Starting your first “career” job can be exciting. You’ve finished college and you finally have that first job, even if it is on the bottom of the ladder. You feel excited, motivated, relieved (it’s a tough job market), and ready to take on the world.
Then reality hits you: in the real world your work is usually only noticed by a small number of individuals. If you work for a giant company, you realize that your entire team’s work is felt by a small number of other teams. Everyone you work with is at least fairly competent, and you realize just how hard it is to stand out among your coworkers.
Additionally, you realize just how hopelessly dependent you are on other people’s performance. You would have had that project done a week ago…if the John and Jane would have returned your emails. You would have everything submitted on time…but Joe made it a low priority to provide you direction. The event would have been great…but Sarah waited until the last minute to book entertainment.
There are ways to stand out and provide value at work, regardless of the seemingly endless number of hurdles you will inevitably face.
1) Attain Unique Knowledge
Every company looks for employees who know things that others do not. Considering we are in the age of Wikipedia and open information, it’s surprising how much information employees do not know about their company, their industry, and even their specific tasks. For example there is an unlimited amount of information you could learn about the Health Care Reform law in the United States and how it impacts health insurers and providers, but a surprisingly low percentage of people working in the health care industry have a robust understanding of the law. This type of information could be simply obtained by completing a masters in public health degree if you are self-motivated enough to pursue it. As an employee if you can learn information about important legislation or changes to an industry and coherently explain how it will impact your job function and company specifically, you have a huge leg up on all the other employees who are just starting out (and those who have been around for a long time).
2) Learn How to do your job, then learn Why
There is a “breaking in” stage of every job. If you are in your first or second job out of college, this stage may be longer than people who have a couple of decades of experience under their belt. The dirty little secret is that there is a huge pool of candidates who can do a job competently; there if a far smaller pool of candidates who will learn how to do the job and then challenge the way it’s always been done. Pretty much any job you can possibly imagine can be done better in some way, even if it seems like the way it’s always been done is just fine.
Decades ago there were teams of people manually doing jobs that are now done by one person who utilizes various technological resources to do the work it took a whole team to do in the past. That one person is likely someone who challenged the way things were done, not someone who just accepted the fact that things were always going to be the way they have been.
3) Learn Processes, then Improve and Automate
Piggybacking on learning how to do your job and then learning (and challenging) why it is done that way, one of the best things a young worker can do is to learn, improve, and automate processes. Just like the above example, the more you can automate the more value you bring to a company; over time you may be saving them millions by pushing the envelope of what can be done given the resources available to you.
What companies care about (for-profits and non-profits alike) is results. How many people attended an event you organized? How many reports can you tie-out and manage in a given 8-hour day? How satisfied were the clients with the service you provided? It should be everyone’s goal to “do better” than the job or task has been done in the past. This requires understanding the process, looking for flaws or areas for improvements through analyzing a process, and finally automation (if possible). If you work at a child care facility, how can you improve the check-in and check-out process to eliminate manual tasks? What can be done to better accommodate customers at your car dealership? Processes are meant to be improved.
4) Create Something New
Improving things is always good, but you can create some serious value by creating something new. Even if your job description isn’t to create new products and services, there is usually something of value that can be created that has yet to be built. In pretty much every workplace there is some level of resistance to change or the creation of new things. The best way to deal with this reality is to understand that your innovation and creating of new things will actually have a much bigger impact in this sort of an environment. If you worked a place where you were expected to create, and to create often, the new things you spend time and energy creating will have less of an impact and will certainly stand out less. Consider making the action of creating a normal part of your workday.
5) Connect with Others
Some people see little benefit in connecting with people who do not directly impact their work. I think there is value in connecting with people who do entirely different work than you, especially if they are outside of your company. Frequently people who have been working at a company for a long period of time start having tunnel vision as far as how things can be changed or improved. Connecting with people who work for different companies in different industries doing different things than you can provide you a variety of perspectives that will help you avoid tunnel vision.
The easiest way to connect with others is within your own company. Whether it is through volunteer events, company-wide events, or just staying in touch with them long after that project you collaborated on is complete, knowing people within your company can be a great value to you and your work. It helps you understand perspectives and priorities of people who you do not normally work with.
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Whether you are just starting your career or are simply struggling to figure out ways to provide value and inevitably stand out among your co-workers, there are many things you can do that will make an impact. It may not seem like networking with people or spending time improving processes will have an impact, but it’s been shown that long-term these are things that can potentially provide a lot of value both for you individually and your company as a whole.
Are you a young adult in the beginning of their career? What have you done to stand out or provide value at your job? If you have been working for a couple decades or more, what advice do you have for those who have been out of college less than ten years?
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I haven’t worked in a large office environment for a while, so I’ve never had trouble standing out. However, my simple tip would be these 6 words: bust your butt and be nice. Everybody notices when somebody is a hard worker, and nobody wants to work with a jerk.
