I met with a career counsellor once throughout my entire time in college.
And it was only because a class required me to.
If not for being a business student where I had mandatory classes on how to build a resume, pitch myself, and network, I would have been 100% screwed.
I think it was a combination of me being lazy, telling myself I was too “busy,” and the wait times for an appointment being insane. I also think part of me was just intimidated by it all.
I’ve talked to more career counselors and coaches in my time after graduating from college than I did in high school + college. Boyyy was I missing out!
If you still have access to your career centre, TAKE ADVANTAGE OF IT.
Do as I say, not as I do (did?).
If you don't have easy access anymore, that's what we're here for!
⚖️ It's a poll!
Fun fact: between the pandemic and being blissfully ignorant, I did not do a single internship in college. I really thought I had the leverage to be picky. lol.
| How did you build experience before your first real job? |
|
|
|
|
|
Lucky for me, I started a business and networked like a maniac. Things worked out.
First gen? No network?
Not everyone grows up with people in their corner. That's exactly why GradSimple Insiders exists.
Get help →
|
🧠 Tyler's Take: "Internships are a privilege."
Inspired by this month's GradSimple Industry Insider, Gus Baxter.
Kate introduced Gus and me last year, and we’ve been friends ever since!
He’s worked with over 500 students since 2023 and is a walking encyclopedia on figuring out your career. I learn something new from him every time we chat.
Not sure why it took me this long to interview him, but here we are.
This time, one thing he said really stood out to me.
“Internships are a privilege."
I’ve never heard anyone say this out loud.
Look online, attend any course, or ask literally any other career counselor, and they’ll tell you internships are critical for finding your first job.
I’ve always secretly wondered, what if you have bills to pay and can’t afford to spend an entire summer on one? Not every internship pays, or pays enough, especially in the arts & humanities. What then?
I don’t remember hearing a single person saying something like “you’ll be ok, even if you can’t get an internship. There are other ways to get that experience.” In my mind, it was always internships or bust.
Despite starting my own business and creating my own experience, I saw it as “inferior” to internships. I felt lacking, embarrassed even, for not having a single one.
This is not to say you should not do internships, btw. You absolutely should try.
But not everyone can, and that’s okay. You know who you are. Gus gets into exactly what to do if you're in this position. He goes into detail in this week's Insiders issue.
Pss... Forward this to your best friend.
😋 Career Snack: Operations Analyst
Nobody goes to college thinking, "I want to be an Operations Analyst."
But many people end up here. It's kind of a catch-all, generalist role. Great for people who don't know what they want to do, and perhaps aren't spectacular at any one thing. A jack of all trades, if you will. Ya know, like me.
It was my first full-time job out of school. I worked for a recruiting "tech" company. In theory, technology was supposed to do most of the work. In practice, I was the technology. Manual searches, cold calls, coordinating schedules, chasing people down. A lot of operations roles are like that. The company hasn't figured out how to automate something yet, so a human fills the gap. That human is usually you.
What "operations" means depends on where you work. At a hospital it might mean managing patient intake and staff scheduling. At a tech company it could be improving how the sales team hands off to customer success. At a logistics company it might be figuring out why shipments keep getting delayed. But in every case you're looking at how the business runs, finding where things are slow or broken, and building the case for fixing it.
The people I think are wired for this: organized, comfortable with ambiguity, good at talking to people across different teams. You figure things out as you go.
Avg starting salary: $50,000 to $65,000. Solid growth from there.
AI Resilience Score: 5/10 🟠 Data collection, reporting, and process documentation are getting automated fast. Those tasks used to be a big chunk of the job. What remains is harder to automate: identifying which problems are worth solving, working across teams to implement changes, and making judgment calls when the data points in different directions.
Life is full of opportunities,
⎻ Tyler
Was this email forwarded to you? Sign up here.
Break our hearts and unsubscribe :( | Change Your Preferences | 113 Cherry St #92768, Seattle, WA 98104-2205