I often ask successful professionals about their first jobs. Rarely does anyone tell me they loved, or really enjoyed those initial gigs.
Why? Because it’s rare to walk out of school and into the perfect job, one that’s fun and fullfilling. That’s just how the real world works. Believe it or not, you may actually hate that first job and spend more time learning and paying dues than sitting back in a rocking chair saying, “wow, my job is so great.”
That may be a bit of a disappointment to many younger workers. One study found that enjoyment at work is the top priority for students.
80% believe a career should be something that brings
enjoyment and fulfillment to their life and 53% believe their career
will play a role in defining them as an individual, according to CPP Inc., an personality assessment company.
It’s a worthy goal, but it may set kids up for failure when they head to their new jobs and end up cursing life on the drive or bus ride home.
My column on MSNBC.com this week looks at mistakes that recent grads make during those first jobs, and after finishing my research I realized the big faux pas often stem from a disconnect when it comes to expectations and how younger workers have come to see their job futures. Almost all the Gen Yers I talked to for the story told me they definitely got a serious reality check.
According to a recent survey by staffing firm Adecco, about 71 percent of recent college grads would have “done something differently while in college to be better prepared for the job market.”
The reason was they ended up with jobs that didn’t quite fit their majors or their expectations.
Though many did eventually find full-time employment during the downturn, the survey results showed that it was frequently not in positions that require a college degree. In fact, Adecco’s survey found that almost half (43 percent) of these Generation R graduates are currently working at a job that does not require a four-year degree.
Folks, this is not a new phenomenon. Often, recent grads end up doing something other than what they expected in order to pay the rent. I was desperate to get a job for a newspaper, but ended up escorting tourists to watch new sitcoms at CBS. This had nothing to do with my journalism major, and was definitely not fun or fulfilling, but hey, a gal’s got to work.
Even when I got a reporting gig, I was writing about underwear. Hello, I hated it.
Here’s a great first job story from Miriam Salpeter, author of “Social Networking for Career Success”:
My first job out of college was on Wall Street in a fixed-income research group; we published periodicals for institutional investors. It was exciting at first — long hours, fast-paced work. It was also extremely demanding, both from an hours perspective (we rarely worked less than a 14-hour day) and because my supervisor and colleagues were under a lot of pressure to produce.
Tired people, under stress, are not always very polite. Watching my boss, who didn’t get home until 9 or 10 pm every night, I decided the job wasn’t for me long-term. The money was great, but I wanted to have a life! The best thing about it? I learned I could get through pretty much any situation, made wonderful friends with my co-workers, and I still use a lot of what I learned on that job in my business today. I really believe, even if your first job is far from a dream job, there’s always something to learn, and the experiences help you shape your goals and identify suitable next steps for your career.
Clearly, you could look back and realize those bad jobs taught you something or connected you with great people.
Bruce, who is mid career and works for an HR management firm, didn’t like his first job in banking when he was grinding away at it. I asked him this morning if he loved the job and he answered: “In hindsight, yes. Intimidating, but at same time exciting.”
Being intimidated, paying dues, and grumbling about how much you dislike your job are all possible scenarios. So, being pragmatic for a while will serve you well. You’re not in Kansas anymore Dorothy. By Kansas I mean the sheltered school and home environment which gets so many of us thinking we’re better than we really are.
“The problem that many of us face is that we do not know how to adapt to a non-school environment,” said Renee Mitson, 22, who works for a tech company and also writes for The Next Great Generation, an online magazine written by and for the millennial generation,
“For instance,” she continued, “asking a ton of questions, and doing exactly what is on the syllabus makes you an honor student, but can make you a super annoying employee. Employers value independence and ultimately they are hiring you to make their jobs easier.”
Making an employer’s job easier? What fun is that?
July 25th, 2011 at 12:29 pm
My kids hate doing chores at home. They complain especially loud when they get assigned tasks they don’t particularly like. I’ve tried to use such opportunities as teachable moments, reminding them that it is very unlikely that they’ll get a job they love right off the bat. They need to be able to do their jobs–whatever they may be–without grumbling and complaining if they hope to move on to bigger and better things. There’s a definite disconnect between the idea of work as a means of providing support for oneslef and one’s family and the idea of work as the defining keystone of self-identity. I have one son who only wants to be a meteorologist. More specifically, he wants to be either a storm chaser or an on-TV weather person. It’s hard to make him realize that he’ll likely spend years in less than desirable positions (if he works in the field at all at the start), and that few actually realize fully their career dreams.
July 25th, 2011 at 7:47 pm
As a Gen X-er my goal at school was simple. I never wanted to work in an office. My first job was as a lab assistant at a dairy. No real office work involved. Had to collect samples and test them amongst other things….. It was Soooo boring.
My second job was in an IT department of an Insurance company. I ran the late shift and my job was to change the backup tapes. You know the BIG tapes. I waited for a backup to request a new tape and then loaded it. Yawn Yawn!! BUT - while I was waiting I started reading up on programming languages. I wrote a program to auto msg the need for a tape, so the operators could get on with more important work and still have the backups running OK. I then automated the start times of all backups. Mad to think these things didn’t exist back then, but it was a different world!!
Anyway the long and short of it…. that was the start of a very successful career in IT, both in London and Brisbane. I pushed myself to learn something new everyday… I still try to do that. This career didn’t fall into my lap, I worked hard for it.
July 25th, 2011 at 7:53 pm
My advice to first-job employees is to observe as some of your greatest life stories develop while you are slogging away. Whether I tell you about my first part-time job — who knew a bakery could be run by the Wicked Witch of the West? — or my first summer job — the boss with the empty office, clean desk, looking vacantly out the window all afternoon after cracking the whip each morning (we figured he took a pill with lunch) — or my first ‘real job’ — working 80- to 90-hour weeks until we dropped — I have a boat-load of great tales. There were fantastic characters at each of those places. Some of the crap that made me feel so indignant at the time was wonderfully laughable just a very short time later and is just ridiculous to me today in my 40s. Everyone will tell you about building character blah blah blah and learning so much blah blah blah. It’s true but I didn’t believe it when older folks told me that. I might have however believed it if someone told me to watch for the stories, because in the midst of it I could already see them unfolding.
July 25th, 2011 at 9:20 pm
Too many Gen-Yers want their dream job right out of the gate. I was a journalism major who had an internship at a huge NYC paper. I covered breaking news; even wrote a couple of cover stories. But I always knew I wanted to work in women’s magazines. Instead of going for an entry-level job at a big brand, I accepted a job at a small trade magazine that covered the most esoteric, crushingly boring subject matter (television production technology.) But I was getting crucial experience–writing, editing, production managing. (All while editorial assistants at big consumer magazines were getting coffee and making copies.) I spent my nights and weekends writing for free about subject matters I cared about. (Beauty, relationships, sex.) Just under two years later, I got the attention of a big headhunter at Hearst, and was offered a senior editor job at a huge women’s magazine . Many of the grads who took assistant jobs at their “dream” magazines were still editorial assistants. They were then reporting to me because I had established skills that they hadn’t.
July 26th, 2011 at 9:46 am
I agree with Kay. I have fond memories of my early jobs, even if the jobs themselves were not particularly fulfilling. Many great lessons came out of those early days. Today’s young people and first time job seekers would do well to remember that learning does not end when they leave the classroom. Your workplace is also your school, even if it, at times, seems like the school of hard knocks.