If someone forwarded you this email, feel free to subscribe below.

We source 20+ new early career jobs WITH SALARY ALWAYS, updated weekly below

Each week, I’ll answer your most burning career questions. Have a question? Ask me here.

Last night, I had the pleasure of sitting down with over 100 young people from all over the world in partnership with the Aspire Institute. We went through a series of activities focused on creating a one-year plan for your personal and professional lives.

Part of the activity is outlining the “dream” plan, the “back up” plan, and “plan b”. Someone asked this important question: are you doing yourself a disservice by creating a backup plan? Should you operate as if everything rides on achieving the ideal outcome?

There are a lot of ways to think about this question, but here are my thoughts:

The future is completely unpredictable. Something could fall apart, you could change your mind, circumstances can unexpectedly change. The best thing you can do for yourself is (1) always create multiple options for yourself (2) prioritize effectively, focusing on that “dream” scenario primarily and (3) give yourself permission to pivot as you need to!

It’s a fine balance, because to achieve big things, you have to throw a lot of weight and energy at it. But you also have to be ready to adapt as you need to!

This is also called Odyssey Planning in Human-Centered Design classes. If you want to do this reflection and planning exercise, check out this free resource here from Designing Your Life.

I’m having conversations with recruiters, hiring managers, and other talent decision-makers weekly, and want to share tidbits of what I’m learning with y’all here too! 

If you are in or looking to break into roles that are focused on client-facing work (e.g. account management, client services, sales, etc.), particularly at a smaller/fast-growing organization, it’s really important to be able to demonstrate that you can hit the ground running on day one.

This is one of the hardest hurdles of being early-career. Needing experience to get experience! My advice is to go after entry-level sales/client facing roles at big name companies that have a lot of structure to teach you, and putting in your reps for 1-2 years. Also, keep in mind that not all clients are the same! If you have your eye on a particular industry or company, be strategic about the kinds of clients you want to start learning the craft with.

For example, if you want to work for a cool SaaS startup that is going after big-name tech companies, try landing a job at another SaaS company that serves enterprise companies first!

This is also where networking and mentorship can be powerful. A lot of this may not be intuitive at first, and learning from those who have been in the field for a while can be very helpful!

Job searching is hard work. You deserve a break. Here’s how I took time to rest and recharge this week!

If you are in Texas, you know that we are finally getting pleasant evenings. If you haven’t had Zed’s in Austin yet, I highly recommend the ice cream and living by their signage.

📢 Chronically online and looking for an early-career online community for support and accountability?

As part of Forward’s Discord, you get first access to co-working sessions, career workshops, job postings, and more. All for free, always.

Thanks for showing up this week! We appreciate you. See y’all same time next week!