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New here? Employee Evolution is a blog written by Ryan Healy. Ryan is a Co-Founder of Brazen Careerist, the webs #1 social network for young professionals. Ryan speaks with organizations on best practices for recruiting and retaining Generation Y and how to effectively use social media to reach your target market. To contact Ryan, please visit our contact page.
Establish Yourself As A Professional Professional
Are you interested in being seen for your contributions rather than your birth year? These 6 tips will help you to get noticed more quickly, earn you greater influence and responsibility, and get you closer to a level playing field.
Be a student of everyone:
Asking questions and taking advice isn’t a sign of weakness, and it won’t emphasize your youth either. You’ll get better faster, impress more people, and actually seem older.
Why it works: Seeking ways to improve is a sign of maturity and is the easiest way to gain the skills and knowledge that make you more effective. Plus, demonstrating a willingness to learn from your elders takes away a lot of the stereotypes and targets you will be marked with as a Millennial.
Write really well:
Develop your ability of written communication to the highest level, both in your daily emails and in deliverables for which you are responsible. This includes correct grammar, capitalization, and punctuation–even in email.
Why it works: If you can quickly fire off sharp emails, you will come across as highly capable and intelligent (provided your content isn’t inappropriate). Not everyone types well, and certainly not everyone writes well.
Today, many first impressions are made through email. If you present well there, you will be developing your personal brand, and when people are surprised at how young you are compared to what they expected, you will know that you’ve already broken some of their preconceptions about your generation.
Demonstrate leadership:
Help other employees to be more effective. For example, since you are a regular blog-reader, you probably are ahead of the curve when it comes to getting things done with computers. Be generous to help others format documents, create spreadsheets, or find information on the web. As for fellow younger workers, you’ll probably be able to answer many of their questions related to your industry and your company since you’re a student of everyone now. Concerning the boss, give appropriate amounts of ground-level feedback on how things can be improved if he/she is interested. Don’t suck-up, but do provide the kind of info they want to know.
Why it works: Nothing says maturity like leadership. If you have workers of every age looking to you to be more effective, you’ll have their respect by default.
Work smarter:
Create templates for common tasks and send them out to others who could use them. Write scripts or stock emails for common customer interactions. If you are in sales, design a killer territory plan and use tools like Jigsaw to get better conversion rates. Employ solid time-management to get more done in less time.
Why it works: When push comes to shove, intelligent managers will determine how to treat you based on performance alone. If you are the top producer in the department, you will usually be respected and rewarded. There aren’t many companies that don’t appreciate bottom-line results.
Show up:
Take advantage of opportunities to interact with upper-management. If it’s a small company, say yes when you are invited out to drinks or dinner. If it’s a larger organization, reach as high as is practical. Participate in forums, Q&As, and special project groups, and don’t be shy about introducing yourself at the proper moment. Your CEO might enjoy hearing the perspective of his tip-top inside sales representative, for example.
Why it works: In many cases, your boss’s boss’s boss is a very cool person. We’re probably not talking about someone who got their job on the strength of tenure alone, so there’s a good chance they aren’t as limited by notions of age as some career middle managers might be. This is just an instance of going to find the people who are most likely to respect the substance of who you are.
Avoid being an idiot:
Subtle advice, no? Anyone who’s spent any amount of time in an office has seen talented people who can’t stop shooting themselves in the foot with stupid habits. Improper attire, showing up late, inappropriate jokes, failure to stop talking about oneself… The list goes on and on. Exercise good judgment and at least be aware of the norms in your workplace. Like with great writing, you need to prove you can follow the rules before you can get away with breaking them.
Why it works: It’s hard to get respect when you’re fired.
Leave your thoughts here. (25 responses)
- 1 Pingback on Aug 6th, 2007 at 4:00 pm
- 2 Pingback on Aug 30th, 2007 at 5:39 pm
Nice tips, Chuck. I particularly like the asking questions tip. I’d like to add that whenever you ask someone a question, it implies, since you assume they know the answer, that you see them as a capable expert. Everyone loves that. This can be a great relationship builder. But you have to walk a fine line between simply wanting to learn and seeming too needy.
