055. 3 Skills College Didn't Teach Me

As some of you may know I’ve been transitioning into speaking in the college circuits and as I have been developing and sharing more and more content in the college market, I thought how can I add more value to what I’m teaching and I thought well if I could give advice to my college self what would I say? And I came up with 3 tips I wish I would have known in my early 20-somethings that I didn’t learn during college.

First up is Personal money management

Now I’m a business major so I had plenty of finance and accounting classes and probably retained way more about statistically analysis than I needed to thanks to Dr. Shipley and Meadows but college didn’t prepare me for adulting and basic money management 101, right?! I think it is essential to learn early on how to keep out of debt, or at least manage your debt and live within your means by spending less than what you earn. Some great resources for personal money management are the Budgetnista Ms. Tiffany herself and the Finance Bar.

Second is the Art of Negotiation

One thing I’ve learned through the years and that people often hear me say all the time is everything is negotiable. There is an art and science to negotiating practically everything in society. It’s all about convincing or showcase your ideas or value in a manner that gets you what you want. I had a client who had an interview and the hiring official offered her and interview but stated the salary for the position was not negotiable and I told her exactly what to say at the interview and before accepting her job offer to get a higher salary. So don’t believe the hype and start negotiating on your own terms.

Networking

And last but not least, one skill college didn’t teach me that I wish I had learned sooner is networking. How to network, the power of networking and what to do, what to say and how to build constructive relationships with people. Networking is a skill that can lead to landing more job offers or building partnership that catapult your success. When it comes to landing job offers, networking is the most successful practice to landing higher paying jobs. Just to put that into perspective consider that 80 percent of jobs are not advertised online. And for many people, their entire job search is conducted online, which means you are only accessing 20 percent of the jobs that are possible for you. So learn to take your job hunt offline and start networking.

So there you have it! Those are the 3 skills college didn’t teach me that I wish I would have known in my early 20s. Now I want to know what skills you wish you would have known, so share your thoughts in the comments below! I want to know what you wish you would have known in college!