Commencement blog 2010 – you’re worth more than your boss

Students graduating this year: you’re more valuable than your boss. Well, some of you are.

You’re entering the toughest job market we’ve seen in a while, true. Don’t be pessimistic. Companies need you, for two big reasons:

1. The upturn after the recession. Yes, demand is up. Orders are picking up. Companies laid off many workers and will now face the task of re-hiring some of them, while others were non-regretted terminations, and will be better replaced with fresh graduates. Cheaper. Fresher thinking. Healthier, less baggage. Did you watch “Up in the Air”? Precisely. You’re hot property if you’re ready to start at the bottom rung and work hard, learn fast, and prove yourself.
2. Your fresh thinking is critical to regenerate stale industries. Yes – you’re the ones who entered college with ADD and learned how to IM, watch a movie, google-chat x6 at-a-time, talk on the phone and write a paper all at the same time. Your future boss doesn’t know how this works. He o she attends one-hour meetings at work from 7AM to 7PM every day. Then they go home and catch up on email. They’re terrified – unable to breathe, without a single original idea on how to make things better, and no time in their week to think creatively about how to excel. They need you. You will question stupid ideas, old habits, and hierarchical inefficient reporting structures. The boss’ boss’ boss will notice you, and you willl have a future where your boss has none.

How to handle this responsibility?

Be polite, be patient, be diplomatic. Be careful where and when you share your critiques of old diehard processes. Work hard, be thorough and precise – double-check every document / number / image / schedule you submit. Ask questions, and learn, learn, learn. Be careful not to mess up. It will happen, but be careful to keeep errors to a minimum.

Quietly, diplomatically, and yet visibly, begin to evolve small improvements on existing methods. Migrate a shared spreadsheet to Google Docs and share it with the project team. Get a free trial of Box.net so you can share docs inside and outside the company equally well. Research companies at Gartner, IDC, Zoominfo and more. Read blogs about products and services used in your environment. Connect with senior execs on Linkedin, Twitter and Spoke etc. Collaborate with other forward-thinking colleagues and progress-oriented team members.

Choose boring industries.

Several industries attract far less talent than the cool ones. All the cool people go to Google, Apple, Wall Street and NYC ad agencies. Others go to reputable consulting firms and law firms. Why not choose a B-movie where you can be a superstar? Work in healthcare, insurance, or retail banking. Or even a very large retailer HQ. Middle management in these environments are no fun to work for. They’re risk-averse, hierarchical and lack originality. It’s “The Office”, for real. Right here, is where you can outshine your boss, with relative ease, in just a few years. Once on track, you can continue a faster track throughout your career. You could get heavy assist with MBA along the way.

There has never been a better time to come in from college and instantly leapfrog your boss: you know all the cool tools to work faster and smarter. You don’t have kids to take to school and to practice after school. You can work many more hours and in these hours you can research new stuff instead of playing catch-up on email and complex project plans, spreadsheets, RFPs and legal contracts. You can be a swarm of bees around the big elephant, because you haven’t (yet) got bogged down with old school management baggage. If you can keep this nimbleness, and you have a genuine appetite for success, then you’ve graduated at a great time.

Good luck!

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