Talking to Rick Haag about the Tahoma Film Academy made me think about my own days in high school and subsequent college education.

I have some acquaintances who landed jobs in the late 1980s, when apparently getting good grades in your classes was sufficient to land a respectable job.

All you needed was a bachelor’s degree on your resume and you could expect employment within a reasonable timeframe.

Sometimes, I felt like my high school classes were designed for that end.

A lot of them consisted of regurgitating information and parroting passages from the textbooks like the annoying WASP Harvard student from “Good Will Hunting.”

Unfortunately, those days are no longer the case. A college graduate should assume from the get-go that every job they apply for there are at least a hundred, if not 10 times more, applying for it as well.

In a modern world of intense job competition, jumping through the proverbial hoops isn’t adequate enough anymore to catch the eye of a potential employer.

A student has to learn applicable skills they will not only be able to implement in the workplace, but, also use as qualifications for a job.

As college costs are steadily rising, I believe the number of high school graduates continuing onto higher education will start to decline, which means a lot of students will need to be prepared for work out of high school which has not necessarily been the case recently.

Incidentally my video production teacher, who looked like Al Pacino and talked like Robert De Niro, taught me as many career skills as any college course I took.

Much of what I know about photography, video editing and story-telling I learned in that classroom. He was what you would call a pragmatist.

Aside from praising the Beatles and yelling at lazy students, he didn’t waste time talking about theory or pointless busywork.

The trouble is there were a lot of things I didn’t learn until the last year or so of college that would have aided me significantly when attempting to locate a job.

If you’re in high school right now or are about to graduate here are some suggestions.

• Think long term: Just because you don’t know exactly what you want to do with your life doesn’t mean you have to limit your options.

Go to job fairs and talk to people from different careers.

Create a resume, even if it’s rather short, and learn how to write cover letters.

Look at what you’re talented at and what career uses those talents. Don’t put off the inevitable until it’s inevitable.

• Learn an applicable skill: If possible, try to take classes which teach skills you can put down on a resume. For example, if you’re interested in becoming a photographer or film maker, take a video production class.

• Self-educate: If you can’t take a class or course, try to teach yourself. Buy textbooks or find someone who can teach it to you for free. Where you learned a skill is not as important as whether you know how to do it well.

• Educate yourself about a career: Ask individuals currently working in that field how they feel about their company, its downsides and advantages. Sometimes the best way to tell if a job is for you is to ask someone who is going through it already. Look up statistics on the employment rate for people who graduate with a certain degree or job and what the average salary is. If the supply is high and the demand low, you might want to try an alternative first.

• Network: Referrals aren’t just for doctors. Talk to people involved in a job field. Contact them, tell them what you’re interested in, and ask to meet with them. Create an account on sites like linkedin.com for business relationships. Additionally, build professional accounts on online sites so that if a potential employer is interested and they search your name on google they’ll find a future protege, not pictures of big mistakes from last Friday night on Facebook.

• Internships and work-related experience: Job experience is the most vital part of a resume, which makes internships all the more valuable. Call up companies you are interested in working for and ask them about their internship programs. Some of them are low pay and often thankless jobs, but they indicate to a company that you are willing to work hard and have a passion for what you do. If you’re too young or don’t land one, ask to do a job shadow and watch what the average day is like for an employee.