Job Market

This is my final semester of college, and it's scary to think that I was a wee freshman of NYU, tucked away on 5th Ave in dear Rubin Hall just three years ago. I have begun my job search in earnest, and the outlook is positive.

But what really pisses me off like no other, is when people tell me the economy is looking bad, and my chance are nil. One such person reminded me again recently, and in my head I must confess, I was thinking "no shit sherlock, I've read the newspaper since last summer too!"

But I'm sick of hearing how bad everything is. How my $ is paling in comparison to the £, that the sub prime market needs our government to rescue it, that economic growth is limited.

Really, what type of attitude is this? Call me an unfailing optimist, but I just can't believe that it's soooo bad, that nothing can be done, and that I must simply languish in the winds of an economic downturn. As I write this, the cnnmoney.com headlines read "Bracing for Bad Bank Earnings, MBIA slashes Dividend by More Than Half, and Tech Stocks for Tough Times." My little brother was interviewing at an investment bank a few weeks ago and he was told "this is the worst time to try and get into this industry."

Why don't we all try to look at this as an opportunity? An opportunity to explore a couple less traditional options in the job market. Typically, I think most college grads go to work for a big company (bonus points if they have a recognized marketing campaign). How about trying to start a company? Working for yourself(myself)?

The Economist's holiday edition featured an article about Evan Williams, the accidental innovator. He lead a team in creating this very site/software/server thing I now work off of, blogger. He's also created Twitter. His key to practical, easy to use, products is radical constraints which "can lead to breakthroughs in simplicity and entirely new things." The reporter offers up Google, saying if you'd taken away all the ads on Yahoo's search page ten years ago you'd have the simply search box.

So I'm going to try to be an accidental innovator for the beginning of my own little career path (soon it will be big, no worries). Not quite sure what that means, but I'll keep you all posted.