Congratulations, class of 2011! The job market greeting you is finally perking up. According to the National Association of Colleges and Employers, companies plan to hire 19.3% more graduates this spring than last year.  By Sam Ward, USA TODAY  Nonetheless, few recruiters are flashing the grins that they did in 1999. So what's an ambitious graduate to do? If you want a normal job, keep sending your life story to hr@bigcompany.com inboxes. But if you have more creative aspirations, here's another idea: Crowdfund your first job. You could learn better business skills than you will doing anything else.  In addition to its own editorials, USA TODAY publishes a variety of opinions from outside writers. On political and policy matters, we publish opinions from across the political spectrum.  Roughly half of our columns come from our Board of Contributors, a group whose interests range from education to religion to sports to the economy. Their charge is to chronicle American culture by telling the stories, large and small, that collectively make us what we are.  We also publish weekly columns by Al Neuharth, USA TODAY's founder, and DeWayne Wickham, who writes primarily on matters of race but on other subjects as well. That leaves plenty of room for other views from across the nation by well-known and lesser-known names alike.  "Crowdfunding" means pooling resources from a network of people for a project. Think fans — rather than a record label — sponsoring a rock band's tour in exchange for tickets and T-shirts. Or readers — rather than a publisher — paying an author to commission a new book, in exchange for autographed copies and listings in the acknowledgments.  It's a new field, but growing rapidly. Kickstarter, launched in 2009, allows any creative type to post a project online and ask friends, family and strangers for token funds (usually $25-$100 apiece) in exchange for rewards. Two years later, it has raised $40 million for roughly 7,500 projects. Other websites such as RocketHub, IndieGoGo and PeerBackers have also enabled thousands of people to raise modest sums (roughly $2,000-$10,000 per project) for everything from documentaries to books to an artisanal baker pledging a birthday cake for life to anyone giving $500 or more to defray her business start-up costs.  The payoff, and the draw  People back projects for many reasons: to help a friend, because $25 isn't much for a DVD where you're thanked in the credits, or because people are "starting to see it as a discovery tool, a way to find people and find talent on the cusp that is emerging," says Vladimir Vukicevic, co-founder of RocketHub. Plus, backers are drawn by "the ability to make an impact" — that $25 can help create something that otherwise wouldn't exist.  Rather than sitting in endless meetings, or in addition to them, you, too, could dream up a one-month to six-month project, figure out what it costs, and work your network to see whether you can get folks to bite. Sure, it sounds "out there", but here's why I think crowdfunding your first gig out of school will teach you skills that a first job creating spreadsheets might not:  First, you'll ponder what you're passionate about — what you'd put yourself out there to promote. Soul searching "before the job search is the critical step most people miss," says Maggie Mistal, career coach and host of Making a Living with Maggie on Martha Stewart Living Radio. An out-there project (like recent Savannah College of Art & Design grad Jo Arellanes' request for $7,000 on RocketHub to finance a photojournalism essay on post-tsunami Japan) enables you "to gain experience utilizing your unique gifts, talents and the skills you want to be known for," Mistal says.  Often, grads start their careers with obvious job titles at big employers that recruit on campuses. They then spend years switching jobs and spending big bucks on grad school trying to transition into work they love. Why not start there?  Second, you'll learn to think in terms of gigs, not positions. Almost no one has a job for life anymore. Better to start thinking of your career as a series of projects where you accomplish something concrete — such as producing an album setting old hymn texts to new music (as a musician named Karl Digerness recently raised $6,500-plus for on IndieGoGo) — and then leverage that into other things.  Says Arellanes of her proposed Japan photos, "I want this project to become the corner stone of my portfolio — something that gives legitimacy to my name. I would be an asset that people would want to work with. Simple as that." Maybe such a portfolio will lead to a long-term creative job, or to more short-term projects. Either way it's a start.  Third, you'll learn to ask, "Why would anyone pay me to do this?" Plenty of job-seekers don't grasp that jobs exist because an employer expects the employee to produce more value than she costs. People don't usually back crowdfunded projects for equity stakes (it runs afoul of complicated SEC regulations) but most of us don't like burning money either. If you're asking friends and friends of friends for cash, you'll produce a good answer to, "What's in it for me?" The millions of dollars raised through crowdfunding sites suggest that people are getting better at answering that question.  What better time to take a risk?  Not every idea posted at a site such as RocketHub gets funded, but not every qualified graduate lands a great job immediately, either. Unlike the job market, the crowdfunding world is expanding; Vukicevic reports that traffic and total money committed at his site are growing by 30%-40% per month.  Regardless, graduation is a great time to learn that life is all about taking risks. There is always time to find a more traditional job later. Why not try something fun first?  From a standpoint of asking what you have to lose, at age 22, you have less at risk than you might ever again. If you're struggling in the job market, crowdfunding a creative or entrepreneurial project could be worth a shot.  Laura Vanderkam, author of 168 Hours: You Have More Time Than You Think (http://www.my168hours.com/, out in paperback May 31) is a member of USA TODAY's Board of Contributors.  , visit our FAQ's. To report corrections and clarifications, contact Standards Editor  . For publication consideration in the newspaper, send comments to  . Include name, phone number, city and state for verification. To view our corrections, go to  We've updated the Conversation Guidelines. Changes include a brief review of the moderation process and an explanation on how to use the "Report Abuse" button.
Facing a sickly employment market, fresh-faced job-seekers can create their own work while getting others to pay the way.