A YEAR OUT OF COLLEGE AND WORKING. WHAT NEW PROFESSIONALS WISHED THEY HAD KNOWN.

Looking back, how prepared were you to start your job? What do you wish you had known before you started?

These are just two of the questions I asked former More Than A Resumé clients who have been out in the professional workforce for a year or more. As much as we discussed transitioning from college to a career, the reality hit hard. Here’s what they wish they had known.

“I was prepared for the intellectual rigor but not the lifestyle change,” said one new professional but echoed by many others.  

• Most said they had a hard time getting up early to be in office by 6 or 7 in the morning five days in a row, and then having to stay until 6 or 7 in the evening. There is no hitting the snooze button. Show up late one too many times and you'll find yourself unemployed.

• Another time-related lifestyle reality mentioned is free time and vacation time. Most employers are not that generous with time off. You will likely get 10 days of vacation (some give 15 days) in your first job. However, you may not have much choice as to when you can take your vacation and how many consecutive days you can take.
• "There is a difference in time management when you have to work long hours and try to have a life,” one client said. As busy as you are in college, it doesn’t teach you how to work 40 hour and when you do, you need a bedtime.

“Looking back, being fully knowledgeable as to what the position would entail and what the company was expecting from me,” said a client who has been out and working for two years. There are a several transition-related issues in this statement.

• Despite your best efforts during your interviews to ask question in order to understand the scope of the job, hiring managers are not often clear about job responsibilities. Gone are the days when a syllabus with clear instructions and dates for all of your major responsibilities were provided. At work, things come up spontaneously, sometimes with little instruction or time for preparation.
• As students you were accustomed to receiving constant feedback, positive reinforcement, and immediate results for assignments, through the grades received. However, at work you may or may not get the acknowledgement for doing something that is considered part of your job and it may take months to see the fruits of your labor.
• Regrettably, some companies and their managers do not do a good job of onboarding. A company's culture incorporates among other things: the company's mission, values, dress code, norms of behavior, attitude, expectations, organizational structure, and rituals. In order for you to be happy and successful in your job, you must find a way to adapt to this culture. When little emphasis is placed on onboarding, the responsibility lies with you.
• You will also need to learn in a new way. In school, you are often expected to memorize material and then restate the information in papers or in exams. However, at work you might be expected to learn new skills of the job that are learned through practice. As new professionals, you need to learn to adjust to a different learning curve.

Although, a direct to career major (accounting) said, “Training in my field of work,” and then added HaHa, there’s an important message here. 

• It is a tough realization that your degree does not automatically translate into the skills needed for a job. An internship in your career can help you understand the skills needed, expectations and more. However, there are companies such as the big consulting firms that appreciate you learned the principles of accounting or engineering but want you to do it their way. No college course can teach you a company’s work process or work flow.

Each of the new professionals surveyed, after more than a year at their jobs, are still employed at the companies they started with, and in talking with them, I know they have transitioned quite well.