No matter how many years of schooling you have, there will always be aspects of your first job no education can prepare you for. The transition from school to professional life will always take some adapting, but young jobseekers can help ensure their career success by watching out for these common mistakes and misconceptions in figuring out a new workplace, based on feedback from education and HR professionals.
Related: 15 Mistakes to Avoid When Working Remotely
Being Too Competitive
You should be more humble than usual when learning the ropes at a new job. However, Chris Chancey, founder of the staffing agency Amplio Recruiting, relates how many first-time employees apply the cutthroat approach of some academic settings to try and outperform their colleagues. “A little healthy competition is acceptable, but in those early days, it is best to keep a low profile, understand the workplace, and learn more about the culture,” says Chancey. “You risk being alienated by co-workers when you come off as being overly competitive.”
Having Sloppy Written Communication
Spelling and grammar mistakes — or even emojis — in work emails or memos can also get new employees dinged for unprofessionalism. As an employee, you want to demonstrate the standards you hold yourself to, so even minor errors in interoffice communiques can reflect poorly on your competence. “Take the extra moment to check your spelling, grammar and punctuation,” says Jacqueline Berman, principal of finance and administration at talent acquisition firm Planet Professional. “Write complete sentences and be sure your email is clear, concise, informative and helpful.”
Being Late
Punctuality at a new job should be a given, but being late still trips up many new hires who underestimate the commute or don’t appreciate that their time is now being paid for. Manage it wisely to make a good impression, beginning with being on time. “Always be at work on time and get to meetings and appointments early,” advises Timothy G. Wiedman, a retired associate professor of human resources and former operations manager for two Fortune-ranked companies.
Related: Can Employment Agencies Actually Help New Grads Land a Job?
Missing Deadlines
“Procrastination ruins careers!” Wiedman says. “Always start assignments ASAP so that the unexpected will not trip you up.” Don’t count on any of the leniency or overnighters you might have enjoyed at school. To understand the importance of turning in work on time, remember that most workplaces are team environments, where colleagues and superiors alike depend on each other executing their duties as agreed.
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Watching the Clock
Human resources and business adviser Melveen Stevenson warns against focusing too much on each day’s start and end times as a salaried employee, which could demonstrate a lack of passion and discipline for your work. “Do not talk about eight hours or the concept of working ‘overtime,’” Stevenson says. “No one likes a ‘clock-watcher,’ and you can put out that vibe if you frequently bring up hours.”
Related: 45 Job Search Tips From Experts
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Not Reading Organizational Cues
In the first few weeks at a new job, it’s crucial to observe how the nuances of how the company operates, or you may get tripped up by neglecting the work norms others take for granted. Steve Browne, HR professional and author of “HR on Purpose,” calls these the challenges of “assumed culture.”
“Most new hires are so eager to do well and rush to excel that they don’t fully pay attention to their surroundings,” Browne says. “Assumed culture is made up of norms that folks who have been working at the organization ‘know’ but don’t communicate to new hires. Some things as simple as when to go to lunch, what are start times and end times for the day, and who do I talk to and who should I avoid.”
Related: Warning Signs a Job Isn’t as Good as It Sounds
Not Knowing the Job’s Weekend Requirements
In an increasingly connected world, more and more companies expect their employees to respond to emails and handle new developments even on weekends, and new workers should have a grasp of these after-hours expectations to avoid conflict with their leisure time. Caleb Chen, a remote-working advocate and founder of TheVanlifeCoach.com, encourages prospective employees to screen for weekend requirements when job-hunting, “because nothing sucks more than leaving on a trip on Friday and coming back Monday morning to your work desk and opening your email for the first time just to discover that you’ve been fired.”
Related: 10 Problems with Your Work-Life Balance and How to Solve Them
Unprofessional Social Media Presence
Leilani Brown, a Senior Vice President at K12 Inc. and author of professional advice book “From Campus to Career,” says that one of the most common first job mistakes for today’s graduates is failing to clean up their social media accounts of potentially offensive or unprofessional posts and photos. And make no mistake — employers will check. “I talk to graduates about it under the framework of managing your personal brand,” Brown explains. “I ask them to start thinking about how they’d like to be known, and then to think carefully about whether the way you show up online represents that.”
Related: 26 Ways Social Media Can Land or Lose You a Job
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Having a Bad Attitude
This maxim applies as well in the workplace as it does in elementary school for a simple reason — people prefer to do business with people they like. If you treat others with disrespect and/or demonstrate a lack of interest in your work, superiors and coworkers will take note and withhold potential opportunities accordingly. “There’s a place for kindness and decency,” says Brown. “You want people to recall you positively 20 years from now, and 20 years from now is going to come much more quickly than you think.”
Related: 12 Steps to Recovering From a Job Loss
Not Being Intentional About the Jobs You Accept
Because company culture is so important, Browne also advises against young jobseekers accepting a position without first “interviewing the company.” “They’re often so eager, or desperate, that they go through the interview dance with HR and hiring managers that they don’t take time to be intentional and reflect,” he says. “Jobseekers who don’t step back and consider all facets of a company will land roughly every time.”
