How to Acquire More Business Skills after Graduation: A Student’s Guide to the Professional World

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It has become part of common knowledge that the world is undergoing a college inflation bubble. It used to be the case that you went to college for elite jobs that could not be done without an enormous amount of knowledge and preparation.

However, nowadays, higher education is a bare new minimum mandatory requirement for almost all jobs, even ones that are learned by doing. Business skills are somehow in the middle of that spectrum, where college helps a bit, but experience and personality are most of the equation.

So, if you are a fresh graduate and looking to work in business, or start your firm, here are a few skills that you should pick up.

1. Learn to Think Practically

Your business aspirations are most likely not that modest. It is a good thing to want to climb as high as you can, earn as much as possible, and leave your mark on the world.

Sadly, theoretical knowledge rarely prepares you for the rigors of the market.

We often forget that the universities we attend are businesses, too. They have a financial incentive to pad out the runtime of our stay. Online universities have proven that you can gain many new skills in 6 months or so. Four years is excessive in terms of time to study.

As a result, manuals and courses can have a lot of tangents, needless history, or fluff content that is meant just to extend their length. This can damage the way you think, especially in a business for students.

Efficiency is key when you want to make a profit. However, you are trained for 3-4 years to think in essays. You were rewarded for the volume of knowledge and memory, not ingenuity and practicality.

This is a tough mindset to break, but you have to train yourself to go from point A to B as soon and efficiently as possible. This is the money that you are spending.

2. Start Small If You Can

As it is with any piece of advice, it applies to most people, most of the time. I am about to recommend that you start small with your business and even try to get some practice while working for someone else for a while.

However, if you have a lot of seed money and are not afraid of risk, you can invest everything and try your luck.

Maybe it is a personality trait, but I always preferred dipping my toes in first, to test the temperature of the water. So, how can you start small?

As an example, I worked with someone who has a very successful online company that offered search engine optimization services. Yet, he did not start with SEO.

First, he started freelancing. He has worked part-time for essay services since college. While doing this, he developed some of the essential skills that are crucial for success. Time management, meeting deadlines, setting expectations, and of course, perfecting his writing.

After building some seed money, he took those skills and invested in some web courses to understand how search engines and websites worked. Finally, he put all these things together and made a successful business.

This is an example of a path someone in the real world took. As far as I know, it can still be replicated. Yahoo Finance even has a published ranking of the best essay services, so you can start researching there.

3. Learn When to Apply the Theory

People have a strange tendency when it comes to the distinction between theory and practice. Normally, out of practicing a certain skill set or craft, you develop a theory as a shorthand guideline to make that practice easier to repeat.

But some of us tend to do the opposite. Instead of observing reality and matching our theories to what we can see in front of our eyes, we start with the theory and selectively ignore aspects that do not match what the theory says.

Be prepared to discard anything that does not work, even if you read it in a fancy manual. For example, if color theory says that your customers will respond better to a blue-colored web page, but you notice that your clients like red, then follow the observable reality.

If you are running a business and seeking entrepreneur jobs for college students, you will have a target audience. You need to observe them, test their reactions, and always watch what works.

There are a lot of business trends that theories and manuals could not predict. Who could have predicted the massive popularity of Fidget Spinners, ankle socks, and dozens of other weird items and services?

4. Know What Your Business Will Be, or at least Have a General Idea

Many people fail on the market level because they just want to go into business for its own sake. The independence and possible above-average earnings attract them, even though they don’t have an inclination or idea of what company or service to offer.

Business ideas for students can be easier to find. If you are just starting, the stakes are lower. If you are not risking much, then you can afford to experiment more. In a previous point, I mentioned someone working as a freelance writer, before starting an SEO company.

Others get into web design or web development. Even if you have a small firm, you can still work with corporations if you choose. Massive multinationals sub-contract smaller entities all the time.

If online work does not suit you, you can start to offer lower-budget landscaping, sell water on a markup at the beach, start selling hand-made goods, and so on. Some people have gotten rich by finding and selling truffles or taking up beekeeping.

Whatever you do, just start with an idea.

5. Don’t Neglect Either Aspect of a Functional Business

Nikola Tesla should have been a trillionaire. His inventions changed the destiny of humanity and brought an unquantifiable amount of wealth, safety, and comfort to billions of people.

Despite all of this, he was much poorer than he deserved to be. This man was a genius but a very poor businessman and marketer.

There are always two sides to any venture: the service or product itself and the business knowledge. You need to master both.

Of course, whatever your product is, it needs to be good enough that people want to buy it. But if you can’t manage supply lines, finances, logistics, marketing, hiring, planning, and development, your company cannot grow.

Always remember, no matter what you sell, you also must be a businessman.

Conclusion

As a student or fresh graduate, you will find that the real world is much different than what you were taught in college. You will play the market with your money and interact with real people.

Be as practical, analytical, and down-to-earth as possible. Business thoughts and theories are only as useful as their ability to predict reality. If your eyes and wallet tell you otherwise, discard any pre-learned path and just follow what works.

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