How Important Is Getting The Right First Job?

Your First Job Can Dramatically Shape Your Career Path

As the Fixx famously said in the 1980s (yikes!), “One thing leads to another”. Nothing could be more true when it comes to careers. Each step leads to new possibilities for your next step. Welcome to the snowball effect.

When it comes time to make a career jump, your current experience and skills at the time will largely dictate what types of position you can pursue. This is why it’s important that your first job after college should be in your chosen field and industry, doing the exact type of work you desire.

If your first job isn’t directly in line with your long-term career goals, it may take years of additional hard work to shift your career path in the desired direction. And there are other reasons why landing the right first job can change your life.

The Connections You Make In Your First Job Can Lead To Other Opportunities

The skills and experience you gain in your first job out of college will directly impact your career path. But the professional network you develop can have a surprisingly profound impact on how far and fast your career grows.

In addition to working hard and excelling in your role, don’t forget to work just as hard as developing professional relationships. The job may last only a few years, but your connections will last a lifetime. A strong network of advisors and former managers can be instrumental in providing references and referrals, and may even recruit you directly as they move on to other companies.

Don’t overlook the importance of connecting with peers and low-level employees in addition to management. As time passes, your contemporaries will grow and become tomorrow’s managers. These may be the most important connections to make for the long run.

Your Starting Salary Has Huge Implications

Here’s something you may not have considered. Salary increases throughout your career will be based in large part on the level of the position and the salary you earned in your prior positions. This has a compounding effect, so a small difference in your first starting salary will result in a huge difference in your total career earnings.

You may be surprised to learn that an extra $10,000 of salary in your first job will equate, on average, to an extra $2 million in total earnings over the course of you career. If financial reward and security is important to you, then you’ll want to find a job that maximizes not only your potential, but also your starting salary.

Steps You Can Take To Help You Get The First Job You Want

At this point you may be asking yourself what steps you can take to increase your chances of securing the job you want. Not to worry, there are several things you can do to improve your chances of success.

The first thing to do is to educate yourself and make a plan. Learn what types of roles in your field offer the highest pay, greatest career growth or whatever benefits are most important to you. Become an expert on the latest changes in your field and the companies that are growing the fastest. Introduce yourself to current first-year employees at some of these companies and ask for informational interviews so you can learn as much as possible about how those companies recruit, screen and hire. Use this information to plan what companies and positions are the best match for your background and interests and make a list.

Another important step you can take is to develop your job-finding skills. Learn how to improve your resume by figuring out what information to include, and what to omit. Get savvy at presenting your skills and experience in a way that makes it easy for hiring managers to quickly understand your strengths, and what makes you unique.

Don’t stop there, develop this same understanding when it comes to interviewing. Practice, practice, practice until you know the stories you need to tell, how to tell them in a compelling way, and can work them into conversation appropriately.

Perhaps the most important thing you can do to differentiate yourself from the competition and improve your odds of getting a great job out of college is to find internships. We’ve done the research for you, and the experts agree that getting internships in college is a must.

If you are a freshman or sophomore in college, now is the best time to start developing the skills that you’ll need to find internships that lead to employment after school. If you’d like to learn more about the career prep coaching and tools we provide, please schedule a free initial consultation. We’d love to hear from you.