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By
Alexandra Levit
Posted: April 12, 2010 at 6:12 pm | No comments Subscribe to this author's RSS feed 
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I will never forget how lost I felt the summer after my graduation from college, and in the years since, I’ve spoken to countless 20-somethings who feel pressured to find their true calling immediately and build a successful career in a particular field before their 25th birthdays.
If there’s one piece of advice I have on this topic, it’s that your career is a journey, not a destination. The perfect first job doesn’t exist, so look at your first post-college positions as temporary stops on your career path instead of permanent ones. There is no way you can reasonably predict how you will develop as a person and a professional in the next 10 or 20 years – why try?
A sensible approach is to insist on a single, intelligent first step and look for a job that will allow you to acquire as many transferable skills (project management, sales, marketing, client relations, etc.) as possible so that you will be well-prepared for any career you decide to pursue in the future.
Also, don’t be in such a rush to be promoted in that first job — you have a long career life ahead of you to shoulder the heavy burden of being on top and thus responsible for employees’ livelihoods and the company’s bottom line. Enjoy this time in which you don’t have to worry about anyone but yourself and are getting paid to learn everything you can. Explore any and all opportunities that interest you and make an effort to meet people from all walks of life, and eventually you’ll hit upon something that feels right.
Work Her Way Expert Alexandra Levit’s most recent book is New Job, New You.
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4.12.2010 | The Perfect First Job Does Not Exist
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I will never forget how lost I felt the summer after my graduation from college, and in the years since, I've spoken to countless 20-somethings who feel pressured to find their true calling immediately and build a successful career in a particular field before their 25th birthdays.
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11.30.2009 | How to Succeed When Starting a New Job
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I receive a lot of questions from women on what they should do when starting a new job. I like to keep things simple, so I always try to remember the acronym, “S.T.U.D.Y.” Just follow this easy-to-remember map to settling into your new position.
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10.14.2009 | Moving Back Home? Some Survival Tips
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Although not the ideal choice for many young people,moving back home can be a smart option if you don’t have the means to support yourself and your parents are willing to put a roof over your head for a while.
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10.14.2009 | Internships Are More Important Than Ever
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An internship can be a thinly disguised audition–for both the student and the employer–rather than a charitable learning opportunity. This makes sense: what better way for both sides to find out if a relationship is a good fit than to test it out?
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10.14.2009 | How To Get A Job When You Have A Low GPA
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Some elite employers have policies requiring a certain GPA (usually a 3.0 or higher), and there is generally no way around that rule. To get a job with one of the gazillions of other employers in the world, a low GPA is a completely surmountable challenge.
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