor.
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