The Art of Proving Yourself in a New Career

If you’ve found yourself in a postgrad internship or entry level job, you’ve likely run into a few transitional frustrations here and there. Maybe you feel the tasks that you’ve been given are a bit too granular, or you’re tired of working from project to project instead of being assigned to one of your own. Having been through the obligatory internship phase myself, allow me to offer a some perspective and advice on approaching this experience.

1. No matter how great your resume looks, you still have to prove yourself. As the president of the central region of my own company said during the Gal’s Guide Summit a few short weeks ago, “No one cares where you went to college or what your GPA was—it’s all about what you can do for them.”
2. Attention to detail comes first. You have to prove that you can get the details right before moving on to the “bigger picture.”
3. Be proactive. Learn to think like the client. Answer questions and solve problems before they have the chance to ask. This will make you a valuable asset to the organization.
4. Learn basic design. No matter how great your ideas are, they won’t get you anywhere unless you can express them. Whether you’re communicating through PowerPoint, a print document or any other format, bad design is distracting.
5. Learn how to use your desktop apps. Not just use them, but really use them. You never know when you might need to pull a crazy excel formula or PowerPoint formatting trick.
6. Continue to network within the company. Ask to grab coffee with different employees who are higher levels than you to get to know more about what they do and learn about the various career options within the company. The more people you can get to know this way, the more you’ll have cheering for you when it comes time to make hiring or promotional decisions.
7. Learn to prioritize. You’ll likely have different projects coming from different people, so each time you get a new project, let them know what you’re working on and ask when the project is due by.
8. Make sure you get your review. Set up a review with your manager half-way through your internship. You need to find out where you stand in order to improve on any perceived weaknesses.

Photo: “Shoes to Fill” from my own photo collection

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