First Week on the Job

Whether you were a liberal arts student or a business major, chances are the degree you got in college did little to prepare you for the new situations you’ll face during your first week at a “real” job after graduation. The first day at work can easily feel like the first day of kindergarten. Someone directs you to your assigned seat, and you don’t know most of your co-workers.
I’ve interviewed more than 200 young people facing the post-graduation work force for the first time. Many of them have told me, “I’m not prepared for a real job,” even if they’ve done well in school and have a great track record at the internships and part-time jobs they had during college. The good news is that most employers take the time to train you. But the training manual and orientation sessions probably won’t tell you the best ways to make the most out of those first nervous days. Here are my tips for success:
10 Tips for Getting Settled in a New Job

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Transformation Technique and Tips

Transformation is the key to taking you from where you are at the first days on a new job, to where you dream to be. Here are time honored techniques and tips to practice a resiliency that allows us to recognize our best professional selves:
1. Release guilt over past performance, hurts, and pains.. focus on learning from those who have accomplished what you aspire to do– genuine interest will open many doors.
2. Anger over unfairness can result in indulgent ‘repeat performances’. Every try to ‘stop’ being late? Instead of the ‘being’ of late, embrace the ‘abundance’ of time when you are prepared.
3. Beliefs create outcomes.. Pessimism left to simmer, can start to infiltrate your belief system.
4. Fear can cause us downright counterproductive behavior.. Taking a heaping dose of negative feelings to a new job is like trying to hail a cab dressed as the Grim Reaper.
5. You have performed many things in life to this point… Something new does not need to be uncomfortable and that uncomfortable feeling of gloomy uselessness is optional.
6. Challenge yourself. Do a little each day to appreciate growth, and stretch yourself.
7. Recognize counter productive activities, and identify action steps to manage it.
8. What would perfect execution consist of? Take some time to envision your dream work.
9. “Feeling” or”Being” stuck have the same source, and persistence and consistent action removes it.
10. Consciously spend more time planning for and appreciating positive attributes that can cultivate momentum.

Tips to embracing our personal best in the workforce
1. Performance grows to the extent that we are willing to grow and change- understand where you are and embrace your capability to improve..
2. Freedom stems from knowing where we are, and where we aspire to do, recognizing we have everything we need, and we own the steps to get there.
3. Identify your self talk and brainstorm resources to embrace a different approach.
4. Optimism is the art of focus on strengths and opportunity, despite our weaknesses. Be willing and interested in learning from others. Every day, introduce yourself and get to know one new person, how they got here, and how they were successful.
5. Put first things, first— plan and manage progress on the highest payoff tasks that are most important being done, creates momentum.
6. Break the larger impossible tasks into bite size pieces or visual milestones along the path– we are never given a dream without the equal capacity to make it come true!

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Learn Basic Office Skills

Jim Durbin is an employment blogger and former recruiter whose claim to expertise including once being a college student and graduate.
I hired over 20 fresh college graduates from 1999-2001 as a recruiter in Los Angeles. Their skills and aptitude varied, as did the pedigree of the institutions they attended, but a few things stick in my head to this day as a cautionary tale.
The following is only anecdotal, but the more distinguished the school attended, the less likely the graduate had mastered basic office skills.
One young lad from Berkeley is probably the best story. We hired him because he was smart, ambitious, negotiated well, and well, he went to Berkeley. There was a strategic (and wrong-headed) assumption that we could improve the quality of the office personnel by increasing the number of people who graduated from private and top-ranked colleges.
It was insulting to the number of highly successful state school graduates we had in the company, but it was a mistake many companies made (and still make). Anyway, our young graduate was a recuiter, and back in those days, we made paper copies of the resumes that people brought in.
The copier we had was relatively new, but pretty straightforward. It had a top-loading section for automatic copies and you could lift the lid for manual copies. It also had the occasional problem of jamming….

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Conversation With A Microsoft Program Manager

Recently I had the chance to catch up with a Microsoft Program Manager that just started a couple weeks ago straight out of school. Volt is mostly known for their ability to place program managers in temporary, contract roles but frequently we end up sourcing for full time positions, not to mention the high rate of conversions that we are seeing in today’s heated job market. I figured that it might be helpful to summarize his take on the first couple weeks for the benefit of future new employees. Keep in mind that the opinions expressed are not necessarily my own, I am simply a messenger.

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What’s It Like Being A Soldier? – Basic Combat Training

One of the biggest questions a new soldier has is: “What’s it like being a soldier?” I would like to start off with life in basic training and provide you with a typical nine week schedule of what you will be doing. This will be a series of informational post in the coming weeks. When a new recruit decides he or she is going to join the army, thoughts of basic training are the first thing that concern them. Either they have seen movies where basic training is depicted to be a torturous event, or they have heard stories from friends and families that may not be accurate.

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Drill Sergeant, Why Dont You Leave Me Alone?

A lot of things have changed since I first went through basic training as a private three years ago. So my advice is based off my own experiences. Let me start off by saying that the Army Drill Sergeant has one of the best jobs in the army. They should not be feared, but RESPECTED. They are your mentor, advisor, teacher, and disciplinarian all in one.

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Career Reality Videos

Ever wanted to get a better feeling for what it is really like to work in a particular career field or for a particular employer? Then you may want to check out the Alumni Career Reality Videos on the web site of the University at Buffalo, which is a State University of New York school. The videos show University at Buffalo alunni in real workplaces and are designed to help students make better career decisions by providing insightful information regarding their professions.
Current videos include alumni who are accountants, mechanical engineers, physical therapists, district managers, entertainment and marketing coordinators, and pharmaceutical sales representatives.