3 Mistakes I Made Coming Out Of Undergrad
Looking back at our college days, I’m sure there are plenty of things we all would do differently. Being so young and making such a big decision of where we want to go, what we want to do, and ultimately how much debt we will be in to start off our “adult” life.
So to give you a bit of a background on who I was entering college. I was not a great high school student. I did what I had to pass my classes (with C’s if possible), played sports with some of my best friends (some winning seasons and some not so much…), and had too much fun outside of school. At 18 graduating from school, I could care less what the future had in store. I was just focused on the next weekend and making memories with the guys (something I don’t regret).
Now for the criteria I had for what my college experience would entail. The first thing was I was good at math and the second was that I wanted to make a lot of money ASAP. Nothing else mattered and those two grand ideas landed me at Milwaukee School of Engineering on my way to being the next best electrical engineer.
After one quick (and extremely tough) year, I failed out of my first college attempt and moved on to backup plan number one pretty quickly. Since my dad worked in the business world his whole career, I decided to enter the next best Milwaukee college (UWM) and change my major to supply chain.
Now 4 years later, with a logistics internship under my belt, and a college degree in hand I felt like I did a pretty good job at the classic go to school, get good grades (or sort of…), and find a good job lesson. Looking back there are a few things that I definitely messed up and would have either done differently or studied up on a bit more.
Not Knowing How To Brand Myself In A Corporate Environment
As much as I thought internships were going to be exactly how my first job out in the real world would be, that just wasn’t the case. Now that doesn’t mean that internships aren’t a great way to gain experience but there are a few things that you need to do differently if you want to get the most out of them.
According to the National Association of Colleges and Employers, at least 60% of students in each graduating class since 2013 have completed an internship or co-op during school. So the real question is, how do you make the experience(s) you have stand out from the ones that others have when competing for that first role?
Take more ownership
Some folks don’t think this can be done when you’re in an intern or co-op position, I think differently. From my experience, there are many opportunities to take more ownership, even if the tasks you’re doing are minimal to the grand business.
I started with just inputting data. That quickly turned to earning a forklift license and filling in for the logistics specialist when they were not in the office. Now that might not seem like a lot but it showed I was willing to earn more responsibility than just what my job description said.
Go into your first full-time position with an open mind
I was lucky and unlucky to graduate in 2020. Covid certainly had an impact on the job opportunities for my graduating class but for me, I happened to be in the booming toilet paper industry.
This led to me having the opportunity to stick with the same company I interned for when moving into my first full-time position out of school.
By sticking with the same company I thought I knew more than I did. I had some insight into how the company operated but my lack of having an open mind didn’t allow my training to have as much impact as it should’ve.
Instead, take what you already have experienced and build off of that foundation not thinking you know a lot, but that you’ve just taken the first entry course and there is so much more to learn.
Thinking I Knew How To Interview… But I Really Didn’t
This is where I lacked the most when starting to enter the career world.
As much as I thought I practiced how to come across, went over my “perfect” resume, or practiced the usual interview questions I found on YouTube, the only way I started to feel comfortable is by having more interviews and way more frequently than I thought I needed to.
Looking at an interview in Forbes from this past year, one of the most wanted pieces to an interview a company would like to hear is more than just what’s on your resume, but how do you do this well?
Work on clear and concise communication
Over-explaining might hurt you more than you might think. It’s good to give detail of your skills and experience, it shows that you’ve contributed and can do the same for them.
Only explaining can come off as poor self-awareness and if you continue to talk about your accomplishments, then it comes off as being a bit more of a brag than an explanation. I worked to be able to talk about what I didn’t do well in the internship and how I’ve worked on that skill set since ending that role.
Study the common contract terminology
Even if you’ve studied in your universities business school, that doesn’t mean you’ve gone over a contract before or discussed the details of an offer a company might give you.
You need to learn the basics of how and when you’re paid, your time off, health benefits, retirement options, and the list that goes on because if you’re going to negotiate what you were offered, you need some grounds to speak off of. Ask friends, relatives, and mentors, about what they experienced in contract negotiations and what you should focus on.
This real-world experience is likely better than anything you can work on personally.
Understanding Even Though Studied Something, That Didn’t Mean I Knew All Of It
College is what you make of it, if you study to learn, search for different experiences, and take it seriously then it can be a great jumping-off point.
I did a few of those things but not all the time and coming out of undergrad, I thought I knew more about supply chain and its details but realized there are a lot more nuances and changes that have happened than I actually understood from my classes.
Your studies serve as a great foundation but not the whole picture
Understand that your classes and studies don’t normally put the economy or other impacting scenarios into effect. Studying supply chain at the start of covid we didn’t talk too much about how restricted the overall supply chain was.
Then jumping into a purchasing role, the smooth processes we studied didn’t play out exactly like that. They couldn’t have predicted the Suez Canal being blocked or how much impact covid would have. You need to be flexible and understand that there will be roadblocks that you couldn’t have studied for. That’s just part of the game.
Realize you didn’t have a class on all areas of your role or industry
As long as undergrad might seem and as many courses you went through, you didn’t touch on everything that you need to know when starting a new position.
I took a lot of supply chain and general business courses throughout my time at Milwaukee but I didn’t take a specific purchasing class. I went into that role thinking that my courses would have covered almost everything I needed to learn but there are specifics that were never touched on.
The major part that your courses don’t take into effect is that your career path might lead you to places other than what you exactly studied. I studied supply chain but today am working in marketing. I took the basic marketing courses but never anything in detail that would prepare me for a career in it.
As much as it’s preached, it’s important to study outside of your curriculum and even more so, after you graduate. I’ve done more self-study while working to transition industries than I did in school and the plus side of this is that it’s all up-to-date information with the industry itself.
Everything might seem so new to you but that’s part of the fun of graduating and finding your footing in a new career. Embrace it and good luck!
