Career Advice For Young Professionals Navigating Their First Job

By Maureen Bongat | Nov 04, 2015 06:00 AM EST

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Starting your first "real" job is like opening another new page in your life. "A lot of people look at getting the job offer as the finish line, but really it's the start of another run," shares Rosemary Haefner, the Vice President of human resources at Career Builder, as noted by The Forbes. Thus, it is better to start the new phase right most especially because it will cost you so much effort adapting from college classrooms to your new world now. If you really want to be successful in your chosen career, it's crucial to prepare, change your outlook in life and improve your everyday routine.

These tips can help you adjust in your first week being a professional:

Learn from your mistakes

Don't let your mistakes ruin your perception at work. Remember, it's OK to commit mistakes sometimes. You just have to make sure not to do it recurrently. Besides, every day is the best day to improve your bad habits. Just like what Business Insider noted, "It's a great opportunity to overcome any challenges or weaknesses from your past. The statement was from Amanda Augustine, a career expert at The Ladders, an online job-matching service for professionals. For example, if struggling with time management is your problem, then you must use the first week to map it out and spend the rest of the days to improve yourself.

Reinforce your connections

Once you get the job, one of the most important things to do is to update your profile across your social media accounts and follow your new company and colleagues. Also, as you meet more people, it is better to strengthen your relationship by searching them on LinkedIn or Twitter and start building connections with them. Every connection you build will be useful especially for future references.

Improve your "soft skills"

Soft skills are personal attributes that help anyone interact harmoniously and effectively with other people. It is often associated with the person's EQ or Emotional Intelligence Quotient. Unfortunately Buzzfeed stated, "Millennials apparently are terrible at them," adding that technology has become the main reason why most of us are now socially awkward. So how can you fix this? You can solve this by taking some public speaking classes, attend network conferences, and apply all the things you've learned in your everyday life and not just in your office.

Don't forget, no matter how hard it is being employed is still a privilege. So don't waste the opportunities given to you. 

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