Graduating seniors, help is on the way

As the end of spring quarter approaches, graduating students often have more on their minds than buying caps and gowns and passing their final few classes. Preparing for the real world becomes a top priority, and completing school gives rise to the question, “I’m done . now what?!?”

For those who don’t yet have a six-figure deal with a multimillion dollar corporation lined up, guidance is out there and it takes the form of a book. “Whoa, My Boss is Naked!” a career guide by Jake Greene, may offer the advice that students are looking for.

Infused with pop culture references from the ’80s, ’90s and today, and boasting short chapters for those with short attention spans, the guide claims to be “the career book for those who wouldn’t be caught dead reading a career book.”

“When I graduated in 2002 in a similar job market to this one, I was looking for career books and I kept running into those written by corporate tools for corporate tools,” Greene said. “It’s hard to relate to an entry-level career book written by a CEO that’s been removed from the entry level for 20 some years.”

After earning a master’s degree in sociology from Stanford, Green worked as an analyst for a Fortune 500 company and served as the director of client development for a retail development start-up.

“I don’t have any experience running a Fortune 500, but I know how to survive and thrive in one,” Greene said. “My goal was to write a book that was much more like an adult Ferris Bueller than a Donald Trump. It includes anecdotes and examples that are fresh, instead of writing for the entry level back when ‘Thriller’ was on a top and Michael Jackson was relatively normal.”

Greene hopes the book will give graduates career advice that is going to be helpful and memorable, and feels the best way to do this is to incorporate pop culture for those he describes as having high hopes and low attention spans.

“We all come from this pop culture generation,” he said. “We were raised with remotes in our hands, and this book acknowledges and embraces that, and says that we don’t need to break from learning lessons from pop culture. We are a generation who grew up learning from things like the Olsen twins, and Carmen Sandiego – half of my world geography knowledge comes from that game.”

When doling out advice, Greene can think of several mistakes that those fresh out of college and new to the job market commonly make.

“We have a tendency to broadcast our inner monologues and ramble, which is probably due to 20 years of watching confessions on ‘The Real World,’” he said. “You need to be concise in interviews and when you present yourself to others.

“Another thing that’s a big mistake is just waiting around for the perfect job. I kept waiting for my dream job to pop up on some message board on the Internet, and most great jobs aren’t found that way, but through networking. It’s your responsibility to go get it – don’t wait for it to appear online.”

Greene also suggests editing everything you e-mail and cutting out all text message abbreviations. If it’s worth writing, then it’s worth editing, he insists.

Overall, he said he hopes the book will help graduates get on the right track toward a future they desire that does not involve fast food or used car servicing.

“Think of it as advice from a sibling and not some corporate tool,” Greene said. “It’s less a view from the clouds and more a view from the streets.”