I know that you’re dreaming of that corner office – chase it!
While getting there, it’s so important to enjoy the journey, which is why I want to share tips on being mindful in your entry-level job. You (usually) get to see more and act as a generalist, wear different hats, learn a ton, and ask lots of questions. There are definitely frustrating instances because you have a lot of senior team members to answer to. Sometimes you have to run around getting approval from multiple people and it can feel micro-managed. Here are my tips for thriving at this stage!
On a daily basis
Be curious.
- Figure out what you want to keep learning about (relevant to your job). Work isn’t meaningful when you do the bare minimum and zone out in the afternoon. Keep reading, following thought leaders, and soaking up knowledge.
- Are you a media buyer? Stay updated on what advertising opportunities exist outside of Facebook and Google.
- Are you a content marketer? Keep your writing skills sharp with the free courses you can find online!
- Ask literally every question. (You may want to save the smart questions for your boss, and ask operational/basic questions to a co-worker.)
Be positive.
- If you’re going through personal hardship, you should absolutely let your boss know in a professional way. But it does not work if you’re grumpy because you didn’t get your coffee that morning.
- Yes, we’re all human – but people tend to remember the negatives. You might have an amazing work ethic 9 out of 10 times, your 1 off-day can really stick in people’s memories. Especially when you’re entry-level, you have to be disciplined about staying professional.
- Maintaining this discipline is much easier when you have boundaries and work-life balance. Try to compartmentalize.
Be friendly.
- Not only is this the professional thing to do, but there will come a time when you need an opinion, an urgent favor, or an introduction. And word gets around! When your boss hears multiple people vouch for you and say that you’re amazing, it only builds your reputation.
- Think about it vertically and horizontally.
- Horizontally: get to know people on other teams (engineering, sales, finance, etc.)
- Vertically: introduce yourself to the people above and below you in the hierarchy
- Keep it drama-free. You can vent about work to your mom, your best friends, your therapist, your S/O, your dog – but NOT anyone from the office. Seriously :/ I’ve seen some situations go down.
With real work projects
Strategize.
- It’s good practice to do a “planning session” for each project. Just knowing your path forward helps.
- You can think about:
- Objective: What is the point of this project?
- Timeline: How long will this take?
- What: What is the final deliverable?
- What: What information or assets do you need from others?
- What: What are the potential challenges and contingency problems?
- Who: Who else needs to participate?
- Who: Who needs to sign-off and approve?
- When you get a task, be proactive about going above and beyond in a helpful way.
- Do you need to do data entry? Enter the data, then figure out how to visualize the data in a way that’s easy for senior management to digest.
- Do you need to write a blog post? Write the blog post, then figure out some ways to direct more web traffic to your post.
Get Feedback.
- For really big projects with high stakes, get feedback at intervals (during planning, at the halfway point, etc.)
- There were a couple of times where I got really excited about a big project and just ran with it. I put a lot of effort into the final product but it just wasn’t what the team was looking for. If I had bounced ideas with them before I even started, it would have saved me a lot of time and I could have focused my energy in the right direction.
- See more on feedback here!
Double-check the work.
- Book time in your schedule to double-check your work.
- For example, if you’re tasked with a 1 day project (~8 hours), you shouldn’t actually think of it as 8 hours of working time. You should mentally schedule (for example) 1 hour for strategizing and preparing, 6 hours of work time, and 1 hour for double-checking.
- Get a fresh pair of eyes on your work, if you can!
When something is unclear
Do your own research.
- The Internet is amazing and the world is big. People have probably asked your question before. Even if the answers are not exactly what you need, they’ll help you ask better questions.
- Get help. When I struggle with Facebook ads, I call up our Facebook client support rep or call a friend who is an ad genius. It saves so much time.
Go back to the boss.
- If you’re going back to your boss for clarity, strategize how you’re going to ask.
- Definitely do not raise a question/problem without potential solutions. This just makes you look lost. Jot down potential directions or ideas – they don’t even have to be right. Just show that you put in effort on your own first.
- At the end of the day, it’s all about framing.
- “Can you help me understand the final deliverable format?” means the same thing as “Wait, so what do I do?” – but the former earns you some respect and a more helpful answer.
Work politics
Manage up.
- “Managing up” means that you make life easier for your boss (in turn, making you indispensable). You have to anticipate their needs, understand what/who they’re dealing with, and what they could use help with. Harvard Business Review has a great overview on it here.
- As an entry-level team member, you probably have at least a few levels of people above you. Managers, Associate Directors, Directors, Vice Presidents, the CMO. (For more on getting promoted, see here.) If you have work requests coming in from different people, you’ll have to prioritize.
- Prioritize what your direct manager needs.
- If someone else above you, but not a direct manager, asks for something, let them know that you’ll get right to it but have a few things on your plate.
- You could say something like, “Okay, this sounds like a critical task. I promised Jen that I’d complete an RFP for a prospective client in the next couple of days. Is it alright if I get to this task afterward? From what you’ve described, I can it to you by the end of the week.”
- If a peer asks for a favor that’ll take 5 minutes, I always try to fit it in the same day.
- If a peer asks for something larger, I tell them I’ll check my schedule first. If I have the time, I’ll definitely help. If I just don’t have the time for another project, I try to sit down with them for 30 minutes to at least offer a sounding board.
Communicate and track.
- You’ve definitely heard this before, but communication is key. You have to keep people informed of what you’re working on and what you’ve accomplished. A friend/mentor told me that she spends 20% of her time making sure that her work gets seen. For example, by sending update emails or meeting notes.
- One of my pet peeves is when I email one of my analysts with a project task, and they don’t respond. In that instance, they should email back with something like, “Received! Working on it.” If there’s radio silence, it takes up my mental space as I wonder whether they received it and if I need to follow up.
- Keep a super organized log of your work. There are tons of paper planners and digital tools out there. Check out my favorites here!
- It’s helpful to see where your time is going, and to look back in a year to see what kinds of work you did.
- See more on why you should keep a work diary here.