Resume strategist and founder of Thrive! Resumes, Joni Holderman relates one case wherein a CPA in her early 40s felt trapped and kept getting promoted for 20 years within her first job, despite hating accounting. “It’s totally okay to take the first ‘real’ job you’re offered, just to pay your bills and student loans,” Holderman advises. “But if it’s not a career path that appeals to you, continue to seek a better job while you’re working!”
Not Doing Your ‘Homework’ Before Starting
Once you’ve settled on the job that’s right for you (at least for now), you should always prepare for your first day by researching and scouring the company’s website for info on its history, culture, clients, competitors, and executive members. According to Kent Lewis, the founder and president of integrated marketing firm Anvil Media, new employees should “be able to identify key executives, owners and managers by face, to avoid awkward moments in the break room or elevator.”
Related: Most Annoying Issues Boomers Encounter When Looking for Work
Having Unrealistic Expectations
Everyone wants to land their dream-job right out of the gate, but it rarely works out that way, and recent graduates who understand this will have an easier time rolling with the punches at a new workplace. “Often, new workers seem to be shocked when things are less perfect than they thought they would be,” says Ben Taylor, a career expert and founder of freelancing advice portal HomeWorkingClub. “In reality there are few workplaces free of occasional personality clashes, procedures that don’t appeal to everyone, and essential jobs that are repetitive and mundane. The danger is that people think they’ve chosen the wrong job, instead of realising that all jobs have less desirable elements.”
Expecting Recognition Right Away
In the same vein, eager new hires shouldn’t set their expectations too high for receiving raises, promotions, or other forms of recognition in exchange for their efforts. You’re usually entitled to some form of advancement, but professional careers last decades. A solid promotion is usually something you spend years demonstrating your worthiness for, not something to be schemed for in a matter of months.
Steve Pritchard, HR consultant for the U.K. road-marking company Anglo Liners, says that “Thinking about career progression is obviously important, but requires much more careful consideration from newer employees, who need to prove they can do what is expected within their role (and more), instead of focusing on rewards that will simply benefit them.”
Related: Advice from Seniors to Millennials
Making Assumptions Rather Than Asking Questions
Not Understanding Your Duties
Part and parcel with asking questions is knowing exactly what your job entails on a daily basis. Establishing this with your manager early on will give you a better idea of how to spend your time so you can avoid wasting theirs, at least until you’re ready to volunteer for more. According to Ryan Glick, co-founder and co-owner of the IT services company Pixelayn Innovations — the recipe for success in a new job can be as simple as asking, “What does success in this position look like?”
Not Learning the Business
In addition to asking questions about your role, new hires can demonstrate their engagement and improve performance by making efforts to understand their company and industry as a whole, as well as their place within it. The best time to take this initiative is earlier rather than later. Matt Dunn, the hiring manager for the U.K.-based spa and wellness travel agency Healing Holidays, contends that “The more staff talk about their concerns, the better it is for morale and their personal development within the company, right from the start.”
Taking Grunt Work for Granted
“It’s important to remember to avoid taking your responsibilities for granted during your first position,” advises Ciara Van De Velde, client engagement manager for Employment BOOST, a professional outplacement and resume writing service. “Always look at the bigger picture of how your responsibilities contribute to the overall success of the organization.” This can not only give you a better appreciation for how to conduct even the most mundane assignments, but also allow you a greater sense of purpose in the new position.
Not Taking Initiative
Not Participating
Trying to Prove Yourself
Even if you’re not trying to one-up coworkers, trying to prove your worth in a new position can lead you to focus too much on performing at the expense of learning, says Babson Graduate School dean Keith Rollag. “You may also feel pressure to work through lunch and break times to demonstrate you’re a committed worker, losing critical opportunities to build relationships with others.”
Related: Great Second Careers That Don’t Require More School
Not Asking For or Being Too Sensitive to Feedback
Dressing Too Casual
Every workplace has a dress code, even if it’s unspoken. Before you’ve gotten a better handle on this and other company expectations, don’t make the mistake of showing up in jeans and a tee where you should have slacks and a tie, something your new colleagues and employers could see as presumptuous and unprofessional. “When in doubt, it is usually safer to overdress,” says Wiedman.
Trying Too Hard to Impress
Not Being Yourself
Many employees might see a first job or new company as an opportunity to reinvent themselves as more assertive. But performing in a way that feels unnatural is hard to sustain, and sooner or later your manager and coworkers will notice that something’s up. It’s possible to impress and reinvent yourself, according to Jason Lavis, marketing director of Natural Resource Professionals, but pretending to be someone you aren’t “is not the way to go about it,” he says. “The same results can be achieved authentically with real personal change. Work harder, live cleaner, and exercise more. Be the person that you’re tempted to pretend to be.”
