5 Things I Wish I Had Known Starting My Career

"What advice do you have for someone starting their career?"

I will never forget my first week in Boston. On my 23rd birthday, I packed up my car with all my things and my mom and I drove 13 hours from North Carolina to Boston. I believe I was silent the whole time; I was moving to a new city that I had never been to, where I had no friends, and was starting my career. In retrospect, I can't believe we completed that drive safely - I was white-knuckling the steering wheel, trying to hold on for dear life as my life was changing rapidly before my eyes. I was terrified.

My first day of work, three days later, was similarly difficult. I woke up early, put on my finest dress shirt and slacks, and got on the subway to head to work. The only problem was it was a simmering 89 degrees and humid. For 45 minutes, I was locked inside an airconditioning-less subway, pouring sweat into my light purple shirt. I was disheveled before even walking into orientation.

Things got easier from there - I learned about the company, I met the team and our partners, learned a bit about what my job was. But most of my first month was spent meeting people for coffee chats. In all of my chats, I asked the same question, hoping for someone to bestow some life-changing wisdom upon me, "What advice do you have for someone starting their career?". If you are looking for some insight for your first few years on the job, like I was, this article is for you.  I want to share with you my real list of lessons, the ones made from missteps and oversights from my first year or so on the job, so you don't make the same mistakes I did.

1. Your Fancy School and High GPA Don't Mean You're Good at Your Job Yet

On my first day at Wayfair, I thought I had already won the game. I had worked hard, graduated with great grades from elite institutions, and now it was time to let my talent and skills takeover and become a strong professional. I was so confident that in grad school at Duke, my friends and I would to refer to ourselves as "five-stars"; a sports term reserved for top-tier prospects with the potential of becoming stars.

In retrospect, the sports analogy is an apt one - not all talented prospects turn into great athletes. In fact, most don't. I thought because I had done well in school, people would be impressed by me and I was entitled to success. I thought I was ahead of the game, when in reality I was at the bottom of the totem pole. I was rudely awakened in my first performance review, where it was made clear to me that I was falling short and in the danger zone.

Lesson 1: You have to prove yourself. Every new company, new role, new anything - you have to work hard and demonstrate the value you bring to the table. Build confidence based on your current success, not past accolades. 

2. 91% Accuracy Isn't Good Enough Anymore

If I'm being honest with you, and myself, I was probably the perfect picture of what a teacher didn't want in a student. I treated every semester like an optimization problem: how could I get the best grades that I could while putting in as little effort as possible. I wanted a 3.7-3.8 GPA, which meant that I needed roughly a 91% average across all my classes (ignoring grade inflation). I was meticulous; before every final exam, I calculated the exact grade I needed to achieve an A or A- in the class and adjusted my effort accordingly. Little mistakes are okay, details can be missed - as long as I get the big stuff right, then all will be good in the world. I quickly found out that this method does not translate into the working world. 

We all had at least one math teacher growing up who didn't give partial credit. You could get 10 out of 11 steps right in a problem but if you made one mistake, one rounding error - you were wrong. All that hard work, all the correct steps wiped away by a slip in concentration or missed detail. That's what work is like, particularly in an analysis-based role. Missing one filter, one incorrect assumption, one bug in your code and everything downstream is wrong or irrelevant. All the insights and beautiful slides that you put together don't matter. You have to start all over again.

People will catch your mistakes. Even if they don't review your code, most people know what numbers should look like before you pull them together. When that happens, not only do you have to redo all your work and feel dumb, but those people you showed your work to have lost trust in you. You can no longer be counted upon to deliver reliable results and once you become the person with the reputation for making mistakes, it's hard to shake it. You have to be accurate, detail-oriented, and zero-defect.

Lesson 2: Details matter. Double check your work. Ask questions to confirm you're making logical assumptions. Have others validate your results. Mistakes happen for everyone, but errors due to negligence or laziness are no longer acceptable. 

3. Learn a Valuable Skill...and Get Really Good At It

Technically speaking, when I was starting my first job, I had no tangible skills to speak of. I was a beginner at SQL. I was decent at Excel, but nothing worth writing home over. I was awful at making PowerPoints. I was a good thinker and a good talker, but I couldn't really do anything. 

