The Importance of a First Job

Fresh out of college, you toss off your graduation cap, frame that hard-earned degree and iron your most professional outfit for your first day at your very first post-college job. Everything you've accomplished thus far has prepared you for this moment.

The journey from college to career may not be perfectly seamless. My first job played a great role in shaping my career. I became more familiar with myself in many ways. A first job can sometimes be a ladder which will help you rise 50 places and sometimes it can ignite the entrepreneurial fire in you which you were oblivious of. Whatever the result may be, I surely learnt alot!

So last week I quit my job in hope to do something which I love, something I've always dreamt about.

My first job to me meant more than just a job. It was a cycle of:

Learning Professionalism

I was completely unknown to the professional person I had within me and if it wouldn't have been for my first job, I would've perhaps never been introduced to this side of the world. The world that we call the corporate-world.

No matter where you come from or what your studies are, you learn professionalism and an unknown lifestyle.

Back in my college days (except for during the exam period), I never found myself on this tread wheel, bounded by an obligation of "you have to be there" everyday from Monday to Friday by 9 am and be responsible for your acts. :D

During my first week at work, I noticed my boss got into office at least a half hour before our scheduled time. On following his cue, I realized that I enjoyed the distraction-free quiet time before the e-mails started pouring in. When you consistently arrive early and do good work, people take notice and it definitely enhances reputation. :D

The professional world out there requires you to reconsider your language, clothing, people, relationships, general attitude and to love your outlook calender! :P Being organized is a key. It isn't just helpful but is also imperative to succeed. You need to be open enough to be able to quickly acquire skills such as time management, organisation, manners, professional communication, etiquette and negotiation skills.

Meeting the requirements of an investment bank is easy but being a useful member of a professional community is more difficult.

Learning passion, motivation, problem-solving skills, pro activity and productivity are the basics of your future as a professional and will also help you grow as an individual.

Experiencing Criticism

Besides being thrown into deep and cold water, criticism is also a factor which embraces your difficulties.

Discovering tiny or more serious mistakes in an official letter or discourtesy in your communication towards the compliance users can make your every days unpleasant, sometimes even miserable, but at the end it all comes back to the learning process.

I learnt that the more your co-workers and managers criticize your behaviour and your work, the luckier you are because that is the only way to develop and proceed with becoming the professional you would like to be. Coaching and mentoring superiors understand that making mistakes are natural and analyzing and correcting these mistakes on a regular basis is the key of professional development. Criticism unambiguously develops maturity and responsibility, you just have to know how to utilise it.

Determining you Future

Your first job puts you on an unknown career path but before you start walking on it, there are several facts the job reveals.

First, you will be able to benchmark. You get to know the industry and with time understand what fancy job positions really mean. You will also be able to judge the level of responsibility, size and reputation of the company, future opportunities and corporate culture, all these based on your experience gained at your first workplace.

Second, if you were uncertain about what kind of job to pick after graduation, you will probably see much clearer after starting to work somewhere. You will soon find out if you are a ’goer’ or rather ’office-stayer’, you like giving presentations or rather taking them, etc. At least, if the first job does not provide you with a clear career path, it definitely shows what you don’t want to do in the future.

Building Relationships

So far as a college student I had friends, classmates and teachers but as soon as I was placed into a professional environment, I faced a brand new kind of relationship: colleagues, some of which of course turned into one of my dearest friends of all.

However, for the rest, I learnt that you have to bear in mind that these people, no matter older or younger, are not your friends, still, you need to find the way how to be ’work-friends’ since you spend at least 45 hours a week together. The first workplace provides a great opportunity to meet successful people and build up a professional network.

Working at an Investment Bank gives you the opportunity to get a deeper insight to what other sectors and industries, what other field professionals do and how they started their career. By experience, most of these professionals emphasize the knowledge and experience they gained right after college and mention their first job as where they established their practical knowledge right after finishing their academic studies. I feel that nobody ever ’forgets’ where they started from which undeniably underline the significance of the first job and the same goes for me.

"Learning is experience and Experience is learning"

My first job will always be the reason for whatever I would've turned out to be in the future. :)