Every year, a large number of graduates take a leap and move to the corporate world. A lot of things start changing around me, and it's never easy to adapt to the changes which will happen for you. And if you had a virtual onboarding, things become more complex and daunting. So here I am, to help you understand the differences between campus and corporate, how to approach your job, how to adapt to the new surroundings, and work effectively.
So let's discuss the most important tips one by one :
1. Respect your colleagues at all times
At every point, you must ensure that you respect every other person in your firm. This is the most basic and yet the most important thing. You may have some differences with your teammates in the beginning, you might not agree on a few things, might have different opinions, but at every point you must ensure that you respect them, respect their opinions.
2. Colleagues are not like your college friends
You might make good friends in the firm, but their will always remain a difference between friends at college and at office. Many times you may insult and disrespect your friends for fun, but in most cases this should never happen with your office friends.
3. Take time to understand people
It takes time to become comfortable and compatible with other people. Take time, dont rush into being friends, and dont try to become very informal from the first day. Understand the other person, and with time, you might become more and more of good friends, start doing informal talks.
4. Ask a lot of questions
You will surely have a lot of things, you might not understand when you enter the firm. Don't feel shy to ask things from people around you. Whenever in doubt, approach you mentor or manager and keep things clear to have the biggest impact in your work.
5. Have talks apart from work
Sometimes, you should have talks with your teammates to understand their personality, what they love to do, their hobbies, this helps in better compatibility.
6. Exams vs Appraisals
As a college student, you would surely know how most students study for exams, mostly at the end time. Last minute preparations might work for exams but when you enter corporate life, last minute things dont work. Performance appraisals are based on your performance over the year, you need to make a self assessment about your performance, how many tasks you did etc. You cannot just sit around and at the last moment try to complete the project.
7. Follow the deadlines
Always make it a point to complete the task assigned before the deadlines. Deadlines are meant to be followed and at no point must not be completed, as it may have some bad impact on your performance assessment.
8. Be open to feedback about your work
Many times, you colleagues will tell you your mistakes and give you honest feedback. You must be open to listen about your mistakes, things which could have been done better etc. It is a feedback for your work, not for you.Don't feel bad about it. If you keep feeling bad about it, you will never learn new things.
9. Understand your responsibility towards the company
When you are at college, you do things for yourself, for your development, but while working at a company, understand that you hold a responsibility on your shoulders. You work for your company and your work might impact your company's performance.
10. Respect the company culture
Every company has a distinct culture, distinct values. You must respect the culture of the company and follow it to make progress in the company.
11. Understand your personal brand
Personal brand means your strengths, weakness, values you possess and etc. You must know your personal brand. Every other personal is different. You must understand what your good at and what you are not, and accordingly look for projects.
12. Collaboration is the key to success
While working in a team, you are expected to work as a team together on projects, and effective collaboration becomes very important. As discussed above, understanding your personal brand is very important while collaboration, so that you understand what responsibility would be best suited for you.
13. Participate effectively in team meetings
Have a say and try to give your suggestions whenever there is a proposal in your team. It is valuable.
14. Communicate clearly and without ambiguity.
Effective communication is very important while you work in a team and collaborate for projects.
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😇Happy Learning!!
I am a Member Technical at D.E. Shaw India Pvt. Ltd. CodingWithArt is a blog where you find tricks and solutions to challenging coding and development problems. I aim to build a universal tech platform for every enthusiast out there.