by Yvonne Larose

Created on: June 23, 2008   Last Updated: February 14, 2011

Managing your career starting with the first job and the low ceiling can be tricky. Done properly, it will open your eyes to some paths you'd not considered and prepare you for successfully embarking on them.

You've graduated and it's time to start looking for a job. It doesn't matter whether graduation was from high school or university. The thing that matters is your life as a student is completed (at this juncture in time) and the time has come when you need to commit yourself to finding some type of entry-level work that will do the fundamentals:

- provide work experience
- supply money to pay housing, utilities, and bills for necessities
- be sufficient to allow for a few periodic frivolities

Many people in your shoes look at the numerous fast food places as the most logical starting places for applying for work. There's little thought about why a fast food place except that it seems to roll off the tongue of anyone and everyone as well as the fact that they're so prolific in any community. The other common denominator about these types of entry positions is that the ceiling for advancement is quite low.

When we're seeking that first job, the one that when offered and accepted, makes a statement about the fact that adulthood for us has arrived, we give little thought at all to things such as what interests we have that match the job requirements. Nor do we think about our personality as to whether we're outgoing or painfully shy. And the fact that the limit on our potential growth with the company is restricted to approximately four positions that have very little differentiation is obvious but not very important at the time we're applying for the job. The important issue is just being seen by an employer as qualified and hire-able.

Start with the Right Attitude

This is where your new life begins. Just as you were enthusiastic when you completed the employment application and interviewed, each day that you go to work is a new day. Therefore, each day is a new adventure and should be seen as a great day.

There will be new things to learn about the work, how it's done, who you're working with. You'll need to gain an appreciation of taking in a lot of information at one time and managing it so that you don't keep asking the same question repeatedly. And you'll need to learn the routine of the tasks you perform so that they become intuitive, that is, you reach the point that you don't have to think about what to do next because it's as logical as picking up

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