Diar Diary, Stay Organized, Curious, & Open.

This week I had the wonderful opportunity to speak to Autism Care Partners’ departing interns regarding professional development. After our session, Leadership shared the recording with the company, and the feedback I’ve received is overwhelming. Every person on my team immediately listened and gave me positive feedback. People from other departments called just to let me know they watched it. I honestly have never been in such a supportive environment. That’s one of the things I love the most about where I am. I have been in so many places where leaders desperately try to improve the company culture and provide professional development opportunities and the invitations just end up in the Recycling Bin on their desktop. How cool it was that my colleagues actually cared? I decided to share the information with you, in hopes it might be helpful if you are struggling with navigating a new career or are just looking for some informal tips.

I titled my presentation “What to Do with What Happens Next,” because when I was a recent graduate, I felt overwhelmed with what could happen next. Do I prioritize location and go to some dream city? Do I prioritize the role and fight only for positions within my desired field? Do I just take what I can get to start paying those student loans? What do I do? I wish I had these three perspectives when I was starting out:

Stay Organized. Although I felt confident in my physical materials with the help of Ball State’s career center, I didn’t feel organized in how I applied to jobs. With my degrees being so broad-reaching, I could apply to basically every opening I saw. There were several times where I received calls from recruiters saying, “Hey let’s talk about your application right now. Why are you interested?” [Insert panicked thought, “in what??”]. I would have really benefited from keeping myself more organized and understanding my ability to say, “let’s reschedule.” I also felt like the questions and follow-up I had to provide the interviewer had to be out-of-the-park homerun quality, when really showing general interest and gratitude is totally okay. I’ve never had someone deep dive on projects my company released years ago while mentioning specific involved parties, and I wish I hadn’t listened to advice that had me wasting so much time in the process when I was submitting hundreds of applications every week.

Within Stay Organized, I included having hard conversations, because I have found a lot of success at work revolves around having organized evidence. Evidence to support why you cannot work on a project or why you can. Evidence to provide critical feedback in a way that is factual and not emotional. Even evidence in the application process to show what my work is worth financially. I have learned the hard way to ensure all my ducks are in a row, but doing so has made me reliable, responsible, and more attentive.

I also encouraged the interns to Stay Curious. A big part of my career success thus far is that I have learned to self-reflect often and quickly. I am not someone who can make 1-year, 5-year, and 10-year career plans, but I do know the general big picture of where I want to be. You’ll always find me asking myself if this is the type of projects I want to be working on, if this work still satisfies and inspires me, and if this organization is one I still stand behind. I no longer stay in places and roles that don’t serve me. I also reflect on how I handled situations and whether that means I need to readdress something later or build a skill I am lacking. All of this learning, growth, and redirection allows me to stay “me first.” By this I mean I know myself, my values, and my goals very well. When a role or organization no longer align with those values and goals, I find something else that does. And, that’s okay.

Additionally in Stay Curious, I added keep learning. One of the most helpful things of my career has been a continuously learning mindset. I have never been someone who feels like the most knowledgeable person in the room. I am detrimentally collaborative, which makes me someone who will ask for help when I need it, values diverse perspectives, and perceives my performance in my role as something that can always be improved. Additionally, as a curious person, I seek to learn more about the organizations I work for, their departments, who works in them, and how all those things are interconnected. This has helped me fast-track my leadership development, as I’m capable of seeing the big picture things—how one action influences the larger organization as a whole. Staying curious makes me a long-term investment to my organization, a quick learner, and someone who works really well on a team. All of these are traits highly valued by any organization I’ve worked for.

Finally, I presented Stay Open. So much of the workforce is about human connection. Connecting with recruiters, business owners, and employees to learn about their organizations and what it’s like to work there. I also stay invested in my community through networking and keeping up-to-date with the goings on of organizations in my field.

Also within Stay Open, I added try new things. So much of what I’ve learned has been due to my ongoing need to meet the people I work with, volunteer my time, and try new things. Some of my most memorable work deliverables were from when we were in a “this just can’t be done” place, and an interdepartmental team said, “well, we’ll try to figure it out.” Which means I learned and honed new skills and developed strong working relationships with people across the organization. Doing these things has kept me and my work in the forefront of people’s minds when roles open and departments expand. Plus, I’ve informally found the organizations I do and do not want to work for.

I think by staying organized, curious, and open, young professionals can better learn from what I did and did not get right. I think the biggest reframe for me was recognizing that I was moving into a place where I had to start totally new. No one new me, my work, or what I was capable of. I couldn’t go into things with a “this is how we should do it,” attitude. I had to be open to learning and feedback. I ended the presentation with this quote by Aristotle, “the more you know, the more you know you don’t know.” If you’re out there struggling with the transition from academia to work, you’re not alone. I hope this list is helpful for you, and if you have more feedback for me, I’d love to hear it.?