Five points to achieve success in your first career

If one asks you for the toughest question you were ever confronted with, I’m sure most of you would have thought of the moment when your parents asked what your plans are after graduating. It would have shaken you up in your boots and made you realise that you still have no idea what you are going to do with your life, let alone with the degree.  Whenever someone asks you this you can’t help but feel a little blindsided.

Almost every undergrad is clueless about their future when they are closing upon graduating. So many mixed feelings and doubts trying to decide whether to go ahead with employment or to study further or even to start something on their own.  I call this “the metastasis of an undergrad”, because this the hardest transitional period ever faced by them thus far.

If your desire is to find an employment, following are the five crucial factors that will help you find your first career.

1. Find what you love to do and find a career in that field

The great Chinese teacher Confucius said: “Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life.”  Many graduates tend to go where the most attractive offer is, without thinking what the company expects from them as well as what more they should expect from the company.  Once they realise that it is not their cup of tea, they ultimately get fed up with work, and gradually become inefficient and ultimately they quit. Find your passion, and it may be something that’s related to your degree or not. Yet, without finding where your passion lies, you will not be able to love and cherish what you do.  

2.  Don’t follow money, money will follow you

When you are passionate about what you do you glow. People can see it; they can feel it and they are attracted to it. Go to a place which lets you do what you love to do, puts you through challenges and make you learn. A place that gives you exposure and positive energy, that opens doors and makes you more experienced and increases your expertise.  So, don’t be deceived by money.

3. Find a career, not a job

As a fresh graduate your focus should be on how you are going to excel in what you love to do most. A career is a pursuit of a lifelong ambition and progression towards ultimate goals you have set out for yourself. A job will simply be an activity for you to earn money. Be wise in choosing your first career as it is what that’s going to craft you as a professional in the long run. It’s not about coming to work and work on the allocated tasks for nine hours a day, it’s about facing the challenges, learning from whatever you do and developing yourself each day!  

4. Find a company that has coaches and mentors, not bosses

Instead of settling down for a company that will get things done by you, you should go for a company that will coach you and mentor you for what you want to become in next five years of time. Get on board with a company that understands your potential and the value you bring to it. A company that has people whom you can look up to, who can guide you and from whom you can learn something new every day. 

5. Find an external mentor who listens to you

It is true that all these instincts do not come to you easy. That is why you need a mentor outside work to discuss, clarify and even to inspire. It is incredibly empowering to know that you have someone whom you can look up to and guide you to make important decisions. The mentor has already gone through this cycle before; therefore there cannot be any better person to tell you the dos’ and don’ts. Your mentor should be able to uplift your self-esteem in moments of doubt and remorse and makes you feel like you are contributing to something bigger than yourself.

So, think through and find your first career so that you will not have to leave the “real you” at the door when you walk into work. Find what you love to do, do it wholeheartedly and make a career out of it.

(Dinesh Saparamadu is the Founder and Chairman of hSenid Mobile Solutions, a multi-national Telco Software Solutions provider with a focus on platforms converging Telco APIs, Analytics and Signaling.)