5 Important Lessons for the Young Professional

I hope your workplace is as bright and cheery as this place, but unless you work
for Google, I'm going to guess that it's not.

I like to call myself a young profession. It's a very exciting term I get to use which means that I am a rare 20-something who is gainfully employed by a career, not a job, a career. I'm very proud that both my boyfriend and myself are in stable, respectable careers that we worked hard to earn.

We both completed 2 years with AmeriCorps, which is a national service organization.  If you are a young person who is looking for something to fill a gap year or set you apart from other job applicants I do encourage you to check out AmeriCorps positions, both my boyfriend and myself obtained jobs directly because of our service with AmeriCorps.

Anyway, AmeriCorps infomercial aside, I've learned a few important lessons from my 2 years in the job field. I'd like to share them with you. (Warning: I use some expletives).

Don't you just love stock photos?

Important Lessons for the Young Professional

1. People can smell a bullshitter
They can. Really. I got through my whole high school career and only actually read one book (Ethan Frome 195 pages) and then I went on to college and STILL didn't read a lot of the books assigned to me (I was an English major). What I'm trying to say is that it can be easy to slack off in school because your teacher is dealing with an average of 100 or so other kids at any given time, but the people you do business with are dealing directly with you. They will know when you are not doing the job you could be doing. And they will talk about it, either behind your back or to your boss.

2. You can no longer rely on people discovering that you are the rare flower you are
I learned this in my college to career transition. I used to be a smart, cool kid (I guess I wasn't that cool if I tell you that) but my teachers really liked me and I didn't have to try that hard in class or with my school work to get them to. I would breeze into class, say something smart, and get A's and they would love me.

That blasé attitude doesn't work as well in the job world. You have to make the effort to show people what you're worth, because keeping your head down and working hard keeps you right there, working the same job working just as hard, for the rest of your life. Get people to take notice of you.

3. People will remember you for your actions
This is a big one. I work in government and when someone says or does something out of line, that can damn them forever (seriously). You don't want to be known as unreliable because you dropped the ball on your piece of a project. No one wants to do business with you if you don't respond to their emails promptly. And always be aware of how you're treating the people around you (under, above, and to the side of you) because you never know how that person may come up in your life again either next week or five years down the road.

4. Politeness and promptness still go a long way
Guess what, if you don't send my boss a thank you note/email after an interview, she counts that as a big blunder on your part, and it can affect your chances of getting the job. And this is true for a lot of jobs. People still appreciate courtesy, and you know the bullshitters that I was talking about before? Well the ones who are friendly and personable are the ones who people still at least tolerate. Same goes for promptness, people are late a lot where I work; it's kinda the norm, but the thing is, until you make the big bucks, show up on time. No one wants to wait for the young gun.

5. Speak up, but not just for the sake of hearing your own voice
One day you're going to go to meeting where you don't feel you have any right being there. It will be a meeting filled with smart, well-established people. These are the meetings where you want to say something that is relevant and smart. Don't say something for the sake of saying it, because if you really have nothing to add to the meeting then you're better off being a silent observer and then networking with people afterward. But try your hardest to engage in the conversation, if you act like someone's assistant (just quietly taking down notes and nodding in agreement at times) then they will assume you have nothing to add to the conversation and will quickly discount you. Harsh, but true.


Those are just a few of the things that I have learned in my 2 years of job experience. I know I still have plenty to learn and not all of these may be true for your workplace, but this is what my experience has led me to learn. Let me know if you have any!