Career Advice I Would Give Myself As a Young Professional

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6 years ago

Congrats! You just got your first job! You’ve worked so hard in school, and to prepare countless resumes and interview responses. And, finally, it has all paid off! This is such an exciting moment and one of which you should be very proud. But, now that you got the job…how do you be successful? The working world is very different from the school environment. Reflecting on the decade(s) since I started my first job, I really wish I knew a few key pieces of career advice about how to succeed in the workforce.

Career Advice I Would Give Myself As a New Professional

1. Be Pleasant

Especially when you are new, you will need the help and guidance of others. In this situation, you want to be someone who is pleasant to work with. In fact, I don’t think I’m the only manager who would prefer a nice, but slightly less competent person over someone who is exceptionally competent but difficult and rude.

If you’re nice to be around, people will include you more, take more time to explain something, or proactively reach out and help. You’ll also be more likely to get the benefit of the doubt if something doesn’t go as planned.

How you show up everyday impacts where you are years later. I will go out of my to help nice people, and actively avoid the mean ones. Which one would you prefer your leader do, and what are the implications for your career?

How can you be pleasant?

It’s quite simple, perhaps the most simple of any career advice I’ve ever given. Say your “pleases” and “thank you’s.” Ask about someone’s weekend or vacation. Tell them you liked their presentation. Bring them back a water bottle when you get one from the vending machine. Bake cookies once in a while and bring them in. Don’t you want to work with the person who brings baked goods?!

This doesn’t have to be burdensome. Simply be someone others want to work with.

2. Listen to Feedback

Over the course of your career — especially when you’re starting out — you will get a lot of feedback on your performance. Take it. Listen to what the feedback is, say thank you, and ask a lot of questions like:

What does good look like?
Who does this well that I could use as an example?
How will I know when I do this well?

When you’re just starting out, you may get a lot of input on what you are doing and how you are doing it. That information is power!

Doesn’t getting a lot of feedback mean I’m messing up?

When you are new, there is a lot to learn and, so, you may make a misstep or two along the way. Everyone has. In the end, learn from it and move on. Everyone will take note of your maturity.

As long as you stay positive about it and see it as an opportunity, I wouldn’t get overly worried; you are improving your skills and performance.

If you are preparing for potentially negative feedback, check out this post: How to handle a bad review.

3. You Know More Thank You Think

Even though you are new and learning a lot, you still know more than you think. While you may not be able to work entirely independently, you can probably do more on your own than you think.

If someone asks you to do something that you haven’t done before, do not say, “I don’t know how to do that.” That may worry or frustrate your colleague.

Instead, consider saying something like, “Since this is a new area for me, how about I take a stab this afternoon and share it with you in the morning.”

Why is this a better approach?

By taking initiative to try without guidance, you are testing yourself and pushing yourself to be independent. You will also benefit from flexing your own mind on something, before a more experienced person helps.

At the same time, you aren’t pretending that you know everything, and working independently for so long that you risk having something go way off track. Just a short duration of time where you push it forward yourself, then you get input.

Your colleagues will appreciate this since they don’t feel like they have to teach you every little thing…just a few things that your initial effort did not yield.

In the end, you will learn more and be more productive!

4. Take the Long View on Your Career Development

It’s great to know early on that you want to be the Marketing Director (or CEO, or VP, or Head of Finance, etc). If you have high ambitions for your career, I would caution you about being overly obsessed with it. Do not overreact if you miss out on a promotion, or don’t get the career advancement as fast as you think you deserve it.

I’ve seen many, many colleagues burn bridges from thinking they were owed a promotion (How to Overcome the 5 Biggest Career Killers). If you listen to any of my career advice, you will know I caution against entitlement.

Your reaction to those disappointments will absolutely dictate your career trajectory. At the same time, I’ve seen people whose poise and grace — despite their disappointment — worked out for them; in the end, their maturity was noticed and they got the next promotion.

So, if you miss out once, then hope for the next time. Know where you want to go, but be flexible on how you get there. You may miss out on being promoted to front line manager, but then more quickly to a leadership position.

Take the long view. Be patient and mature. That will be noticed and rewarded.

5. Don’t Fear Mistakes

A lot of high performing students are used to getting straight A’s (I should know, I was one of them!). Then, they get to the workforce and expect to get kudos and applause on every assignment. Unfortunately, it doesn’t go that way at work; there isn’t didactic instruction on which you get tested at work (at least not usually).

As a result, a lot of new employees fear to make mistakes; it is not an “A.” This can drive a lot of undesirable behaviors, including working too hard, not taking on challenging assignments, or covering things up.

Once you start working, you don’t get grades. Some work will be “A” some a “C,” and that is totally fine! Some things don’t warrant the effort to get an “A.” In fact, I’ll tell my employees they should do “C” work because more effort to make it perfect isn’t warranted; it’s not a bad grade for some type of assignments.

As a new professional, you need to get comfortable not being perfect. And, when you don’t meet a goal, you need to pick yourself up and move on. Mistakes are inevitable. Learn from them, and move on.

Back in ancient times, when I was just starting out as a professional, I didn’t have a mentor to help me learn this key career advice. I had to learn it the hard way, and my career had some fits and starts as a result. So, perhaps, that is the 6th and most important tip:

6. Find a mentor

[See here for thoughts on finding a mentor.]

There are a lot of good resources with career advice for professionals who are just starting out. Here are some of my favorite additional tips from those sources:

I hope this post has been helpful to those who are just starting out in their careers (and even some career veterans as well). If you liked this post, check out these as well: