“I should work on my resume,” a friend said one day. He had been selling enterprise software at a medium-sized company for the last ten years or so. They hired him right out of school, and it was the only employer he had ever known. He was good at his job and generally liked what…
Years ago, a friend was voluntold to attend a recruiting event his employer organized at our alma mater. Afterwards, he told me about all the fresh-faced college students waxing poetic to the VPs about how great they thought the bank was. How it had been their dream to work in banking since they were three…
A friend received an offer for a position that he applied to. Great, right? Unfortunately, it was from his safety job. A safety job is the employee equivalent of a safety school, a sub-optimal college that a high school student applies to as a backup in case they are rejected by their target schools. Similarly,…
At my first “real job” after college, I was initially hired as an intern for three months, which doubled as my probation period. I received an informal offer to stay on as a full time employee afterwards, having avoided doing anything egregiously stupid during. Since the internship was technically a contract role, HR informed my…
I’m going to tell you something today that isn’t frequently expressed during commencement speeches: your first job is going to suck. A lot of new grads receive their sheepskin and enter the workforce bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. They will do exciting work from the very first day. Senior management will value their input on strategic direction.…
