Every year at about this time, the carefree college life ends for a whole new generation of graduates. Twenty-somethings of all stripes enter the workforce with high hopes and dreams of six-figure salaries, big offices, and perks galore. And every year, they, like the rookies before them, are disappointed to find themselves in low-level jobs that offer barely livable wages, cramped cubicles, and poor-to-modest benefits.
If you are among this year's crop of greenhorns, think of it as a rude welcome to the real world. "Cutting class" is no longer an option and days filled with tedious tasks--sorting mail, filing papers, answering phones, doing research for a boss who will get all the glory--are the norm. But also think of it as an opportunity to learn the nuts and bolts of your chosen career, to hone your networking skills, and to prove that you are an ambitious, creative, and competent professional.
"How we experience life, it all can help," says Gary Izumo, a business professor at Moorpark College in Moorpark, CA, and author of Keys to Workplace Skills: How to Get From Your Senior Year to Your First Promotion (Prentice-Hall, 1998). "We can learn from our part-time work. We can learn in academics. We can learn on the athletic field."
About Your Attitude
The first thing a worker needs in any job--and especially the "grunt work" jobs so common for people straight out of college, trade school, or even high school--is a good attitude.
Most employers value high expectations in their employees, but few will appreciate or reward the arrogance apparent in what Robin Cormier calls "the-world-owes-me-a-job attitude." That attitude can prevent success, says Cormier, vice president of publications for EEI Communications in Alexandria, VA, and long-time contributor to The Editorial Eye.
She looks for entry-level employees whose values include "a willingness to put in whatever time it takes" and "the ability to respond when there's a need. It's music to my ears when somebody says, 'I've never tried that, but I'd be willing to give it a shot,'" she says.
People in low-level jobs "need to have an open mindset," Izumo says. "These entry-level jobs will help them learn what the world is like. They'll have a sense of what work is like."
You can even learn about workplace reality in the "I-need-some-money" jobs that you take before finding a plum spot in your chosen trade, adds Eve Luppert, author of Rules for the Road: Surviving Your First Job Out of School (Perigree, 1998). Keep in mind that most entry-level jobs, and particularly reception and mailroom assignments, offer a unique opportunity to learn everything about a company and its people. "You can really understand the work flow in all those jobs because you're in it," says Luppert. "There's not a memo that you Xerox that you can't learn something from."
Rather than think of your first job (or jobs) as a burden, says Jason R. Rich, author of First Job, Great Job; America's Hottest Business Leaders Share Their Secrets (IDG Books, 1996), think of them as an opportunity. "That's when you want to prove yourself, that you show up on time, that you're dedicated," he says.
And if you are just out of college, be sure to leave your college attitudes behind and adopt an "adult" attitude about work. You may have been able to survive college by deciding you only needed to pass certain classes, but that mindset could doom you to a longer stay at the bottom of the career ladder once you are in the workforce.
Folks who have climbed to the top of the career ladder tend to categorize those at the bottom: positive workers who go above and beyond the bare minimum and the negative ones who don't. "C work won't keep your job," Luppert says. "If you want a raise or you want out of [a low-level job], you need to do at least B work or, preferably, A work."
The Softer Skills
First jobs provide a chance to develop a "personal skill set" that will be valuable in most any job and any career, Rich says. You can learn, for example, how to use a computer and essential software like Microsoft Word, how to type faster, take shorthand, or sell a product. "Those are the skills that make you marketable as an applicant," he says. "You want to start building up that personal skill set immediately."
The advantages of "doing your time" in jobs that many people would consider menial go beyond the chance to develop concrete skills, however. Employees at that level also should strive to hone what Izumo calls the "softer skills" you see in every employment ad--the ability to communicate, to demonstrate initiative and self-discipline, and to work well with others, to name a few. "One can learn how decisions are made, how resources are allocated, perhaps how one can influence an outcome," says Izumo, who also emphasizes the importance of gaining trust and respect. "Everyone can lead, even someone in an entry-level position, if one earns trust and respect."
One way to convince your superiors that you take your work at any level seriously is to commit time to your career outside working hours. Be willing to train after hours, take classes on the weekends, learn a second language and make yourself more marketable. And go home when the job is done, not at 5 p.m. with work unfinished.
"Once you start working," says Luppert, "you have to become your own professor. The goal of the company isn't to teach you. The goal of the company is to produce a product or service."
Cormier says she values workers who have "the ability to remain calm in a crisis. People who panic quickly and fly off the handle
