Hustle!

Yes, times are bad. Your career may take some detours, but don’t give up! In fact, graduates in the Great Recession who hustled were able to get back on track once the economy turned up. Here are a couple recent LinkedIn posts who underscore this point.

• A 2010 George Mason law grad tells the story of how she got her job after the Great Recession. (In a nutshell, she nicely asked alums to meet for coffee without asking for a job.) 
• An Amazon product manager explains how he learned to interview to get to where he is when in 2014 he was working at Best Buy for$12 an hour, “and I’m no smarter than anyone else!” (In a nutshell, put in the time to learn the tactics – watch videos, do mock interviews, read about people on the inside). 

These anecdotes line up to what I’ve seen, that people who work extra hard will turn out ok. And science bears this out as well. Angela Duckworth, a Penn professor and an expert in resilience, recently said to job seekers when asked for advice: “You just have to massively hustle!” (more specifically, set goals, aim high, but be open, and always learn).