Happy Graduation & How to Get a Liberal Arts Degree and Still Get a Job

Since it’s graduation time and I have several friends with graduates (High School and College) in their families, I’ll take a bit of a break from small business marketing topics in this post and instead share a great article I just read and share a few comments.

It’s called “How To Land A Job With A Liberal Arts Major”  and really its lessons are true no matter what your major is.  This article struck a chord since I have an undergraduate Liberal Arts Degree (Georgetown Class of ’94, History Major, thank you) and it was probably January of my last year in college where it occurred to me that I needed to find a job.  I think it boils down to a few things:

• Know what you’re interested in and work towards being involved with it, it makes “work” much easier
• If you thought your goal was one thing and it changes, that’s ok, but progress is important
• Liberal Arts degrees aren’t evil, they teach you how to think, how to read and write critically and give you an insight into a lot of different topics
  • But, I do recommend trying to ground yourself in other pursuits too…like to write?  Start a blog and keep it up.  Or write for the school paper.  Or both.  So much of work these days is the ability to think, read and write clearly and concisely – get better at that and prove to employers you can do it.
• As the article above suggests – do your homework.  Once you’re looking for a job, research the employer, the market and relevant topics.  It’s never been easier to find this stuff out.  There’s no bigger pet peeve for an interviewer than to talk with someone who has done nothing proactively to learn about the job and its possibilities, that’s just lazy.

Congratulations to all the graduates out there and Best Wishes on your next steps!