GregatClubThrifty Wise words, Greg!
Unique knowledge is great to make you valuable. I had languages and special IT skills at my last job that nobody had so it was worth a bit more on my paycheck than coworkers.
RFIndependence That’s always a great way to create value. If no one else has the skill, they are dependent on you, and that’s worth $!
These are some great tips DC! I agree with all of them, but I think #5 can be really key in seeing how the company works, making connections and hopefully being able to move up. I always tend to think that the bigger your network, the more opportunity you may have in the long run.
FrugalRules Networking can really be a numbers game, can’t it? I agree with the whole quality over quantity argument when it comes to networking, but if you have a large network you might just find an opportunity you wouldn’t have had if you just networked with a small number of individuals.
Great post with a lot of great tips! Networking and connecting with others is always important – you never know where that connection with take you.
SenseofCents Thanks Michelle, and it’s crazy how networking can be so powerful.
Something that helped me stand out and actually helped me become a leader of sorts at the law firm for which I worked was taking extra steps to volunteer for activities and areas that the firm deemed important, such as United Way campaigns, Christmas gift campaigns for underprileged children, pro bono cases, etc. I also was the chair of the firm’s paralegal group for many years. All of these peripheral firm activities and groups really put me in a position to be noticed and it really helped me attain what I wanted out of my job. I was chosen to work on what were considered the better litigation teams. It can be a double edged sword, however, because when one takes leadership positions, you are sometimes expected to take leadership positions, whether you want to or not. Becoming active in the culture of the company for which you are employed and being a good ambassador for the company really makes those who matter notice you.
RobertaRenstromNyquist Thanks for sharing Roberta. I think in the end it would be better to be expected to take leadership positions than to never be viewed as a leader.
Good stuff DC. Networking is big and so is going above and beyond the minimum expectations. I think a key thing to remember is just to provide value. Lots of value. It won’t go unnoticed.
CashCowCouple Very true. If you are providing value, you will always have someone willing to pay you to create/sustain that value.
These are great tips. Automation and networking seem to be huge in my job. People are always asking us to do more and more, so any process we can automate will free up some time in order to do the new things we are being asked to do.
CommonCentsWealth Definitely. When it comes down to taking on more work, you can either do your current work faster or work longer hours. I prefer to get things done faster through automation.
I think for me, it was doing the work that seemed below me or boring. I did it with enthusiasm. I made sure it was done and done correctly. I always asked if there was anything else they needed me to do. I think its what truly helped me turn an unpaid internship into a full-time job with benefits here. Networking has been really important as well and I’ve been getting to know a lot of people in the industry thanks to my boss and her willingness to let me go to conferences.
Paulette Mensah Great tips! Doing the work that others don’t want to do, for whatever reason, and doing it really well can definitely provide value.
You and I are very similar DC. I work hard to increase my knowledge base outside of the expectations of my position. This gives me the upper hand. I always want to learn more and become a better person because of it. My best advice is to think outside the box.
DebtRoundUp “Think outside the box” is great advice. I think generally just “staying curious” is a great attitude to have. If you are curious, you are motivated to learn things you don’t necessarily “have to” learn.
Great post. I love the idea of figuring out how to do your job better then it has ever been done. A big part of that is having the confidence to see it through. By having that ability you are going to be running the company before long. Good stuff.
KyleJames1 You really do need confidence to see things through. People will challenge you at every step, especially in corporations where no matter what it seems like you are stepping on someone’s toes.
I love your point on connecting with others, specifically outside of your company, team or department. It’s so easy to get tunnel vision but there is a whole world outside of your team and getting an outside perspective can be a game changer. And also, today – it may lead to a job offer too. :)
TheHeavyPurse Definitely! Networking outside of your team (and even your company) can really open your eyes to opportunities and perspectives).
Work your tush off early in your career. It will pay dividends for many many years if you can set yourself up with solid pay and good references in the first couple of years of your career. Even after switching jobs and fields many times, that work ethic will not be forgotten.
Plantingourpennies Great tip, especially for those of us who have just started out ;)
I’m 30. Basically the same thing as you said in #2 and #3, but my advice
for others would be to challenge the status quo (in a respectful way).
Just because something has been done one way for a long period of time
doesn’t mean that’s the most efficient way to do it. Don’t be afraid to
speak up.
StudentDebtSurvivor Great point. I’ve found it surprising how difficult it is to challenge the status quo. Sometimes slowly chipping away at it (in a respectful way, as you said), is the best way to go.
It definitely doesn’t hurt to challenge yourself professionally and make connections. Thanks for the advice!
Improving and automating are important skills in software development. One of my first tasks at a previous job was to automate the population of our database from the raw data that we would receive. It was a much-needed item and reduced the workload for everyone.
OutlierModel Automation can have a HUGE impact long-term.