All good points. I’d like to add that in addition to writing really well, work on speaking really well. Nothing is more impressive than a good presentation. Guy Kawasaki has a great piece on what presentation slides should look like, and some pointers (like, DON’T read the words off the slides! ever!). If you stand up in front of a room full of people and score, you’ve just impressed a whole lot of people at once, and they’ll be saying good things about you.
Another really good point you made is the one about showing up. Yes, be social. When people see you outside the work environment, they feel like it’s OK to get to know you on a more personal level. Just don’t make the mistake one of my co-workers did and drink too much. Yow! That was just flat out embarrassing for all of us, and when we saw him Monday morning, it was like we just didn’t see him in as favorable a light as we did the previous Friday morning…and for some reason, we all can’t get that episode out of our head. Now he’s gone from seeming like a nice guy to, oooh, maybe he’s got a problem.
Your success depends on the projects you work on and results. In order to get larger projects, you need to drive these results through previous engagements. Keep proving yourself to management and they will breed you into a manager or above.
Wow Chuck.. this is something I have been attempting to write for a while. Thanks for putting it out there. The only difference is that instead of focusing on young working graduates, I wanted to write it for students working in research labs in the university itself. Working with a lot of students over the years, I see that most of the students lack such skills and very few rarely attempt to improve.
Overall, it is a great piece of advice which is beneficial to everyone.
-Rise.
It amazes me how sometimes things which seem like common sense need to be reiterated. But I suppose it never hurts to brush up on the basics.
Devin — I don’t know if it’s the computer I’m looking at the site on or if it’s the coding, but all of the titles (”Avoid being an idiot”) are a font size smaller than the rest of the text. Is that supposed to happen?
Great advice Chuck. These are all tips that people tend to take for granted. I especially like the one about writing well in every single email. When I read an email from someone who misspelled a bunch of words or didn’t use proper punctuation, my first impression is they are either too lazy to spell check or don’t have basic english skills. These are not impressions you want to make with anyone.
Speaking well is another great skill, like Dan mentions. My next goal is to become a great public speaker.
Does the font look off to anyone else? It looks fine from my computer.
@Tiffany– Good point! Thanks for adding it to the discussion.
@Dan– I can’t stand it when people put something in front of me and then read it to me, and I’ll refer your friend who lost self-control to the section on being an idiot.
@Dan S– Time-tested advice, for sure. Thanks.
@Rise– I appreciate the kind words. The reason these simple steps still act as differentiators for those who employ them is because so few people can and do actually put them into practice.
@Danielle– I noticed the formatting thing as well, but I’m not sure what’s going on there. I didn’t code it that way.
I was gonna say you somehow stole the idea of my mind. But then after reading, I believe that you’ve articulated very well. Needless to say, I agree and thank you for the article well done! Nice work!
@Ray– Actually, I did steal it out of your mind, but I’m glad you liked the way it turned out!
Chuck, I love what you’re saying here. All 6 are terrific tips, and they get at the heart of what it takes to be a respected professional, regardless of your age or generational identity. “Write really well” is positively huge, especially considering how much communication happens via the written word in modern business. Poorly-constructed e-mails that use informal language in a business setting not only risk insulting the recipient by appearing disrespectful, but undermine whatever idea or perspective you were trying to write about.
Kudos.
Great article! If you have any issues with formatting feel free to shoot me an email.
Introducing yourself at the right moment is a biggie. I worked with a guy who would stop or interrupt a conversation to introduce himself when he first started. He was very confident, but just not very street smart. Others began to talk about his habits and general “trying to hard” personality. Being young in a corporation is hard enough, you don’t need to build up a reputation of being socially inept.
Keep it natural.
chuck, Again these are fantastic. My personal favorite is the most blunt - avoid being an idiot. I’m definitely sending this around to everyone I know.
@Sean– Thanks for the kind words. As I said before, while it’s odd that such simple steps should cause you to stand out, it’s because they are still only rarely practiced! You make that point again.
@Devin– Thanks man, I’ll get with you next time prior to publication : )
@Jared– “Keep it natural.” Exactly. The more you want to meet someone, the more you should guard against forcing it. This is true in dating and business…
@Danielle– Send it to everyone you know, and for the idiots you’re friends with, delete all tips but the last one ; )
Chuck, I love it and will highlight the post on my blog next week!
This is good advice. I hope you don’t mind me adding a few counter examples to each of your tips, based on my own work experiences. I am in international sales with a background in professional services, and my job requires me to be taken seriously - while building rapport - in a short timeframe.
