The Post-Standard - Rules for starting work haven't changed, author says
1 year, 5 months agoAuthor offers recent grads free coaching
Sunday, June 17, 2007
By Charley Hannagan, Staff writer
The Post-Standard
College students face more challenges than ever before in making the hyperspace jump from classroom to first jobs. Buzzt! Wrong, says Nicholas Aretakis, the author of "No More Ramen: The 20-something's Real World Survival Guide" (Next Stage Press, $14.95).
Students today face the same challenges of learning how to find a job, getting along with co-workers without acting like a jerk, and handling personal finances as their parents did, he said. The process of learning life's lessons is the same, he argues; it's just that this generation has so many choices it, clouds their ability to make decisions. Aretakis, 46, who lives in Saratoga Springs in the summer and Scottsdale, Ariz., the rest of the year, already has a successful career. He's traveled, started businesses and become a millionaire. As an executive, he mentored people and saw them making the same mistakes over and over again.
"I started chronicling over a five-year period all the things that I had seen, witnessing friends and family and people in the professional environment living paycheck to paycheck. Lacking any passion for their jobs, dreading work, complaining all the time, and I tried to think of what I could do to change that," he said.
After mentoring others, Aretakis realized that he'd make more of a mark if he could advise young adults before they developed bad habits. So he decided to write a book offering what is basically old-fashioned advice on how to get a job, keep it and live within your means.
He developed a 300-page outline of a book and then set up student focus groups at colleges large and small around the country. During the groups, Aretakis said he'd throw out a topic and let the students run with it. The book is full of their stories.
"My advice to young adults is: Everything you do personally and professionally, that's a big decision. Think ahead. Think at least three steps ahead," he said.
Aretakis, who graduated cum laude from Hobart and William Smith colleges in Geneva in 1983, also has set up summer internships in marketing paying $100 each. Students accepting the jobs must read the book, write a review and post it on three Web sites.
He also offers free coaching to anyone who asks, and is setting up a mentorship program at his alma mater, Aretakis said. His Web site is www.NoMoreRamenOnline.com.
One of the people he's coaching is Elizabeth Mudie, 23, the assistant director of annual giving at Hobart and William Smith. She graduated from St. Lawrence University last year and moved to Geneva to take the job at the colleges there.
Transitioning from student to worker those first six months wasn't easy, Mudie said, and Aretakis' book and his e-mail advice have helped.
"Its common-sense stuff that you figure out," she said. "You read it and you think, gee, we didn't learn that in college. We didn't have a course in budgeting. Maybe I shouldn't buy that skirt this month."
You can contact Charley Hannagan at 470-2161 or channagan@syracuse.com.
