Opinion

Advice To College Grads: Be Willing To Move

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Matt K. Lewis Senior Contributor
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I will be away on vacation this week, and blogging will be light. The following is the first of two posts highlighting excerpts from a longer interview I did with Joshua Delk this summer. 

Q: What book should every college freshman read before starting school?

LEWIS: I’m assuming college will require reading great works of literature, so I would have a college student read something by a Steven Covey or a Dale Carnegie—something that helps people discover their purpose, and develop skills to communicate and interact with people in a positive way.

I read a lot of John Maxwell books, like “10 Laws of Leadership.” Some people grow up in homes where they intuitively understand having a purpose in life and how to treat people, but some people need to learn it, and read books.

One idea in Covey’s book “7 Habits of Highly Effective People” is to begin with the end in mind. Write your obituary now and work backwards. So many people go through life just reacting to stimuli rather than having a plan or a purpose. Be proactive.

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Q: What advice do you have for college seniors graduating this year?

LEWIS: One piece of advice that I give that comes from Angela Duckworth is the “choose easy” but “work hard” motto [more on this in Matt’s previous column on advice for new college]. I think it’s true of everything, not just your career. I think it’s one of those keys to wisdom, where if you get this one maxim right, so much of life will take care of itself.

Q: Looking back at your college career, what decisions did you make that set you down the path you’re on now?

LEWIS: I started off at Shepherd College [now Shepherd University], originally a teaching college, as a social studies/education major. After graduation, my first real job was at the Leadership Institute where I helped develop the curriculum, recruit students, and train people at political seminars. It took me years to discover that what I liked about it most wasn’t the subject matter, but the teaching. In some ways I feel like what I do today with my writing is a little bit of teaching. I’m still scratching that itch I have to teach.

Q: What words of wisdom do you have for graduates entering the job market?

LEWIS: First, find out where your profession’s capitol is and move there. If you live in Michigan and you want to be a political journalist, I would recommend you move to Washington, D.C. or New York City. Be willing to move out of Lansing! If you’re a 40-year-old with two kids and you’re upside down on the mortgage, you probably don’t have that luxury. But if you’re a young person just entering the job market, move. Go where the jobs are.

Rarely will you hire somebody because of a resume. That was one of the big surprises to me. My dad was a prison guard, and I had no experience networking. I had to read a book called “Dig Your Well Before You’re Thirsty” by Harvey Mackay to learn about what networking is. I thought the way you got a job was by looking in the job ads in the newspaper and sending in a resume. It doesn’t work that way.

You need to move where the jobs are. Leap and the net will appear, be willing to sleep on someone’s couch, and be willing to work for free. If you just started showing up at an office, what would they do? Just start showing up everyday for free and start asking for stuff to do. Eventually they’ll probably hire you.

I know a guy who once interned for me who essentially launched his career by up and moving to D.C. without a job, befriending me on Twitter, and demonstrating me before he was paid or empowered to do so that he was willing to help me.

Q: What’s the secret to making a career in journalism?

LEWIS: One of the keys to making it in this business is simply not quitting. Winston Churchill famously said something like “the definition of success is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm.” A lot of people more talented and promising than me just quit doing it.

I’ve been doing this long enough that I’ve seen people arrive in this business, make a splash, and then move back to Florida to work for their dad’s insurance business.

Something else that’s counterintuitive: Beware of listening to your parents. It sounds like great advice to honor thy father and mother. But the world has changed, and parents will always err on the side of being conservative when it comes to career choices. Young people want to be romantic and grand, and sometimes it’s a mistake, but sometimes it opens up the world to them. If you don’t take risks when you’re 22, you’re not gonna take them when you’re 40.

Stay tuned for the second half of Matt’s discussion with Joshua Delk, and follow them both on Twitter at @mattklewis and @JDelkyDelk