Pushing Yourself and Your Ideas Too Hard
Similarly, don’t expect your new colleagues and managers to jump at and employ all your suggestions and new ideas right off the bat. Codrin Arsene, a University of Chicago grad and CEO at Healthcare Weekly and Digital Authority Partners, recalls being taught as a student that what mattered most was making the most compelling argument for your ideas, a strategy of persistence that only irritated coworkers at his first job. “In real life, you have to deal with politics, different priorities, inertia and fear of change,” Arsene says. “It was about learning when to shut up, take small wins, and learning soft skills.”
Not Communicating with the Boss
Communicating effectively with your boss doesn’t mean giving them constant updates and running everything by them. Rather, it depends on the specific boss and their expectations of your position, and establishing some degree of transparency without occupying too much of their time is the best way to assess. “The best thing to do is ask for expectations from your boss,” Browne says. “These aren’t ‘goals.’ These are more behavioral and give each party the framework of how to communicate, interact, and work with each other.”
Related: 30 Lies That Employees Tell Their Bosses
Getting Too Personal with Coworkers
You want to be friendly and establish good relationships at work, but you’ll also need to have a healthy sense of boundaries around the people whose perceptions of you can determine your professional success. Being candid about sex or drug and alcohol use are two of the most obvious pitfalls to avoid. Carlota Zimmerman, personalized career strategist and founder of CarlotaWorldwide, shares her general principles for work socializing: “You want people in the office to think of you as competent, professional, organized, straight forward, etc., so, keep in mind: ‘What happens after hours, stays after hours.’ Presume that everything you tell your work bestie will be conveyed to your boss, and the next time someone asks, ‘Hey, how was your weekend?’ have the gravitas to smile and say, ‘Ah, you know, no biggie.’”
Not Building Relationships
Gossiping
Every office has its share of politics to navigate, but getting involved in the workplace rumor mill can become a slippery slope. “If you avoid gossip, and you are known to avoid it, you will rarely have to defend who said what,” says Brown. “If you engage in it, you might find that the same people who bring you gossip about others are sharing gossip about you to others.”
Related: Working From Home: 25 Things You Don’t Miss About Going to the Office
Being Unprofessional in Work Chat Groups
Modern workplaces increasingly employ online messaging functions like Slack to help coworkers stay connected and ask questions while on the clock, but be mindful to treat these forums like another part of the professional workplace, not a personal chat room. Matthew Ross, the co-owner and COO of the mattress-review website My Slumber Yard, says that he’s witnessed several new hires using informal lingo like “dude,” “literally,” and even profanity that cast them in an unprofessional light for observant employers. “I want to see who keeps conversations professional and who treats them like a gossip session,” Ross says. “It’s honestly a big factor when I’m trying to decide between two different people for a promotion.”
Relying Too Much on Text and Email
There’s no shortage of ways to communicate in the modern workplace, so new hires should again take cues from colleagues and managers on the best way to reach out for different purposes. According to Christopher K. Lee, career consultant and founder of PurposeRedeemed, many recent graduates too often avoid speaking on the phone in favor of using emails and text messages. “While these certainly have their uses, they also have their limitations, such as lacking tone. Moreover, you can often accomplish tasks more quickly over the phone than through emails and asynchronous modes of communication.”
Abusing Company Time
Tending to Personal Matters
Not Saving for Retirement
As a new employee with minimal personal finance know-how, it’s all too easy to neglect your company’s retirement account or other savings opportunities but taking advantage now can reap huge benefits down the line. “By contributing to your company sponsored 401(k) now, it will save you a lot of money in the future,” says Brian Meiggs, founder of the financial advice site My Millennial Guide. “Due to the power of compounding, the longer you give your money to grow, the more you will have in 30 years … Ensure that you don’t lose out on matching contributions, which is essentially a risk-free return on your money.”
Related: 10 Types of Retirement Accounts to Help Build Your Nest Egg
Not Signing Up for Benefits in Time
Even if it seems overwhelming, it’s wisest not to wait on researching and enrolling in your new company’s savings and benefits programs, as the sign-up window often only lasts the first 30 days after hiring, according to Laura Handrick, career and workplace analyst and writer for FitSmallBusiness. She says, “Once that window closes, they can’t sign up for benefits until the following year’s open enrollment period — unless they have a qualifying event, such as turning 26 and no longer able to be on their parent’s health insurance plan.”
Overspending Your Salary
Not Observing Carefully
Not Owning Your Mistakes
No matter how much you prepare and how hard you work, you will make mistakes at a new job, and the worst thing you can do in response is to try and cover them up and avoid responsibility. “If you let mistakes go, they will only grow and cause more pain than is necessary,” says James Westhoff, director of career services at Husson University’s Center for Student Success. “No one’s expecting you to be perfect,” adds Brown. “You’re going to make mistakes, but it’s how you react to the mistakes. Stumble, get back up, and continue to be enthusiastic.”
