Networking is too hard. I want something I can do today.

Two week ago my university held a business summit.  For those of you who don’t know what I mean by that, it’s a conference where a bunch of important businessy people come and tell everyone else how to be important and businessy too.  It doesn’t matter if you’re not majoring in business or trying to be a “businessperson.”  You’re trying to get a job, right?  You’re gonna be hired by a business, right?  Well then, you’re trying to be a businessperson.

Just because it’s cliché doesn’t mean it isn’t crucial: Practice make perfect.

Yeah, I know.  Your mom nagged you with this every day of your childhood.  The phrase plagued your piano-playing years and almost pushed you to quit band when you saw a poster championing it on the wall your first day of middle school.  Your coach screamed it at you as he forced you to repeat the same drill over and over and over again.  And now I’m here to preach it to you again.

Job searching stinks.

It went like this: I was out of school for the semester, back home in Boise.  And jobless.  Oh, sure, I looked.  There was nothing to be found.  I mean, a new Chili’s opened up there, and they got over 2,000 job applications.  And some of these people were the kinds with Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees.  Ph.D.’s, even.  Yeah, like I’m gonna get a job.