Tips To Professional Growth After College From Two Career Coaches
Hooray! You made it to your first job as a college graduate. Congratulations. Before the celebration dust fully settles, you’re suddenly a young working professional and ready to climb the career ladder. So what does that look like? How do you get a good start on your career ambitions?
How long should you stay at your first job?
When you’re a student, job- or internship-hopping is normal. Most students participate in multiple varied work experiences before they graduate. The typical internship might only be 10-12 weeks long. You might work on a project or two for a company, and then your internship is over, ready to add it to your resume and move on to a new experience.
Things are a little different once you graduate. At your first job, you might be tempted to leave the company soon after you’re hired. Especially because almost all graduates never stay with their first full-time employer for long. However, I’d like to set a healthy expectation going into your first post-graduate job. Try to stay at least a year before you decide to leave your first employer.
Why? I’ll give you two reasons. One, continuing to job-hop in super-short time durations when you’re no longer in school may cast a negative impression on your resume for future career opportunities. It may communicate to a prospective employer later on that you’re not a very committed person and therefore present a higher risk when deciding whether or not to hire/train you.
Two, every new job presents a learning curve that you have to master. And it takes time to do that. It takes enough months and years to develop a comfort level in your new work environment and to begin to feel you’re making a significant impact.
If you leave too soon, you may be leaving before you ever had enough opportunity to demonstrate competency. Whatever imposter syndrome you may feel in the first 3-6 months, remember that it’s normal to feel that way on a new job.
Disclaimer - if a company culture is truly toxic and abusive, then you’re certainly encouraged to leave as soon as you’re able.
In-company Networking Opportunities
After you start working for a little while, begin taking advantage of all the networking opportunities your company may have available to its employees. Try to meet everyone in your office, and consistently show up to as many social events that you are able to.
Building relationships as a young professional requires a lot more initiative and persistence compared to the structure you once had in college, where everybody was always close by and were the same age. You could have easily walked down the hallway and asked a friend to go out for drinks, or to join you at the gym. After college, that’s no longer as easy.
Track Your Accomplishments
Later on, meticulously track your accomplishments and successes along the way. Keeping records of your professional journey will boost your confidence when you have more difficult days, the times when life gets you down and you envy your friends on social media.
At some point, you will feel as if you’re not making a difference and even think you’re underappreciated. Use those accomplishments and successes to remind yourself of what you’re able to do, and how you’ve made an impact at work so that you’re not completely in despair when those bad days come your way.
Another reason why tracking your successes is so crucial is because it gives you stories and data to back you up when you seek a promotion, raise, or a new career opportunity. Don’t assume your memory will always be strong enough to remember the processes and outcomes from your past accomplishments.
Lastly, ask lots of questions. Leadership consideration depends on visibility, so speak up. That doesn’t mean you have to be the most charismatic person in the room. But it does mean you are fully present, engaged, and actively participating in the conversations and discussions where you’re at. If you struggle to speak up in the moment, it may help to review a meeting agenda ahead of time and think through questions/comments you can bring up at the appropriate time.
Continuing Education
Even though you are officially graduated and into your first professional role, that doesn't mean learning stops! In actuality, this is the time you really figure out what elements you learned in school that are helpful in your role/industry and want things you still need to learn to continue to be successful in your company. Enter continuing education!
Budgeting and Planning
The first step in evaluating continuing education options is to determine your budget, timeframe and what opportunities you can do within your company and what is available outside your company. Firstly, set up a meeting with your supervisor to better understand if the company financially supports professional development opportunities.
If they do offer financial support, create a plan with your supervisor to sort what training and certifications will best serve you in your current role and potentially longer term as well. Look for opportunities with high ROI such as LinkedIn Learning as that platform has a wide range of professional development topics from technical to social to help you excel in the professional workplace. The best part? You pay one fee per month and have unlimited access to complete as many courses as you like.
Conferences and the Internet
Industry specific conferences are a great way to network and learn more about how to be successful in your field. Conferences can often be pretty pricey though and if you aren't getting funding from your company, you are left footing the bill for flights, hotel and food.
For many fields, there are really great free resources on the internet and YouTube that can put in-demand skills at your finger types 24/7. Can’t afford InDesign? Check out Canva, which is a free design platform that allows you to create anything from presentations to social media posts. Can’t remember how to write that specific formula in Excel? YouTube it!
Graduate School
You’ve been in school all your life. When you’re about to graduate from college, you suddenly have a world of options. One of those happens to be graduate school. You might be thinking of getting an MBA or a doctorate. You may be pursuing professional degrees for practicing law, medicine, or engineering.
What gets lost sometimes in the conversation is whether or not you should go to graduate school. Should you do it now or later? Should you even do it at all? Do you need it? Can you pay for it? Will your employer even care?
Work Experience Before Grad School
The traditional rule of thumb for the majority of professionals in various fields is to obtain 3-5 years of full-time industry experience before going back to school for an advanced education. For most students, this rule is still wise to apply.
First, if you begin working in your desired industry for a few years, your employer may offer tuition reimbursement as a benefit, which can pay your way through graduate school instead of the money coming from your own pockets. An additional benefit of working for a few years is you get to bring your experiences back to the classroom. Learning becomes more enjoyable when you’re able to connect the dots from your textbooks to your job.
Second, getting a Master’s without much experience may put you in a more awkward and difficult position of getting hired by a future employer. You would be underqualified for Master’s level roles that require experience. And you would be overqualified for Bachelor’s level roles because of your education.
What Employers Think
Employers may not want to hire you for a Bachelor’s level role if they have concerns you’ll jump ship at that first opportunity or demand higher pay. Unless you have multiple internships or relevant work experiences on your resume by the end of undergrad, best to complement your current educational level with some experience to start.
A last thing to consider with graduate school is whether or not your desired future role needs such an advanced degree. Getting a J.D. or M.D. before practicing law or medicine is a must. Other degree types may or may not make sense for you.
For example, do you really need a Master’s in Marketing or a Salesforce credential instead? Do you really need a Master’s in Finance or would you be better off with a CFA/CFP instead? Do your research and understand what your industry most recognizes.
Ask yourself: in 5-10 years, will my role require a graduate degree?
If that’s not certain, graduate school may not be worth the investment.
About the writers…
Keith Sun: Hello! I’m Keith and I am a Business Career Services professional helping prepare today’s students for tomorrow’s jobs. With problem-solving creativity, passionate conviction, voracious intelligence, and commitment to excellence, I have developed multiple years of experience developing career competencies in both undergraduate and graduate business students.
Nadia Ibrahim-Taney: Hi! My name is Nadia Ibrahim-Taney and I help people design happy and fulfilling careers through authentic career coaching. My expertise includes career exploration guidance, resume writing, interview prep and LinkedIn profile optimization. My pronouns are She/ Her/ Hers and as a member of the LGBTQ+ community, I focus on how diverse identities impact and influence folks holistically and professionally. Please connect with me on LinkedIn or at Nadia@beyonddiscoverycoaching.com