1) Be a student of everyone.
I agree that it makes sense to not be so cocksure that you won’t take advice from people. But I do see young people asking many questions in a transparent attempt to appear interested in other people’s experiences and knowledge. I’d advise one to tread carefully here.
2) Write really well.
I could not agree more. My advice: Write your email, proposal, white paper, etc, but don’t submit it right away. Read it over once, and make revisions. This is not a spellchecker pass; this is a chance to make things clear for the reader. Think about SEER (Summary, Elaboration, Example, Reference) as a model for structuring written communications.
3) Demonstrate leadership.
How does one do this? Be careful not to jump into the fray uninformed or unready. The clearest sign of a leader is a person that other people take seriously.
4) Work smarter.
Sure, sit around and try to be smarter; see where that gets you. While I agree with your advice to look for time saving templates, tools, etc, I suggest that one thing that can be done is to work harder. Your competition is already smart.
5) Show up.
Oh yes, show up. Go to every social and networking event that your company has. This leads into my comment on the next tip…
6) Don’t be an idiot.
I am particularly interested in the comments on drink. Be careful here; holding back is transparent and will be questioned. It is a fine line to walk and simple advice doesn’t cut it. My advice is to start slow and speed up if necessary. Remember that business is essentially a process of keeping your guard up and looking for small edges. Announcing that you cannot hold your liquor can be as bad as showing that that’s true.
Some great tips, Chuck. I’d add, expanding ‘Demonstrate Leadership’, to take initiative.
If you feel that something can be done better, or smarter, speak up. If there is a great opportunity somewhere, start doing it, and let others know. Too often I see younger workers just going along, doing what they’re told. Doing something not explicitly asked of you is a great way to demonstrate you care about the *company*, not just your paycheck.
If i were in a company where it was expected that i would drink alcohol, then i would have grave concerns about being in that company, or inthe company of those people.
I do drink, but i generally choose to avoid alcohol as i really dofeel it the following day.
Not drinking shouldn’t be seen as ‘transparen’, it should be respected as a logical and often sensible choice.
I would just add that you should take opportunities to learn as much as you can about departments that work closely with yours. When there is an issue in an adjacent department, and through your relationships and knowledge you can contribute to the solution, it shows you are a team player, a hard worker who takes initiative and that you care about the company as a whole, not just about your job or department.
Nice tips… I would like to add a bit regarding the writing part.
For the past 3 years, I’ve had the opportunity to work with people fresh out of college. More than half the people have had the habit of using slang or even IM-esque language in emails. In my opinion, this habit has a far reaching impact than what most people would assume - many of these email conversations eventually land up in the mailboxes of senior management (when their inputs are needed, or just as FYIs).
Most of the effective leaders I have known read through the entire conversation, and in such cases the impression they would gather about the “erring” people would not be that great. This is definitely not what you would want the higher ups to think about you.
On my part, when I receive such a mail, I just reply (not reply-all) saying “I could not understand what you are trying to say, please rewrite the message and resend it. Request you to use the plain old English which was prevalent before the advent of Instant Messaging”.
Is there a better way of tackling this?
I think writing well is something our generation for some reason lacks. It’s possible that our education focused more on thought and content rather than the mechanics of writing. However, writing clearly and well definitely will help a young employee gain respect.
I like your tips, I personally tried some of them and they worked quite well with me. One thing I used to do, is to try to know what subjects or what issues capture my boss’ attention the most. For instance, I found out that he had a knack for investing, and so I started opening up the subject during lunch breaks, and I showed him that I was interested in investing as well. It paid off, because I got closer to my boss, and left a good impression. Afterwards, he started delegating much of the work he enjoys doing to me. Being an excited young employee, I enjoyed having work being thrown at me of course. Also, the learning process became much more interesting.
Chuck, Patrick can I hire you? Way to prove that not all Millenials want “the easy stuff” at work. I wish I could clone you! As a Gen-Xer I do get amused at all the Millenial-bashing of late. But then I got to work with my own team of Millenials who want to come in at 10:00 and leave at 4:00 and I have to wonder….
How would you suggest that I share this blog with them in an attempt to inspire their own behavior? Or is cleaning house and beefing up my recruiting strategy to hire people like you the answer???
Great work, guys!