5 Career Tips to Guide You in Your First Job

Whether you are a recent university graduate or have shifted to a completely different sector from your previous field of work, your first job experience can be as exciting and educational as it is intimidating. By acquiring some small career tips that will make things easier for you, you can significantly speed up the processes of adapting to your new job and establishing yourself in the workplace. Here are a few of these tips;

1. Utilize Post-its: Research in the social sciences shows that handwritten notes are significantly more effective in prompting action than those prepared in a digital environment. If you have a report that your manager needs to look at as soon as possible, or if you need urgent guidance from your department manager on a particular issue, try writing your request in clear letters on a Post-it note and sticking it on their desk or file cabinet.

2. Be concise, clear, and polite in your correspondence: Especially when it comes to internal communications and emails, try to keep your total word count under 300. Research indicates that the attention and concentration levels of individuals reading a certain text significantly drop after this threshold, reducing the likelihood that they will read the remaining part of the text carefully and completely, and even the most important details at the end of the correspondence may be overlooked and go unanswered.

3. Always bring your notebook, tablet, or computer to meetings: If you are new to the job and still struggling with the stress of the adaptation process, it may be a bit challenging for you to maintain your concentration during long meetings. If you have a tool with you to easily jot down points that come to your mind, your ideas, and your questions, you won’t have to interrupt anyone’s speech, and you can be sure that you won’t forget any important details when the meeting is over.

4. Ask for favors from your competitors: If a colleague who started working with you is behaving a bit unfriendly, or if you can’t seem to break the ice with another employee from a neighboring department, try asking them for a favor. Depending on your relationship level, this favor could be borrowing a pen or asking for help on a challenging part of a project. Such supportive relationship dynamics facilitate better acquaintance and sympathy among people.

5. Leverage the power of "because": Do you need to urgently get copies of a report to a meeting, but the photocopy queue just won’t end? Research in group psychology shows that people are more likely to behave understandingly and supportively when the reason for a task is clearly explained to them. So instead of anxiously shifting from side to side or making sounds that express your frustration, if you explain to your colleagues why you need to get this done right now, they may gladly let you go ahead of them in line.

6. Ask questions first: The career tips that help you succeed in your professional life bear a significant resemblance to the political tactics that we encounter almost every day on television and in the news. While some of these tactics may seem a bit too cunning, it is undeniable that some of them genuinely work. If you want to discuss your ideas regarding a task or a project with your manager, before diving into the topic, ask them whether they are open to new ideas or how much the business values employee suggestions. Managers generally respond positively to such questions. After receiving a "Yes" to such a question, if you start discussing your ideas, your manager is more likely to listen to you more attentively and seriously consider what you say in order not to contradict what they just said. You can apply the same tactic in your communication with your colleagues as well.