Recently I was asked to address the graduating honors class at Lake Erie College. I shared some good news while I was there: that the job prospects for the country’s 1.6 million college graduates are reportedly the best they have been in three years and that job growth is stronger this year than last in nearly every industry sector.
This is encouraging news. But they are still joining a pool of 14 million unemployed Americans, including experienced professionals in midcareer changes and graduates from two and three years ago. Regardless of the slight uptick in the job market, my message to this year’s graduates remains unchanged: be innovative. Innovative thinking will be vital to the more than 50 percent of graduating seniors who have indicated that someday they’d like to start a business. I find this particularly encouraging as a member of the National Advisory Council for Innovation and Entrepreneurship. The Council advises the Obama administration on ways to foster entrepreneurship. It’s work that is critical to our country’s future, as the creation and growth of new and young companies is the only way our country is going to be able to generate the new jobs we need in order to reach full employment by the year 2020.
Even if college graduates don’t start their own firms, it seems like they’re more likely than ever to put their skills to use at a young, venture-backed company. Last month private sector hiring grew at an incredible pace, while a U.S. Labor Department survey conducted earlier in the year revealed that 83 percent of venture-backed startups are likely to hire in 2011. Google and Facebook, two companies that always seem to be hiring, are perfect examples of this.
These high-tech startups make good use of newly-graduated talent who were born using technology. And those fledgling companies give bright young workers career-building experience and sometimes equity ownership as compensation for salaries that might not compete with big businesses and long hours.
Students who do end up taking positions at a big business will find that those large, established corporations are taking cues from startups as a result of an ever-changing, global economy. Fast Company’s 2011 list of the world’s 50 most innovative companies includes established firms like Intel, Nike, IBM, Pepsico and GE. These firms are taking on change and acting more entrepreneurial by gaining insight into customer needs and developing a deep understanding of emerging technologies that have the potential to disrupt entire markets. According to SimplyHired, the top occupations by job openings include innovation-based careers, such as computer engineers and programmers, general engineers, and scientists.
Big businesses like 3M, Toyota, P&G, and Samsung are also leveraging existing product platforms to create new products and developing new capabilities to deliver cutting-edge technologies. These companies, just like any startup, need driven, creative self-starters. They need people with ideas who can identify unconventional opportunities and employees who are willing to change as the market changes.
When President Obama visited Northeast Ohio earlier this year to talk about entrepreneurship, he told us that the nation has something to learn from our region because in reinventing itself, it was “thinking creatively.” That is the best advice I could give any graduate or really any person at any stage of their career– think creatively. It seems simple, but it is so important to think innovatively, whether you’re running your own business or contributing to the largest corporation in the world.
Ray Leach is CEO of JumpStart and brings his energy and leadership experiences from founding five high growth entrepreneurial and intrapreneurial endeavors in the last 20 years. Ray is a Sloan Fellow and earned an MBA from the MIT Sloan School of Management. He also earned a BA in Finance from the University of Akron.