The problem with being that person is that if you can't produce anything, you don't have much to think and talk about. And as a fresh graduate with no context or experience to draw from, those thinking and talking skills are far less valuable than they will be in the future. 

Everything changed for me when one of my managers told me if I didn't learn to code, I would become useless to the team in a year. Was this an exaggeration? Maybe. But it motivated me to learn and, after lots of work and practice, become an excellent coder and a technical lead on the team. Once I could do things for people, either speeding up a process or answer previously unanswerable questions, I was able to deliver value. Even more importantly, I could begin flex my critical thinking and my presentation skills - but only once I had something to talk about. 

Lesson 3: Give people a reason to care about what you have to say. Develop a tangible skill. Become an expert in something. Which leads me to my next point....

4. Get Comfortable Not Knowing - Learn to Thrive There

Not knowing how to do something is probably the most common feeling I have had in my career. At first, this feeling made me extremely uncomfortable and scared. Coming out of 17 straight years of school, I desperately wanted someone to proactively come and sit next to me, hold my hand, and walk me through how to accomplish a task or goal step-by-step.

The problem is that never really happens. Maybe initially during onboarding for a few key projects or tasks, but inevitably expectations change and it becomes your responsibility to figure things out on your own. To become resourceful, research on your own, and find the right experts to ask for help.

The first time I was really challenged to learn on my own was around six months into my first year at Wayfair. I was asked to develop a text analysis to understand the differences between how managers talk about men and women in performance reviews at the company. Not only was I a beginner in Python, I had almost zero knowledge of text analysis and no idea how to approach this problem. I spent two or three months on this project researching an iterating - how to write the code, how to approach the problem, how to tell the story. The number of times I thought I had solved it and was turned away and told to start over was too many to count. But not only did that become my "breakout" project, but it was the first time I had really learned on my own. And that was career changing.

After successfully navigating this on-the-job learning a few times, I found that I developed a deep, unshakable confidence in myself. It no longer mattered whether I knew how to do something, because I know I can figure it out. It started out with coding and statistics, but eventually evolved into a philosophy that permeated all aspects of work: I am not afraid of uncertainty.

Lesson 4: Push outside your comfort zone and learn to love the learning process, even when it's hard.

5. It's All Going to Be Okay

In my first year of working, every single thing that happened completely rocked my world.  A colleague leaving, a big reorganization, a change in role, a change in manager - anything would blow my mind and send me into a state of anxiety and panic. 

In case you don't already know this, because I certainly didn't, things change frequently at work. In my five years since graduating I have had: four jobs, eight different roles within those jobs, six managers, eleven direct reports, and seen three layoffs. This doesn't even take into account the number of changes in priorities, projects, reorganizations, and teammates leaving. 

This isn't to say that those things shouldn't impact you - they should. Those moments of change and uncertainty are turning points during your tenure at a company. But, looking back, I wish I had used less energy reacting to each and every change and went with the flow more.

Lesson 5: Learn to ride the wave. Things come and go; learn to stay centered.

Conclusion

Navigating the first year of work can be a challenging and uncertain experience. The lessons I've shared, drawn from my own missteps and growth, offer valuable insights for those starting their careers. By proving yourself through hard work, paying attention to detail, developing tangible skills, embracing the learning process, and adapting to change, you can thrive in your professional journey.

If you find this transition difficult or desire guidance along this path, I'm here to help. Through personalized coaching sessions, I can provide you with additional support, tailored advice, and strategies to excel in your career. Together, we can work on sharpening your skills, boosting your confidence, and overcoming any obstacles that come your way.

I invite you to schedule a free coaching session with me using the link below. Let's embark on this journey together and ensure your success in the ever-evolving professional landscape.

https://calendly.com/aaron-rodriguez471

With the right guidance and a proactive mindset, you can build a solid foundation for a fulfilling and prosperous career. Don't hesitate to take the next step toward unlocking your full potential. Sign up for coaching today and let's pave the way to your professional success.