How to Graduate Into a Great Career

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Go to tech college to gain the skills employers are looking for. Wisconsin Tech Colleges are in touch with employers and design programs around their needs. 88 percent of our graduates are employed within six months of graduation and 71 percent of those are working in their field of study.

Susan Pohorski of WI 1:37PM July 05, 2011

Could you be more specific about the types of analytic skills employers might find useful? The ones that come to mind are SEO/SEM, but more suggestions would be very helpful.

VK of PA 4:32PM June 02, 2011

Excellent comments, KG - you are absolutely right. You and I would probably be friends in a different world, 'cuz that sounds like something I would have written. But, you can bet that you'll be getting boatloads of negative comments, because most people just don't "get it" anymore. And, you can also bet that the brownshirts will be watching you because of your "radical" statements! Best of luck to you, KG.

Renard of IN 1:57PM May 29, 2011

I very much appreciate the realism in this piece, particularly the part about willingness to move. In 2000, I had to leave my hometown of Las Vegas (yes, 20 year resident), my family, and friends in order to have an academic job. It was one of the hardest decisions I've ever made, but a wonderful prof told me straight up, "If you're tied to a city, you're tied to the limitations of that city. You going to let yourself be tied?" (Las Vegas had only one junior college and one university at the time).
Where was I headed? Small town Albany, Georgia. Only small markets would take a new academic and jobs in core areas (I'm in Communication Studies) were scarce. I stayed in GA for four years. As much as I missed my home, family, and friends, making that move catapulted me to the next level in my career. Being at a smaller school in a small town meant I could create bigger achievements. And I did. When I interviewed again at the two and four-year mark, the opportunities in bigger markets were far more plentiful. I did decide to move to Seattle in year four; I needed a big city again. I will never, ever regret the move away from home. It seems like in these economic times, willingness to relocate may be a rule, rather than an exception. Ellen Bremen, M.A. @chattyprof http://chattyprof.blogspot.com

Ellen Bremen of WA 6:47PM May 27, 2011

Demanding a job won't make jobs magically appear. Demanding a job won't magically qualify you for a job. Passing legislation to force every business across America, big and small, to hire every person who submits an application, isn't going to magically create more jobs. How are all of these companies going to pay every single person who wants a job? How would YOU feel, if you owned a business, and the government came and told you that you had to hire EVERY SINGLE PERSON who demanded a job from you (because it's their "right to work")--whether they had the skills you needed or not, whether you could afford to pay them or not--and pay them ALL, for as long as they wanted to work? I guarantee you would not be happy. In fact, you'd be shortly broke and homeless yourself. Companies hire the people they can afford to pay, who have the skills they need. They're not just being "mean" when they don't hire. If you're only selling X amount of product/services, you only need X employees. In fact, you can't support more than that. The problem isn't legislative (some nasty law somewhere keeping you from getting a job), it's LACK OF DEMAND--either businesses don't have enough business to fund more positions, or you don't have the skills that are in demand. Passing a law won't change either of those things.

KG of MT 12:03PM May 27, 2011