Recent college grads and young professionals, listen up: you’ve got 5-10 years. The labor market has been changing for a couple of decades and will continue in its trajectory. Today’s reality is that large companies are willing to pay you a decent wage for your first 5-10 years worth of work. After that, the gig is up.
Depending on your industry, after your first 5-10 years, you need to prove you’re worth real money. You can do that in one of two ways, depending on your personal strengths and weaknesses (be honest with yourself about them). The two choices are:
- Start your own firm
- Join an existing small firm where you can make a dramatic direct impact on the growth of the organization
There will be no other reliable options. There will always be other options, but they won’t be reliable. They are mirages held out by large companies to trick you into continuing to work for them until they lay you off. For example, you could try to get into mid-management and “climb the ladder.” Chances are high you will be laid off in that position long before you ever reach the executive ranks. There’s simply not enough “executive” positions to go around.
So knowing you have 5-10 years, you need to prepare today for that inevitable future. Whether you work for a non-profit, a law firm, a tech firm, or even in government, you need to figure out how you can successfully start your own firm or join an existing firm and be directly responsible for its growth. That’s the reality for our generation. If we embrace it, we can make it work for us.