The decisions you make early on in your career can be vital later on even if you end up in a completely different industry. Your early years in work will help you build relationships and potentially open many doors for the future. For this reason, we have some top tips for you to follow if you are just starting out in the working world and want to get ahead.
You must start somewhere
No-one can walk into a company and start at the top; respect and promotions have to be earned and this is always a good thing to remember. The important thing is to be willing to improve and grow as well as finding mentors that will help you to do just this. You should build relationships with those above as it could come in handy later in your career.
Make an impact
Make an impact in the new company as soon as you can, take responsibility and ask to lead a project. The first few weeks are vital for this as you will want to listen, learn and apply all that to your everyday work in order to impress those above you. Try to take every piece of information on board and show a willingness to learn as this will pull you up in the pecking order for future projects and even promotions; the more impact you are able to make in the early days, the more likely you are to receive a promotion in the future.
Be transparent
Admitting that you need help or that you have done something wrong is not a sign of weakness and in fact, most companies will appreciate that you recognize your mistakes and are willing to grow. It is much better to learn a skill that may help you in future projects in order to complete a task better and faster rather than to struggle through and ultimately come up short in the end.
Get to know your colleagues
There is no doubting that in today's world, technology plays an important role in everyone's life but face-to-face interaction still is a key skill and companies appreciate soft skills. Time to time put the laptop and iPhone away and go communicate with your co-workers.
Value yourself
If you think you are being underpaid, check out websites such as PayScale.com and do simple search to find out what the pay rate in your field is. If you are under paid bring this up with your boss. Many companies like to cut costs with wages but if you can demonstrate why you deserve a better pay, ask for a meeting and approach it in a professional manner. Hopefully they will see that you bring great value to the company and they will actually adjust your salary. A last resort would be to obtain another job offer as a pay increase may follow if they don't want to lose you. However, this can backfire so don't do this unless you actually have a job lined up and are happy to leave.
Start a website
Start your own website with your full name and have it as a place to store your professional information. You can potentially use it as a constantly updated resume that potential employees can check out. The great thing about resume website is that it's always available but this also means that you will need to remember to keep it up to date. Most of this can be done with LinkedIn but your own website is more flexible and if someone wants to contact you they don't need to login or have a LinkedIn profile to do so. Add your online resume link to your business cards and social profiles.
Sara Duerr is a freelance writer who loves to blog about career related topics. You can find more of her posts on Lime Resumes where she posts regularly.