The first few weeks or months of your first job as a recent college graduate can be nerve-racking and overwhelming. Here are eight tips on how to be successful in the workforce when you’re starting out.
1. Make Use of Institutional Support
Before graduating, students should take advantage of any professional development opportunities at their institution, experts say.
Vassar College in New York, for instance, offers a career development grant, which provides up to $500 for expenses related to a student’s job search or graduate school applications. Some eligible expenses include buying business attire and traveling for interviews, professional conferences and career fairs.
2. Find a Friendly First Contact
Many colleges have large alumni networks, which students can use as a resource. Stacy Bingham, associate dean of the College for Career Education and interim director of fellowships at Vassar, advises students to find and connect with alumni — whether that’s on LinkedIn or other sites — who are already employed at your soon-to-be company.
“They could reach out to them in advance of starting their job to get a lay of the land,” she says. “Learn more about their path, their trajectory, a little bit about company or organizational culture and things that might be helpful from that front.”
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3. Introduce Yourself to Other Employees
New hires should take the time to introduce themselves to team members and other coworkers in the office, says Christine Cruzvergara, chief education strategy officer at Handshake, a college campus recruiting platform.
“Don’t be afraid to ask for a little bit of time to go grab coffee with someone, or go for a short walk or have an informal meeting to learn more about their area and how it intersects with the work that you’re doing,” she says. “These are ways to better understand your company, better understand the goals of the company and better understand how things are interconnected in your company.”
During her summer internship, for instance, Alli Jones, a junior at Virginia Tech, made an effort to routinely eat lunch with other interns.
“My high school ended kind of weirdly with being in COVID, where our lunchroom was two people per table, a plastic screen divider between everyone and there wasn’t really a whole lot of communication going on,” she says. “But one thing in the workplace that I … realized the importance of was having lunch with your friends and making those connections in that space. That’s a way to connect outside of work and make plans for the weekends.”
4. Use Past Experiences
More than half of students from the class of 2023 — 62% — participated in an internship while in college, according to a study by the National Association of Colleges and Employers. Recent graduates can use those experiences, as well as what they’ve learned from campus employment and leadership positions, at their first job.
“Students should prioritize gaining relevant experience by seeking internships, part-time jobs or volunteer opportunities in their field,” Jennifer Shaffer, director of the Career Development Center at Appalachian State University in North Carolina, wrote in an email. “Practical experience not only enhances a student’s resume but it also helps develop skills and an understanding of workplace dynamics. In today’s workforce, the more experience you have coming out of college, the better your chances of landing a great job.”
Employers are looking for new hires that have a learning mindset, she adds. “Employees with a learning mindset are eager to acquire new skills and knowledge. They view challenges as opportunities for growth, which can lead to innovative solutions and improvements in processes.”
[Unpaid Internships Remain Out of Reach for Many College Students]
5. Don’t Be Afraid to Ask Questions
You’re not expected to know everything, says David Lusk, associate vice president for career development at Truman State University in Missouri.
“To me, education is about educating you to have the tools to be successful. But it’s the work environment that’s going to provide the experiences where you’re going to use those tools,” he says. To “do everything right from the beginning, the employer doesn’t expect that. It is OK to say, ‘I need some help on this. I want to make sure that I’m doing this accurately.'”
6. Learn Your Company’s Communication Style
According to recent data from Intelligent.com — which surveyed 1,000 managers — respondents believe recent graduates struggle with professionalism, such as receiving feedback, having appropriate workplace conversation and communicating.
Every company operates differently, so college graduates need to learn about their workplace’s etiquette, including the communication style of their managers and teammates, experts say.
This includes knowing response time expectations and whether a manager or coworker prefers a phone call, email or messages through Microsoft Teams or Slack.
“Some employers are fantastic at actually proactively communicating those standards and those norms up front,” Cruzvergara says. “But if they don’t, I always tell the candidates to ask those questions. You should ask your new supervisor what that looks like and what he or she prefers.”
Another way to learn communication styles, she adds, is by observing how others interact on professional collaboration platforms.
“As a college student, you’re not usually ping messaging your friends or anything to get those short messages across,” Jones says. “So going into the workplace, it’s really important to know the importance of that. And that’s something that I hadn’t really known yet and would send a lot of messages to email at first — asking just short questions. And then I made a transition over to asking Teams messages.”
7. Understand Employee Benefits
New hires are often inundated with paperwork leading up to their start date. But it’s important for them to take the time to understand all company benefits — such as vacation policies, health and dental insurance, health savings accounts and retirement savings plans — which may be only briefly covered during the onboarding process.
“I find that new hires often don’t really fully understand the benefits that are offered to them,” Cruzvergara says. “They understand retirement, their days off or sick days. But outside of that, they haven’t really dove in to a lot of other things that could be provided to them. So I really encourage them to just take a little bit of time at the beginning to understand what it all means, so that you can take advantage of it because sometimes it could really make your life a lot easier.”
For instance, an employer may offer a learning and development budget, or wellness benefits.
[READ: Financial Planning For Post-College Life]
8. Avoid Quitting Too Soon
Most college students don’t land their dream job immediately after graduation. But before accepting an offer, college students or recent grads should reflect on whether they see themselves staying in the position for at least a year, experts say.
“I think sometimes students feel like if somebody offers them a job, they must accept it,” Bingham says. “Or they accept a job and then they go back and withdraw. That’s something that we definitely want to discourage because we don’t want applicants to burn bridges with potential employers. But sometimes it means saying no to a job.”
Once you do commit, however, don’t give up too soon. Experts recommend staying at least 12 months — unless the environment is toxic — to avoid being labeled as a “job hopper.”
You can leave a job after a year or even before, Cruzvergara says. “But you’re going to have to be prepared to answer questions about why you’re job hopping or why you’re leaving your job. … You just have to be sure that you have a very clear narrative around how you’re going to talk about that that doesn’t also bash your previous employer. A lot of times, employers are going to assume if you speak badly about your previous employer, you’re going to speak badly about (them) and they don’t want that.”
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How to Prepare for Your First Job Post-Graduation originally appeared on usnews.com
