Careers Worth the Share: 5 Things You Can Do To Succeed In Your First Job

Worth the Share: 5 Things You Can Do To Succeed In Your First Job

December 01, 2017

At Citadel Securities, we want students who join the firm to be setup for success from day one. Whether you’re about to jump into an internship or start a full time role in trading, software engineering, or quantitative research, you should proactively take steps to take advantage of mentoring and training opportunities. The following Forbes article offers helpful tips to stand out early in your career.

Worth the Share: 5 Things You Can Do To Succeed In Your First Job

Here’s how you can ensure a successful start in your new job:

You graduated from college. Congrats! Now you’ve landed your first job and want to do well. Here are five things that will help you succeed.

Create a 90-day game plan. This document should be broken into 30-day increments and capture what you plan to accomplish over your first 90 days in the job. It should include the key tasks, projects and initiatives you need to complete, along with the key people you need to meet, prioritized over your first 90 days on the job. Meet with your manager to ensure he or she shares the same performance expectations and relevant timelines/deadlines.

Taking the time to carefully think through and plan out your first 90 days at a new job will help you decrease the stress normally felt when starting a new position. It will also help you earn respect and credibility faster, and ensure you become as efficient and effective as possible in the shortest amount of time.

Ask your boss, “How can we best work together?” Establish a positive working relationship by learning your manager’s leadership style and preferred method of working and communicating – and then flex yourself to work with his or her style.  Find out the level of interaction your boss prefers, the information he or she wants during progress updates, as well as their preferred method of communication. An excellent book on creating good relationships is People Styles at Work…And Beyond: Making Bad Relationships Good and Good Relationships Better by Robert Bolton and Dorothy Grover Bolton.

Clearly understand the criteria on which your performance will be judged. When it comes time for your performance appraisal, you don’t want any surprises. Don’t be afraid to ask your manager to define the requirements for success in the job. Then, schedule update meetings on a regular basis with your manager; it gives you the opportunity to share your progress as well as obtain your boss’s feedback on how you’re doing in your job.

Get to know your coworkers. Try to meet with coworkers in groups, such as during lunch, and also individually, such as for coffee, so you can get to know them. Find out their areas of expertise and some of their projects. This will give you a broader picture of the department and help you determine how you’ll best fit in.

Continuously prove you are an asset to the organization. Every day when you get up and go into work, prove your value to the company. Always, always, always deliver on your commitments. Steadily work to complete all the items in your 90-day game plan. Notify your boss as soon as you see something is going off-track – because no manager likes to be surprised. By delivering on your commitments and proving your value to the organization, you will build a reputation as someone who is honest, trustworthy and accountable.

Starting a new job is nerve-wracking for everyone. It’s the grown-up version of the first-day-of-school jitters. But by using these five tips, you can decrease your stress and help ensure a successful start in your new job. You can do it!

 

This article was written by Lisa Quast from Forbes and was legally licensed through the NewsCred publisher network. Please direct all licensing questions to [email protected].