Paul Graham wrote a great article I came across several weeks back that discusses hiring, particularly hiring recent college grads and “entry-level” employees.
http://www.paulgraham.com/hiring.html
This was of a great bit of interest to me, since I’m only a couple years removed from college myself. Within a few months of graduation I realized that there simply weren’t any jobs that I saw as desireable. I wanted to work in internet marketing, which had been the subject of my education as well as my two internships and also a great deal of independent study, but the dot-com bust combined with a lack of general “experience” made it difficult finding a job that I thought I’d like, much less one that paid well and enabled me to take on some higher-level strategic roles. Thus, I started my own firm and have been doing pretty well. My clients are happy, I’m happy, so far so good 🙂 I’ve even parlayed it into a solid position with a fairly large corporation where I now work part-time (and focus the other “part” of my time on my private business).
Owning my own business enabled me to learn and gain valuable skills and experience in just a couple years that would have taken much longer to acquire had I gone the typical “entry-level” path for recent college graduates. It really helped me bypass the early-career phase, which keeps things alot more interesting for me.
Great article Paul!