What are your top three reasons for accepting a job? For the USC Class of 2009 job content ranks number one followed by advancement opportunities, culture/people and then salary. Even in an economic downturn with the burden of significant loans, new graduates view the work itself as more important than compensation.

Why is job content #1 and advancement #2? Because most of us want to do something meaningful and if we do it well, we want to be recognized in some visible way. We want to succeed. And the culture/people selection is #3 because we want to be engaged, challenged and supported in the workplace.

You know what is important to you. You may look at the Class of 2009 list and not find one common element. But your list represents your individual values. When you go through the job search process you continually compare what you see to what you want. It is pretty simple and yet difficult.

It is flattering to be recruited by a potential employer. But it can be hard to get a sense of the culture in the brief time when you visit a location for an interview. An internship gives you an extended period of time to experience the ‘real world’ of the organization and is always the best option when you are trying to learn the work and the culture. When you experience a ‘culture clash’, you need to find another job.

For example, if you were involved in community service throughout your college career and your new job requires 70 hours a week, it may not be a match. If you are breaking out in hives on Sunday evenings in anticipation of Monday, time to move on. If the person who hired you and their boss just quit, observe the signals and revise your resume. And if your company leads the evening news with a federal indictment of the senior officers, you know what to do.

We want to work where we can be successful. When we find that place and contribute in a significant way the money will follow.

What are your plans for summer? Are you staying on campus for classes? Do you have plans to travel? Did you get the internship you wanted or are you working to pay your tuition? Or, are you still trying to figure out what to do with the next three months?

Here are a few of things you can do before the first week of the fall semester to move you closer to your dream job.

Make a list of five people you would like to meet to talk about your career plans. Don’t worry about titles; focus on what they know about the world of work in their field. Who can give you the best information about what you want to do? Sounds like a plan. But this is where most of us stop, so go ahead and contact each of the five and set a time to meet.

Turn off your computer and visit a library, a real one with books. Find the reference librarian and introduce yourself. Of all the resources you bring to your job search, the folks in the library can guide you to a multitude of materials that will help you with your research.

Come up with one skill that you know is important in your career field. Ask yourself what can you do this summer to develop this talent? Think transferable skills. It does not matter what you are doing, but what you acquire in the process. For example, if you are traveling are you progressing from conversational to fluent in a language? If you are taking a summer course, are you gaining a technical skill that will be required in your first job? If you are working part time will you be able to tell a prospective employer how you developed your marketing or customer service skills?

Summer is also a time for rest and relaxation. We all need to recharge. It is also a great time to get outside and exercise. Set a weekly schedule with time for fitness activities. It will be harder to break an exercise routine after three months and staying fit will minimize your stress as the semester begins.

And don’t forget to update your resume with all you accomplish this summer.

How do you summarize the academic year we have just completed? What are the words that capture the essence of our shared experience? Let me offer two: adapt and change.

For those of you who have interviewed for full time positions or internships, what were the words you used to describe your strengths? How many of you spoke of your ability to adjust, to be flexible? In the past, these may have been responses you parroted after reading a self help title like ‘How to Ace the Interview’. This year your ability to adapt to change was ‘real world’.

Last night CNN broadcast President Obama’s commencement speech to the Class of 2009 at Arizona State University. He concluded his remarks with the following:

“I know starting your careers in troubled times is a challenge. But it is also a privilege. Because it’s moments like these that force us to try harder, to dig deeper, and to discover gifts we never knew we had — to find the greatness that lies within each of us. So don’t ever shy away from that endeavor. Don’t stop adding to your body of work. I can promise that you will be the better for that continued effort, as will this nation that we all love.”

A privilege? Has the President snapped? No. We are in a time of change. Our only constant is change and we need to adapt and adjust. Maybe our GPS is not working right now. But, sometimes when we’re lost we find those talents previously hidden. Do we fear rejection and failure? Of course, we’re human. Just don’t use fear of failure as an excuse to avoid engaging with the workplace. You will fail. You will be rejected and the next morning the sun will come up and you will adapt.

Don’t stand on the sidelines observing, waiting for the economy to get better. Don’t postpone this unique opportunity to participate in a great experiment. Step out, take your place. You have a place and only you know where to find it. Embrace this privilege, and discover your gifts.

In a competitive job market we spend a lot of time crafting our resume. We seek out opportunities to build our vitae through internships, community service and organizational involvement. But does this piece of paper or electronic document represent who we really are?

In the final blog on commencement speeches, I have saved the best for last. In 1999, Anna Quindlen the former New York Times columnist, author and current Newsweek contributor was scheduled to be the commencement speaker at Villanova University. But she withdrew after opponents of abortion threatened to disrupt the ceremony. A disappointed student asked for a copy of the address. It was posted on the Internet and later expanded into a book called ‘A Short Guide to a Happy Life’.

Here is a short excerpt from the transcript:

“You walk out of here this afternoon with only one thing that no one else has. There will be hundreds of people out there with your same degree; there will be thousands of people doing what you want to do for a living. But you will be the only person alive who has sole custody of your life. Your particular life. Your entire life. Not just your life at a desk, or your life on a bus, or in a car, or at the computer. Not just the life of your minds, but the life of your heart. Not just your bank account, but your soul.

People don’t talk about the soul very much anymore. It’s so much easier to write a resume than to craft a spirit. But a resume is a cold comfort on a winter night, or when you’re sad, or broke, or lonely…

Here is my resume: I am a good mother to three children. I have tried never to let my profession stand in the way of being a good parent. I no longer consider myself the center of the universe. I show up. I listen, I try to laugh. I am a good friend to my husband. I have tried to make marriage vows mean what they say. I show up. I listen. I try to laugh. I am a good friend to my friends, and they to me. Without them, there would be nothing to say to you today, because I would be a cardboard cutout. But I call them on the phone, and I meet them for lunch. I show up. I listen. I try to laugh.

I would be rotten, or at best mediocre at my job, if those other things were not true. You cannot be really first rate at your work if your work is all you are.”

This afternoon take a few minutes to look at your finely crafted resume. And then fill in between the lines. What is truly important to you? Who do you want to become?

Each semester I ask students to name someone they view as successful. Often the answer is close to home, mom or dad. Other names mentioned include Oprah, Bill Gates and Steve Jobs.

On June 12, 2005 Steve Jobs delivered the commencement address to the graduating class at Stanford University. The title of his address was ‘You’ve got to find what you love.’

In the past year, the first for this blog, I have often received angry comments whenever I talk about seeking out your dream. Many are skeptical, more so in this economy. Add to that those who believe you can only be successful with a degree in business or engineering. Yes, those disciplines do lead to success if that is the path you choose. But for the majority there is no clear ‘yellow brick road’ that leads to a ‘perfect puddle’. So, you need to start with your dream. And Steve Jobs conveys this far more eloquently using three themes: connecting the dots, love and loss and death. This one is for all the liberal arts grads.

“I dropped out of Reed College after the first six months…I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life… The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn’t interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting….I decided to take a calligraphy class…I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science cannot quite capture, and I found it fascinating… None of this had even a hope for any practical application in my life…but ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts… Of course, it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later…. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something – your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.”

Take a few minutes to view the entire address on YouTube. You will see someone who is widely viewed as a success and you will come away with some ideas to help you begin to sketch that line connecting your dots.