Tips for New Grads: How to Survive in the Corporate World

With many friends of mine graduating from university/business school this summer, I realize that many are going to be entering the corporate world. This can be an exciting experience, but there are some very common pit-falls for new grads starting their "real jobs". So I thought it might be helpful to put together a series of survival tips (in no particular order) when starting out in the corporate world.

Tip #1: Ask as many relevant questions as possible
Getting hired by a prestigious company after going through a series of interviews and beating out maybe dozens of other applicants might make a new hire feel like because they've been hired, they should already have a certain degree of knowledge about how everything in the company works. They may feel that they shouldn't be asking too many questions and risk having their boss think of them as incompetent.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Yes, it is good to show an employer that you can figure things out yourself. But, how else are you supposed to learn about the way the company works while being somewhat productive if you don't ask any questions? Even if you are really gifted, it normally takes about 4 to 6 months just to gain a decent understanding of how the company does business and how your particular role fits into the "big picture". Why not make it easier to get ahead on the learning curve by asking if you don't know how something works?

Tip#2: Look the part
I must admit that I'm sometimes guilty of not following this tip, but your physical appearance at work does make a difference whether you like it or not. Whether it's the way you dress, the way you're groomed, or even the way you sit in your office chair, your appearance will always be judged. Does your appearance affect your productivity or the quality of your work when you're just sitting in a cube in front of a screen all day? Probably not, but as one prof once told me, one's perception is one's reality. The way you look will affect the way people judge your work.

Now I'm not saying that you need to wear expensive Italian suits, Rolex watches and shiny leather shoes at the office, but you should make the effort to dress appropriately at work. When you have to meet clients or even members of upper management, your appearance is very important. It sounds cheesy, but looking successful can actually help you become successful.

Tip #3: Ask for adequate equipment
An employer will expect you to achieve a certain degree of productivity. But of course, you need the right tools. As long as you reasonably explain the business benefit clearly to your employer, you shouldn't have a problem getting what you need. For instance, needing to work with more than one application at a time, I quickly realized that working with a single laptop screen with a maximum resolution of 1024x768 would not be enough. I explained to my manager that I would be able to do more work faster if I had an extra monitor (something that worked really well for me when I was still at Matrox).

In any case, unless the company is financially strapped, you shouldn't be shy to ask for the tools that you need to get your work done. They'll normally get it to you if you provide a good reason. The last thing an employer wants are employees getting so frustrated with faulty equipment, that they end up doing something like this.

Tip #4: Don't procrastinate

As students, most of us have gotten into this habit and for the most part, we have been able to get away with it. In many cases, profs were kind enough to give extensions and not take off points for late entries. In other cases where the prof didn't give extensions, we mostly didn't care if we lost points for a particular project or not. Some of us just wanted to pass with a crappy grade, get the course over with and never deal with the subject matter (or even the prof) again.

Unfortunately, it doesn't work like that in the corporate world. You will have to deal with the same co-workers, employers and clients. So by handing in a badly-written report or by giving a sloppy presentation at 9am because you only started it the night before at 1am, you are giving people a reason to not take you seriously.

Tip #5: Don't get bogged down by processes and procedures
One of the sales reps that I work with gave me an interesting piece of advice a few months ago. He said that when working for a big company, there will always be someone internally who will slow you down or even stop you from getting things done in the name of "following business processes". To get things done, it's up to you to be smart enough to get around these people and these processes.

You can either give yourself enough lead time to make sure that you can deliver on time. If however, you are stuck with a very short deadline, you need to learn to put pressure on the key people responsible for each step of the process to get things done faster or, in rare cases, just find a way to bypass the process entirely.

I'm not saying that processes were meant to be bypassed, but seriously, when something that should take two business hours to complete takes two business days because you have to wait for a series of approvals, maybe it might be a good idea to try to bypass a process until someone realizes how needlessly time-consuming it is.

Tip #6: Prioritize tasks accordingly
Say that you're really swamped with work. People from right and left are bugging you with requests that were due yesterday. How do you prioritize and successfully "multi-task"? Here's what I suggest. Take a step back and evaluate each one of the tasks. Then prioritize according to the following questions:

• How high up in the corporate ladder are each one of the requesters and how can they affect your future in the company? Ideally, you should give priority to requests coming from higher up.
  
• Which one of the tasks would have the most negative consequences if not completed on time? Do these first.

In many cases, one task will fall in both categories. If so, you know that you better get on those types of requests right away.

Tip #7: Learn to say "No"
This is easier said than done, especially if you are just starting out. But seriously, it's always better to tell someone if you really think that you won't be able to take something on and successfully complete it. Don't be afraid to say no to any additional work being handed to you.
As long as you have good reasons to support it and phrase them properly, you should be fine.

Remember, by agreeing to do more work when you know you can't handle any more, what you are doing is over-promising and under-delivering. And that is probably one of the worse things you can do in any work environment.

And finally, last but not least...

Tip #8: Get it in writing

This has got to be one of the most important lessons that you should learn when in the corporate world. When working with other people in the company or even with clients, misunderstandings are inevitable. Maybe someone made a "controversial" request that required bypassing a corporate procedure. Sadly, when situations like these get a bit serious and things go wrong, a lot of finger-pointing tends to happen.

The best way to protect yourself from any potential backlash is to get have whatever "controversial" request that caused the problem in writing. Whether it's keeping a copy of an email or a saving an instant messaging transcript, keeping a written record allows you to do what one of the managers at work called making yourself "audit-proof". To put it bluntly, getting requests in writing is the way to cover one's ass. With a verbal request, the requester has the ability to say that the one who carried out the request misunderstood thus putting the blame on the latter.

The other side of this coin, of course, is that you should make sure that your written requests are clear and not open to misinterpretation. Remember that whatever you write could potentially come back to haunt you.

The transition from the university environment to the corporate world is something that most business school grads will have to deal with. It's definitely not for everyone, but for those that are going into it, I hope that these tips have been helpful.

For those already in the corporate world, don't be shy to post a comment and share some tips that you think would be useful.