3 brutals truths about navigating corporate in your early career

The earlier you learn these lessons the better your career will be

You’ve finished university and landed your first graduate job.

Great!

But now you’re facing a whole new world in which you need to adapt into quickly, but you’re not actually given any guidance on how to navigate

These first few years can be daunting, and I remember my early years in corporate making silly mistakes that could have been avoided if I had a mentor for guidance.

So here are 3 brutal truths you need to learn sooner rather than later to help you navigate the early part of your career smoothly (and not nearly get fired like me from a grad scheme!)

1. First impressions really do stick and they’re hard to shift

When you come into the corporate world, one of the most important things you need to do is build your reputation and personal brand at a company. Having a reputation as a competent and reliable high-performer will open so many doors for you when it comes to promotions.

Most of this reputation will be heavily influenced by people’s first impressions of you. And the thing is, first impressions stick. Once someone has an impression of you, it’ll take a disproportionate amount of work to get them to change their thought on you.

This is why it’s so important to be giving great first impressions to people, especially your direct team, manager and senior leadership.

The 3 key things to strong first impressions are 1) communication 2) reliability (do what you say when you say) and 3) competency (do good work)

2. Luck and Visibility matter more for promotions than quality work

In an ideal world, your progression would be directly linked to hw good you are at the job.

Unfortunately, corporate isn’t an ‘ideal’ world.

I learnt very quickly that visibility is just as important for progression as doing good work. You won’t be able to benefit from good work if the people who need to see it don’t know about it.

When it comes to progression and promotions, the decision makers are going to base it on the information they know, so it’s crucial you make all your wins and successes visible to the key people so they can see your business impact and value.

The key here is to document your wins and make sure to inform your manager or team lead of your successes. This can be cc’ing them into feedback from the client or sending a weekly note on things you’ve done and successes from them.

3. You don’t get what you deserve, you get what you ask for

This one is probably the most annoying, but it is true nevertheless.

Many people get promoted ahead of others who are more ‘competent’ all the time. But the reason why is that they’re probably the ones who root for themselves and ask for what they want.

Your manager and company aren’t going to proactively give you that pay rise or promotion if you don’t ask for it. They can’t read your mind (and it’s in their interest not to).

This lesson was the longest to learn, and I had to rewire myself to be more comfortable in demanding things from employers and recruiters (I’m still learning to this day).

Hopefully, these 3 learnings are helpful for the working professionals in this community (and the grads who are soon to enter the working world!)