Marketing Careers
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by Zac Martinon Feb 3 |
Graduate like a rock star #1: Get passionate
I was a pretty good student at high school. But that quickly changed when I got to uni. After failing my first assignment in second semester, I decided my grades weren’t going to get me that dream graduate position that I'd always wanted. Which is lucky, because I’ve since failed a unit and my average is, well, below average. That’s when I found my passion – social media. A few months later I started a blog, and a year and a half on here I am writing for Marketingmag.com.au. I’ve just landed a kickass internship and am feeling pretty confident that when I graduate, my career will be looking mighty fine.
So how did I get here? Well the guys at this wonderful publication would like me to write about how university students shouldn’t have to rely so heavily on their crappy grades, but instead build a profile through means outside other than their degree.
So here it is, five steps that I’ll be covering over the next few weeks:
4. Be creative
The first step, is 'Get passionate'. Discovering what you’re passionate about isn’t always easy, but once you do everything else becomes a walk in the park. Deciding what you’re interested in and turning that into a passion is the key to a successful start.
Passion motivates you, gives you direction and it makes the extra effort you put in outside of your course work all the more rewarding. More so, it makes it fun and at some point it will be the only topic you want to talk about.
Most importantly, the best and superlative thing about passion is that it’s easily noticeable. Wayne Dyer, some old guy, once said, "It’s never crowded along the extra mile". Hard workers stand out. Especially to employers.
One way to get passionate is to search for everything you can about your topic. Check the library database and get in touch with an author who writes about your area of interest. Read and subscribe to blogs. Search iTunes for podcasts. Talk to a lecturer at uni who covers your topic in a unit. Take in as much as you can, completely immerse yourself and be inspired.
So whether you’re interested in social media like me, or market research, personal branding, marketing to old people like Wayne Dyer, advertising in the 60s or TVCs you despise, it’s time to get passionate about it.
Get passionate is the first article in the 'Graduate like a rock star' series.
I would let our readers know when we can expect Zac's next post, but due to his 'creative requests', there are no deadlines set. :-P Just stay tuned!
Great series coming up here I suspect. Amazing coincidence we posted similar stories similtaeneously. You were certainly one of the people I was thinking about when I posted and this series on MMag is just further proof of what can be achieved doing a bit of clever self-marketing and networking rather than emailing dull resumes.
When do you want to start at Sticky?
take care