It might seem like getting through the interview process and landing your first job is the big achievement. (If you haven’t yet conquered this step, make sure you check out all of the entry level vacancies on Adzuna.) But the work has only just begun. Here are our top tips on what to do—and what not to do—to make the most out of your first job.
1. Don’t try to change the world on your first day
It might be tempting to come in with a bang, make a big first impression and create a new vision for the whole company on your first day. Resist this temptation. Offices can be complex environments, and new ideas for drastic change can be seen as threats rather than helping hands. It’s more sensible to listen to other people, get a feel for the office ecosystem, and bank some small victories by out-performing people’s expectations on a task you’ve been set. Once you have established yourself as a hard-working team player your ideas are more likely to be judged on their merits, not who suggested them.
This isn’t an excuse to kill off the inventive, innovative parts of your brain, of course. By all means note down those early visionary ideas as they occur to you and keep revising them as you learn more and more—but keep them private for the first few weeks at least.
2. Never be “that drunk guy” at a work event
Socialising is great, and a little alcohol is often a useful way to reduce the nerves when talking to new people. But it’s all about moderation. When you work with the same people everyday, one night of embarrassment can come back to haunt you for much longer. To check if you’ve gone too far, take a glance around the room. If more than three people are staring at you and whispering, it’s probably not your good dress sense they’re talking about.
3. Ask questions—but not all the time
It is good to get clarity early on in your job on precisely what the company wants from you, so that you can meet and beat expectations. But your supervisor does not want someone constantly bugging them for advice on every minute detail of the tasks they’ve been set. What the company is looking for, especially in the first few weeks you are there, is someone who can do what is set of them slickly, quickly, and successfully. Sometimes you need to take the initiative and just get on with it. If you find yourself about to ask whether to sign off an email to a client with ‘Regards’ or ‘Best’, take a deep breath and google best practice.
4. Mute your computer at work
You never know what web pages are going to make sounds, and what these sounds are going to be. A particularly compromising pop-up could leave you blushing for the day. Even worse, you may find yourself absentmindedly clicking play on a video while surfing the web (something that might be a perfectly legitimate part of your job description), just to have the Carly Rae Jepsen backing-track blare out from your speakers. Nothing announces to the world “I’m not doing my job!” better.
If your work computer is also the one you use at home this tip is especially important. Get into a routine where the first thing you do in the morning is press that mute button: then you won’t have to worry about it for the rest of the day!
5. Never eat lunch alone
There have been whole books written where this tip is given central importance. Still, it cannot be emphasised enough how great the opportunity to learn from the people around you is early on in your first job. Seeking guidance from co-workers is a freebie: almost everyone will be happy to answer your questions (to a reasonable extent!), and everyone from the CEO to the receptionist has the potential to be a friend and a mentor, for this job and for the rest of your career. Some of the people around you will have been at the company for years—learning from their wealth of experience is a great, time-saving shortcut to learning the hard way. But even simpler (and less cynically) than this, talking to people and socially integrating into the work environment will mean that you have a better time! There is even some evidence that people with larger, stronger networks of friends live longer.
6. Most importantly of all, be a team player
When starting your first job it is easy to get caught up in thinking about yourself and your future career. In itself, this is no bad thing. However, it is worth taking a step back and realising that going it alone and being aggressively self-promoting are usually not the best ways to achieve personal or professional success. At the end of the day, doing what you were hired to do and helping your co-workers do the same will serve the company best, and serve you best in the long run as a result. People will want to work with you in the future, at this job and the next, and will be more willing to help you in return when you need it. Plus, you’ll be making your boss happy, so she’ll probably give you a great recommendation when it’s time to move on to your next job. It may sound clichéd, but being a team player remains the top tip for any new job, especially your first one.
Got any great tips for first jobbers? Any embarrassing stories or pearls of wisdom? Feel free to drop them in the comments below or @adzuna on twitter.