So, your only objective for now is to pick a ladder and scramble on to the bottom rung. After that it's up to you to decide when to climb to the next step, or even jump off on to a different ladder. But be prepared for the setbacks when they inevitably come (most career ladders come entwined with their own set of snakes). I was made redundant on numerous occasions but, looking back, I realise those redundancies all became opportunities. They made me identify what I'd learnt. I could then move on and start afresh. Be prepared to do that at every step of the way – I'm still doing it 35 years later.
The first lesson is: don't be too proud to accept help, advice, or a leg-up from anyone. Despite your 17 years of education, you don't necessarily know much that's demonstrably of much use to a potential employer – so exploit any that you do know. My first job came via my prospective father-in-law, your grandad, who doubtless regarded with deep suspicion the spotty young drama student who'd managed to seduce his daughter (not much has changed there).
In order to ensure that she might continue to be kept in the style to which he'd accustomed her, he arranged a job for me in an advertising agency, sorting out their film library. I wasn't very good at it, but my boss was sympathetic and gave me time off to go for interviews with production companies who were generally good enough to see me and explain they had no vacancies. But one left the door ajar, and several months later, just as I'd become resigned to working as a hospital filing clerk, they came through and offered me a job as a runner. From that job I found the next, which led to the next, and so on.
Lesson two is that you never know which experience is going to come in useful further down the road, so it's crucial to be open to everything. I was hired at ATV as a trainee assistant editor because a year earlier, still working as a runner, I'd volunteered to help out on a low-budget documentary, a personal project for one of the ad directors. It turned out that I had just the experience ATV were looking for and it led to two years of proper training and an introduction to my next boss (until we were both, inevitably, made redundant). Remember that all kinds of experience can help to make you more employable.
Lesson three (I have barely learnt this even now) is more obvious: if you don't ask you don't get. In the mid-Eighties I'd begun to concentrate on sound editing as a part of my job as an assistant editor. When a friend, recently graduated from the National Film School, mentioned she was looking for a sound editor on a television drama series, I managed to pluck up the nerve, late one evening as I left a dinner party, to ask if she'd consider me as her sound editor. It was excruciating, but it turned out to be one of those pivotal moments. I put my heart and soul into the job, working seven days a week for months, and it led to more than a decade at the top of that particular ladder. I made a similarly huge career jump a few years later by flying to Philadelphia to confront the producer of a Bruce Willis film with the same suggestion (again successfully), but in general I have not done it enough.
Don't make that mistake. Value what you do and be aware of your skills. Don't ever undersell yourself.
I can't say I enjoyed my time as a runner much, nor the tedium of the following years before I arrived at a stage where I felt I was making the decisions, but I never doubted for a moment that I was in the right place. Along the way I have seen lots of young people give up because their heart isn't really in it. They don't like the hours, the unpredictable weekends, the initial lack of reward or respect. They can't understand that it's meant to be tough at the bottom. Once people start making you tea, and others consult you on creative decisions, you'll realise it's been worth it.
You're just starting out and are entitled to make your own mistakes – in fact, you will learn more from them than you will do when you manage to get it right first time.
You have more strings to your bow that you probably realise, so play to your strengths. Those 17 years of education weren't wasted after all – languages, music, travel, performance skills and a good facility with the English language. Remember you've got a good mind, so don't be afraid of using it.
Then go with the flow and for as long as it takes. With a bit of luck, a lot of hard work and some long hours you'll get there – wherever "there" ends up being.
But always remember the most important thing: you will need to earn enough to support your loving parents in their old age!
Wishing you the very best of luck,
Love Dad xxx
Source : http://telegraph.feedsportal.com/c/32726/f/564649/s/2d58e0f7/l/0L0Stelegraph0O0Ceducation0Cuniversityeducation0C10A1178760CFathers0EDay0Ecareers0Eadvice0Efrom0Ea0Eprehistoric0Efather0Bhtml/story01.htm