Embarking on your career for the first time can be both exciting and nerve-wracking. For many, graduating college means it’s time to find a steady job doing something you’re passionate about. But for people just starting their careers, it can take trial and error to get to a place where you feel valuable and are doing meaningful work for yourself, a company, or a client.
Luckily, PayScale’s own community includes HR professionals from just about every industry and top employer you could mention. Here is some of their best advice for people who are just starting their career journey.
Relationships First.
In a nutshell, relationships with clients and customers should always come before profit. Sometimes this can be a hard-learned lesson. When we don’t put relationships first, we lose business, customers, and users. By knowing early on that relationships go first, you are setting yourself up for long-term success.
Partner With Others — Relationship Building Is Crucial.
Relationships at work will always be important. You can be an expert in whatever it is you’re being paid to do, but if you never build connections with your managers and your coworkers, you could be missing out on all kinds of unexpected opportunities, both professionally and emotionally.
Never Stop Learning.
The easiest thing you can do for yourself is to never stop learning. No matter what profession you’re heading into, the internet is a great place to keep yourself up to date on changes in your industry, or new skills and technologies you should be learning. It’s no longer enough to simply show up. You have to keep learning and stay ahead of the curve.
Don’t Be So Hard On Yourself.
Mistakes will be made. They just will. Especially for people just starting out their career. What is important to know is that it is not mistakes that will define you. Instead, it’s how you handle those mistakes afterwards. Did you learn something? What did you take away? What do you think you could do to avoid this next time? How might you do things differently?
Ask For Help When You Need It.
Some people think that asking for help is a sign of weakness, or incompetency. But people who know when to stop wasting time and ask for help are actually doing the right thing. From a different perspective, your employer would likely rather have you ask for help when you need it, instead of wasting time.
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