30 in 30: Read the News to Find Your Passion

One of the greatest struggles of the job-hunt is staring into the existential void marked "The rest of my life." While one approach to figuring out what you want to do with your life involves Peyote and vision quests in the Wyoming wilderness, career expert Lindsey Pollak offers a far more practical approach in her book Getting From College to Career: start picking up the paper each morning and see which section you gravitate toward. Do you hone in on the front page or flip straight to the arts section? Are you more interested in the stock prices or the box scores? It seems kind of silly but it makes sense. As a whole, a good newspaper provides a representative swath of what's going on in the world. Whatever you find most interesting is probably where you should focus your efforts.

Looking for a job in the new year? Be sure to stay on top of all the essential job-hunting tips from Gradspot's new series, 30 in 30: The Insider's Guide to Job-Hunting in '09. If you'd like to share your own tips with the Gradspot community, email 30in30 [at] gradspot [dot] com with your tip, your occupation/industry of interest, and your name as you'd like it to appear on the site.