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Who says you have to be old before you start making the good money?
When I graduated college, I had 14 job offers, two of them for more than $100,000 a year. No, I didn’t go to a prestigious school like Harvard or Stanford. And no, I didn’t graduate with an advanced degree in law or medicine.
I had a bachelor’s degree in English Literature from The University of North Carolina at Charlotte. By all accounts, I should’ve been making only about $30,000 a year. Maybe less.
Instead, I took a job with a salary higher than most people achieve in their lifetimes. And I was only 21 years old.
Let me show you how I did it.
Start Building Your Résumé Early
Work experience. It’s a bitch, but employers want you to prove yourself before they hand over the big bucks. It can take a long time to convince them too — like a decade.
The trick to making a lot of money when you’re young is to start that decade as soon as possible. I started building my résumé at the age of 12, so when I graduated at 21, I had nine years of work experience.
I worked as a videogame designer for six years, eventually starting my own company at the age of 18 to build virtual-reality software that would teach people languages. After that, I got involved with the university, getting a job as the Chief of Staff of our Student Government Association. Then I started a campus radio station, run 24 hours a day by a staff of about 60 volunteers.
By the time I graduated, my résumé was already several pages long and accompanied by a stack of articles, newspaper clippings, and work examples. I also had five years of management experience. In other words, I had the résumé of a 31 year-old (or older) person.
Am I saying that you have to start working at the age of 12? No, but if you want a good job after college, you’d better have more on your résumé than three years of waiting tables at Denny’s. Start building relevant work experience as soon as possible.
Get Noticed by the Right People
Then again, work experience by itself isn’t enough. You need the right people to notice your talent and to believe in you.
Having a résumé like mine at the age of 21 was already enough to raise eyebrows, but my disability made me stand out even more. The advantage to being severely disabled is no one expects much of you, and when you do anything worth talking about, they think it’s amazing.
The combination of the things I was doing and my disability got me a lot of attention. I was frequently in the newspaper, and everyone from the janitors to the Chancellor knew me. Plus, I got to know dozens of local business owners by doing promotions with the radio station.
The point is, I got the attention of all of the right people. If you want to make a six-figure salary straight out of college, you want dozens of employers to be counting the days until you graduate, so they fall all over themselves trying to snatch you up.
Of course, they have to know who you are first. So spend some time networking within your industry while you’re in college. Volunteer to work for free, send press releases to local newspapers about your accomplishments, write articles for trade journals, and continually ask people to introduce you to others.
Get to know everybody and let them see your talent. Otherwise, you’ll just be another nameless graduate, entering the workforce with a horde of other nameless graduates, destined to fight for that same $32,000, entry-level job.
Forget about Doing What You Love for a While
When you’re in college, everyone from your parents to your professors to career advisors give you the same career advice: “Do what you love.”
In my opinion, that’s just stupid.
You didn’t go to college to find fulfillment. You went so that you could get a well-paying job. Plus, you’re barely out of adolescence. How are you supposed to have any idea what career is going to fulfill you?
I went to school to become an English teacher. After graduating, I even got a job offer from a local high school to start teaching… for a grand total of $28,000 per year. I’m sure I would’ve loved it, but I’m also sure I would’ve been miserable. I’m not the type of person that enjoys poverty.
Instead, I took a job in real estate development. I never really enjoyed the work, but it helped me to buy the lifestyle that I did enjoy. It’s also allowed me to retire at the age of 25 and do exactly what I want to do: write this blog post.
If you want my advice, forget about fulfillment for a while. Get out there and make some money. You can always experiment with other careers later, and it’s a lot easier to make the transition if you’ve got a decent bankroll.
In the future, I’m going to write a lot more about this, but for now, we can boil it down to this: if you get a six-figure job offer, accept it for gods sake.
Enough about Me. Let’s Talk about You.
So far on this blog, I’ve written a lot of theory about how to make more money. I also wanted to take a post and introduce you to a little of my history. If you’re going to start reading a new blog, knowing a little about the author sure helps. That, and I love to brag.
But this blog isn’t about me. It’s about you. In upcoming posts, I’m going to fill your head with all sorts of tips that will help you make more money. Since it’s the biggest source of income for most people, we’re going to start with how to make more money in your career.
I highly recommend you stick around for it. If you haven’t already, subscribe now.
November 6th, 2007 at 2:17 pm
Great story, Jon. I wish I had the presence of mind back then to do many of those things. Like with many people, there was a huge disconnect between what I thought I wanted and what I was truly accomplishing.
This just became my favorite new blog.
November 6th, 2007 at 4:30 pm
Thanks, Michael! Great to see you here.
November 8th, 2007 at 3:28 am
I didn’t make the money you did on leaving, and I am nowhere near retiring (not sure I ever will) but I dropped out of school at 15
Having said that, I do love what I do now
November 8th, 2007 at 6:43 am
In my opinion, there’s nothing wrong with dropping out of school, especially if you’re doing it to pursue something that doesn’t require a degree.
And that’s coming from a guy that graduated magna cum laude and loved every minute of school
November 22nd, 2007 at 5:04 am
For me, to get rich in working it’s more like become A player in the most profitable market you can be.
No point wasting your time to become A player if you in the SHIT market.
December 4th, 2007 at 9:31 am
I like your point about forgetting about doing what you love for a while. That’s an excellent piece of advice. The best time to make money is when you’re young, single, and energetic. The money that you earn will eventually open up doors so that you have more flexibility to pursue what you love…
December 4th, 2007 at 11:51 am
I agree with you Jon. I wish I would of spent more times networking. I graduated with a 3.75, I held some leadership positions and belonged to a fraternity but now I realize that my work experience and connections I made in college are really the most important things. I really like your blog and what you have to say, so today I subscribed. Thanks and keep it up.
January 5th, 2008 at 3:00 am
Great Job Jon. Many people wait until they are late in life before they reach the insights that you did. Congrats on a job well done.
Megan Vaillancourt
http://www.PassportMentors.com
June 1st, 2008 at 2:08 pm
Grats on being a sell out. You should be proud!
June 10th, 2008 at 5:07 am
dude this really impreses me. am afinal year bio-medical engn student and made some cute network during my internship duration and thank God the guys are calling me day in day out with hot job pledges.
June 14th, 2008 at 2:31 pm
Sounds like a load of bull to me sorry ive just turned 18 and am about to go to uni I am from a middle class … everyone likes talking about them selves sounds like you’ve taken this a tad too far perhaps to the realms of fantasy. I could be completely wrong of course but from the little physiology I do no people whose lives are unfulfilled are more likely to go on the internet and create a persona of somebody that they dream to be or someone they think that they could have been. If it is true I a am deeply sorry for doubting you and would like to congratulate you on your success and also thank you for sharing your wealth of experience with us mere mortals. However I would like to add my 5 cents and remind everyone looking at your blog that there is soooo much more to life than money friends family to name a few, living your life attempting to grab the impossible is no way to live ones life even if you are able to ascertain your goals where will you be? Prehaps trying to find people to preach to online? However cruel I have seen forgive me and prove to me that the way that I want to live my life is wrong which is the fullest!
June 23rd, 2008 at 8:06 am
Ok, I would have felt a lot better, having read this article in the age of 12 and not 23; today. But then again let’s take at look at the virtues that bring high salaries. Merely statistics. I haven’t met anyone that I envy them for their salary that worked before 22. NONE! On the other hand, these highly paid people are usually the soul of the party. Social skills? Yes, indeed, but it’s more that that. The most highly-paid employees are the ones who pass on their responsibility to others, as for the bosses? If you not organized at all, never pushed yourself for perfection, never listened to any advice and don’t give a shit about rational deadlines then, my dears, you got all the virtues that make you a boss! I shall add to that, a little lack of morality, decisions based on instinct rather than logic and a thrust for the innovative/weird. And that is mathematically proved.
June 23rd, 2008 at 6:58 pm
DUDE…tell me how you got started on this real estate development job, i want to save up to open up a non-profit…please email me and tell me how to start!
July 4th, 2008 at 1:52 am
It’s a great life-story, but I don’t think that you are really “retirred” from doing money and- why not-working.
Personaly I enjoy doing what I like very much, but I can’t imagine myself doing theese things al day long, for the rest of my life. I think a greater purpose must be involved here to realy bring you the satisfaction in life.
I think this is just a faze of your life, this “retirement” thing. Eventualy you will feel the need to do something usefull in life, for you and for others as well, even when you have enought money.(sorry for my english, I haven’t practiced it for a long time :))