I am 24 and I for the most part disagree with your advice. I completely agree you can learn an incredible amount by working for yourself and by collaborating with others. You learn a lot about yourself and the valuable skill that is being a self-starter. Also, given the low barriers to entry, this in now as easy as ever.

Where I disagree with you, is your statement regarding “not entering big business because you will spend the first 5-8 years taking on the bad habits of your managers.” Now, this assumes your manager is terrible, and not inspirational. While there are tons of worthless, go-with-the-flow managers in the work force, there are tons of managers who want to teach and inspire the people that work for them.

At the same time, I think it is very important for young employees to think and be aware of their environments. DO NOT BE A DRONE. How can they even know what a good manager is without understanding what a bad manager is? This translates to starting your own company, how can someone know how they want to run their company without having something to base it on. I have worked at a major advertising agency and currently work at a major media company and at the same time I want to be an entrepreneur. I know that my experiences will be valuable in shaping the company I want to run and how I want to run it.

I think the solution is both; starting your career at a huge company and having the fortitude to think outside the hours of 9-5. It does not need to be one or the other. Employees should have a Google Reader account with dozens of industry feeds to understand what is taking place in their industry outside of the company walls. They should be constantly be brainstorming ideas and working with peers with similar interests. Finally, when they have a substantial idea or a business with the groundwork laid (during their free time), they can make an educated decision to leave the company to become a full time entrepreneur. Don’t burn bridges, and if it doesn’t pan out, you have a place (MAYBE! And if that place doesn’t exist given everything happening right now, you have made some good contacts) to come back to.

Unless you are an entrepreneurial wunderkind, I think experience is the most important thing. Sorry for the long response but this kinda struck a cord with me.

Credibility is another issue. Companies are laying off longtime workers left and right, and many of those newly jobless professionals are becoming freelancers. It will be tough for recent graduates with minimal experience to compete against their resumes.

Thanks for your comment. Much appreciated.

I do think you base your recommendations on what has gone before. I don’t think there are going to be that many ‘big’ companies in the future and those that are around will outsource much of their work to suppliers, partners, freelancers and permalancers.

P

I’ve freelanced and I’ve worked for big companies, and the truth is that they’re strikingly different learning experiences. Young people should be looking for opportunities to do both.

Working in a corporate job is what you make of it, but it gives you the opportunity to work on bigger projects with more money. It gets you in doors that otherwise you’d have to work an extra seven years to open. Working freelance is also great (except for the no health insurance bit and the fact that most young people will make less money this way because they can’t yet command a price that would make up for how much more time it takes for them to chase freelance work down). Working freelance teaches you how to do things without any money and without anyone looking over your shoulder.

Advocating freelance work for kids just getting out of college is a survival strategy, but not necessarily a career strategy. You can freelance all you want, but graduating from college doesn’t mean you don’t have anything left to learn. You can learn a lot from a big company, and you can learn it faster than via trial and error. So while it may not be for everyone, working for a big company can be invaluable to many people, and it seems unwise to simply spit on that kind of goal.

Last month I was speaking to a Journalism class at UGA. Told them that my freshman year (1983) a sociology professor advised us we’d work for at least 11 different companies in our careers. At the time, my grandfathers had each worked at one, and my father three. The students all were laughing at that idea. Guess what. Most of my cohorts are already above 11. During my remarks, I suggested to the students that it was very possible they might only work for one company during their careers – their own – and told them to get started now.