Starting your new job...
The graduate's guide for graduates!
We asked some of the graduates that we have placed what their advice would be for someone starting their new career. This is invaluable advice – after all, they were in your shoes not so long ago!
• Plan your own career development path (in the light of knowledge gained
above) so that progression is clearly mapped-out either inside or
outside the business.
• Always deliver a little more than expected. Hit your targets and don’t make
a big thing about it; just do this out of good personal habit.
• Think about what your business is trying to achieve this week, this year
and over the next 5 years. Understand how your actions fit into this.
Understand how the actions of other people, especially those who you interact
with on a regular basis fit into this. Understand how you can help others and
how you might get in their way.
• Always have a couple of business things that you are working on to talk
about.
• Identify the main players within the business, and form relationships with
them NOT by email - Seek out the gurus of the organisation, i.e. those
acknowledged as being the experts. Could be old-timers, might be youthful hifliers. Get in front of them, get known, stick to their shirttails if you can,
extract the learning! And don’t forget … talk to the receptionist / security
guy – get known – get on first name terms by end of week 1
• Greet people with a smile and thank people for their help
• Get your accommodation sorted before joining
• Dress smartly and appropriately to the business and occasion
• Be prepared to work hard if you want to get on - and that may mean long
hours not just full days. Don’t work to the clock.
• Accept frustration. You may not be able to change the world overnight, but
do change it and try to make a difference!
• The onus is on you as much as the Company to make the training work for
you and to build a career.
• Ask to look at a specific area of the business and carry out a work study to
identify areas that could be improved.
• If you are given what appear to be mundane tasks, get on with them quickly,
do them right, then ask for some project work to do ‘during the quieter
times’.
• Do not run before you can walk, while you may have graduated, you will
now start learning.
• Learn to manage your boss! Find out what his / her expectations are, and
deliver precisely against them. Not what you would perceive or, worse still,
prefer them to be!
• Good listening skills, don't be too assumptive!
• Good open questioning – smart, probing and challenging why it is done in a
particular way: who, what, when, why, where, which and how.
• An absolute willingness to do whatever you can to help out, don't pick and
choose
• Always do what you say you are going to do. A positive reputation can be
built on this alone. It’s all about execution. The key is the follow up and the
follow through. Business has had enough with great strategies - that was the
90's - in order to survive today you have to deliver the promises.
• Whatever the industry, find its ‘coal-face’, i.e. where the product is made and
where it’s sold, go and experience working there first hand
• Above all, make everyone around you feel your 'can-do' attitude!!
• You are building your own brand – decide what brand you want to be!
