First Week of Work After College: The Real Truth!
This is the third and final blog from Marc McGrann, our Marketing Intern at APLS Group for the past 20 months. Marc graduated in May and immediately found a full time position with a start-up company in the Raleigh, NC area.
Recently I started my first job after college. On my first day, I began training at the new company for a position I feel is a little beneath my skill set. Being that I am just out of college and am new to the company I understand and accept that I have to start at the bottom, but what I decided was that I would not accept staying in the position.
Many people in the workforce feel the same way that I do now, that their position in a company does not reflect that of their potential, yet they continue to stay in their position and do not move up. What I have realized is this is primarily because most individuals feel that they should be noticed simply for doing their job well and should be promoted on that merit alone. This is untrue. The mark of a highly qualified upper management type individual is not that they are very good at their job, but that they are able to see beyond their position and the tasks at hand.
In order for any person to better themselves, they must extend themselves beyond that which is expected. For example, in order to get stronger you can’t lift the same weight every day. You have to extend yourself by lifting more weight. When in the office, you cannot expect more responsibility for just doing what you are asked to do, but should be proactive in that you realize problems and find solutions. The key is finding solutions. Not simply noting problems and letting a superior know (or if you are running your own company merely noticing a problem), but discovering problems and creating concrete steps to solving issues.
By realizing a problem, studying the problem, working out possible solutions, and creating real processes which can be implemented in order to solve the issue you can prove that you are able to gain ownership of the responsibility that comes with an upper management position. We all have to realize that being a manager or a vice president or even a CEO does not depend on just being the best at performing a particular task, but more important than that, it depends on understanding the business and being able to adjust and solve issues that will come up which hinder those beneath you from performing the task most efficiently.
