For many recent graduates, the transition from academia to the professional world can be both exhilarating and daunting. It’s not hard to see why: you get to really start your life and the career that you’ve always wanted, but at the same time, you know for a fact that the job market is incredibly competitive! In fact, right on the final days before graduation, this is what stresses out so many students.
What if I can’t find a job? What if no one wants to hire me? How long will it take? What can I do for income in the meantime? All of these are completely valid points, too. However, with that said, sometimes it might be best to just start a business. You can’t always sit around for eight hours a day and hope you hear back from a recruiter. Sadly, it just doesn’t work that way, and you could apply to thousands of jobs and land absolutely nothing.
You need solid experience to get a job, but you need a job for said experience. You know all about this Catch-22. But there is one way to go about this, and this often goes overlooked but holds tremendous potential for growth, learning, and fulfilment: entrepreneurship. But why go for this? Well, this might actually be your ticket to getting a good start after graduating, and here’s exactly why!
You’ll Be Unleashing Your Creativity Exactly How You Want To
As fresh graduates, you bring a unique perspective, fresh ideas, and boundless creativity to the table. You’re reading to start the world, you’re ready to really make an impact, and sometimes, you can make that impact for yourself. So, with that said, starting a business allows you to channel your creativity into building something meaningful from the ground up.
Whether you’re passionate about technology, sustainability, or social impact, entrepreneurship provides a platform to innovate, disrupt industries, and address pressing challenges in new and imaginative ways. Sometimes, only you can give yourself the choice; sometimes, only you can make a change. If you’re going to be your own boss, then you can do just this.
You’re Learning On-The-Go
Internships don’t always teach you what you need to learn, and company or employee training might not do it either. So you might be expected to know something that’s not even possible for you to learn at any time. Then, of course, you might be at risk of losing your job, and the list could just keep continuing. With that said, however.
Starting a business provides a hands-on education like no other. As an entrepreneur, you’ll wear multiple hats, from product development and marketing to finance and operations. While sure, having lots of responsibilities at first can be a bad thing, at the same time, it can also be seen as good. This is because it is a nice way to learn about other departments, and it really helps in building that foundation of knowledge.
This gives you the chance to learn about tools that you didn’t even know existed, like document data extraction, but this also means that you can teach yourself how to properly read data and make data-driven decisions (not something that’s often taught in university). Each day presents new challenges and opportunities for growth, allowing you to develop a diverse skill set, hone your problem-solving abilities, and cultivate resilience in the face of adversity.
You’re Taking Control of Your Own Destiny
So, you really need to keep in mind that entrepreneurship empowers you to take control of your destiny and shape your own career path. You don’t always get to have this choice when looking for work; sometimes, you have to deal with what they give you, and who would even want that? So, instead of waiting for opportunities to come knocking (and they rarely do), you have the freedom to create your own opportunities and pursue your passions on your terms.
It’s Easier to Build Up a Network
Starting a business provides ample opportunities to network with like-minded individuals, industry experts, and potential collaborators. It sounds a little odd, but people are less inclined to reach out or network with you if you’re just an employee. People love the passion and risks that business owners take, so you’ll come off as more enticing to them. On top of that, the connections you make early in your entrepreneurial journey can prove invaluable as you navigate the ups and downs of building a business.
Failure Will Be Nothing More Than a Stepping Stone
There’s absolutely no doubt about it, but entrepreneurship is not without its challenges, and failure is an inevitable part of the journey. But this doesn’t make you a bad business owner in the slightest. In fact, you should see failure as a valuable learning experience that propels you forward. Everyone will fail in their career at least once, and starting a business early in your career allows you to embrace failure as a natural part of the learning process and build resilience in the face of setbacks.
Featured image by Microsoft 365 on Unsplash
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