3 Things I Wish I Knew Before My First Entry-Level Job
There’s nothing quite like the thrill of your first full-time job offer – especially when it’s in the field you worked so hard in college to get into! I remember receiving my offer to work at a big publishing house in NYC in the Summer of 2015 and fantasizing about life working in the city and all of the places it could take me. Visions of working on chic magazines like in The Devil Wears Prada and coming up with great ideas that would impress my colleagues floated through my mind.
But the reality of the journey was much different than that (and it’s probably for the best!). I certainly came across my fair share of Miranda Priestly like characters and spent more time than I’d like to admit being intimidated by the entire corporate environment and hierarchy. Thinking back, I was way more reserved and quiet because of this, and I think if I really internalized the three ideas below, I would have been spared years of anxious thoughts and I may have even figured out my dream to own my own business just a little bit sooner.
1. You don’t need to have all of the answers
In my first few months in my first role, I felt like I needed to have it all figured out. I tried hard to emulate my colleagues’ email etiquette and the little things like how early I should arrive to meetings. And to an extent this was a good thing – I was learning! But this also made me feel like I needed to have an answer whenever I was asked a question, even ones that require a specific number for the answer. I remember stumbling over my words to come up with a response and feeling really awkward when I responded with something that I knew wasn’t right.
Eventually I learned that “I don’t know for sure on that, let me do some research and get back to you” is the perfect response for these situations. It saves you the pressure of answering when you’re not certain on a number, and also shows that you’re a proactive person.
2. Your opinion matters (and they want it!)
Take it from a millennial who was there not too long ago – your older colleagues want to hear your perspective! Look at almost any publication in any industry and you’ll be hard-pressed not to find a headline about GenZ (here’s one from Forbes). In the marketing space, many of the reports I worked on centered around what GenZ consumers want, and in the corporate environment I observed a borderline obsession with the GenZ perspective. The same was true four or five years ago with the millennial generation.
Every generation has new ideas and behaviors that make it unique - so don’t underestimate the power of your ideas, after all they are the future!
3. Don’t say yes to everything
This one is huge! Boundaries are so important, and I can honestly say it took me years to learn how to assert them. While we all want to impress in a new job, it is vital to trust your gut feeling when someone asks something unreasonable from you. Remember you have the right to voice your opinion and you can push back on someone if the ask is too great. I’ve found that a lot of the time people are unaware of the amount of time certain tasks take, especially when it comes to marketing. So, educating them on the process helps you with time management and the company in general because your colleague now has a greater understanding of the business.
One other important point here is that I’ve found that people will respect you more if you know when the right time to say no is. It took me a long time to internalize this, but just because someone is more senior than you in job title doesn’t mean they are “above” you.
If you’re looking to start your first corporate job, I hope these lessons are valuable to you! And even if you aren’t working in corporate, these lessons can serve pretty much anyone throughout your entire career – I still remind myself of them often.