It’s an interesting time to be young these days.

On one side, you have a bazillion of opportunities to earn money in ways that weren’t remotely possible 20 (or even 10 years ago).

Want to be an influencer? Don’t love it, but you can be one.

Creating your own money? You can do that, just launch your coin.

Work for a company on the other side of the planet? You can do that. 

On the other side, today is extremely hard to be average.

The old concept of “job” has changed, and all around the world, the average wages for a regular job didn’t exactly ramp up, if compared to the productivity boost that we have.

Source: https://www.epi.org/productivity-pay-gap/

Covid may change this a bit, but it will take a lot of time to close this gap.

We are in this situation where you have opportunities everywhere, but the ability to find and use them to your own advantage is becoming rarer and rarer.

Or, if you want to put it another way, the world is becoming more unequal as we speak.

How can a young person (from 18 to 24, give or take) get the best out of it?

Here are 2 strategies that worked for me and some other people I had the pleasure to meet.

But before starting...let me make some assumptions.

Writing on the internet in English, I have no idea where the readers will be located.

And where you live can (still) make a difference in finding a job.

So, this article will help you if:

- You have decent access to an internet connection

- You speak English at a decent level

- You live in a country that is not plagued by war, hyperinflation, or other horrible shit.

For number 3, the only thing you can do is get the hell out of there. Tactical advice won’t do.

Are you in this lucky group?

Great, let’s start!

1. Get a job! Now!

The biggest mistake I made when I started when I finished university (actually, during it) was not to get a job straight away.

I was getting some money helping people with classes or teaching chess, but it wasn’t really a lot and I never had a boring office job or as a server/customer representative.

When I got my first real job, the impact was harsh.

I couldn’t get adjusted to sitting in an office for 8 hours a day, doing boring data entry tasks over and over again.

I couldn’t see the point of it and, if I knew that would be the life that university (economics, btw) prepared me for, I would have spent more time trying to find something way more interesting.

Eventually, I managed, but it took years and up to this day, I regret not having discovered sooner that I wasn’t cut for an office job.

That is the main reason you should get a job early on.

Not a great one. If you don’t like it at first, it may be even a bonus.

When you do this, two things can happen:

1. You make 100% sure you hate this lifestyle and you get an extra motivation boost to think more strategically at your career goals and to work harder to get them.

2. You may realize that is not even that bad.

And it’s ok not to jump straight away into the career path of your dreams.

Even the most stupid jobs can give you some bits of experience you can get somewhere else.

The data entry monkey job gave me a chance to see office dynamics at work.

And they are way more important than the actual job done if you want to get promoted in a corporation.

Working as a waiter/customer representative, you will learn how to sell and to deal with assholes.

Two of the most underrated skills in today’s world can multiply your bank account if used in the right sectors.

For more on this topic and if you have some money to invest in yourself, I recommend this great book from Cal Newport: "So good they can't ignore you"  (disclaimer: this one is an Amazon affiliate link, but feel free to get it anywhere you want).

Now, I want to go into something a bit more controversial.

2. How about working for free?

I know, I know.

The internet is full of horror stories of people paying peanuts, or even worse, nothing, to do horrible jobs.

To be clear, I do NOT endorse any of this. It is disgusting, and the equivalent of modern slavery.

I do believe that any type of job, even the simplest one, should be paid. And paid enough to guarantee the worker the chance to live a life with dignity.

So, why working for free should be an option if you are young?

Well, you probably don’t have a big family to take care of. You can still live at your parents’ or crush at some friends’.

So, you are in a position that allows you to earn a small amount of money (or none) and still be ok with it.

This is a tremendous advantage that you can leverage to take control of two other underrated resources when we think about our careers: time and attention.

Basically, you can devote time to work on projects you are passionate about and do your best to improve at them without the pressure of making money NOW.

This is what I mean to work for free.

This post? It is kind of free job (yes, I could get rewards in crypto, but it is a long shot to call it “paid”).

The developer who writes and shares cool projects on GitHub? He is working for free.

When money is not a relevant factor, you can focus on strategically learning new stuff that will give you a much better career later on.

And, sometimes, you can even work for free for somebody, as long as you make clear that you are there to learn everything you can and you would like to have some guidance.

Let’s put it this way.

Would you prefer to be paid the minimum wage for food delivery or work for free for three months with an entrepreneur you really admire?

Option 1 will give you money now, but option 2 might change your entire life.

Plus, three months is a reasonable time to make a bet and see how things are working out.

These are the main two pieces of advice that I would have loved to hear when I started out.

There are a few more topics that could be interesting (for example, should you get a degree or not?) but I will keep them for another post or this one will be never-ending.

Thank you for your attention, your time, and stay awesome, wherever you are!