I was born in 2003, and I entered the world of full time work at the end of 2020, it was not great timing.
I started as a Junior Web Developer in a surveyor firm, and going from a college class of relaxed teenagers who also had an interest in computers, to a firm where most people are twice my age in a very tight corporate environment in quiet a shock to the system.
2020 wasn’t really a good time for anyone with everything happening at the time, and it definitely wasn’t a good time to start a career. I’m not blaming COVID for everything that went wrong in my adult life, but it is certainly was a kick in the stomach when I was made redundant from the company.
After they let me go in early ’21, it took seven months to get a new role, starting from the bottom in a digital marketing apprenticeship. I was much better suited to the relaxed environment, and I was joining with another apprentice, which made it better.
I was well suited to the digital part of the role, not so much the marketing part. Fortunately, this strong point played out well for me, where I would focus on the elements of work that required coding, and my mate who joined at the same time would do the marketing, which he was much better at.
But what goes up must come down, and when the cost of living hit, the clients dropped the agency, and subsequently the business made me redundant.
The eleven months that followed are probably one of the most challenging times of my life so far.
Thankfully, that’s over, and I’m in a new apprenticeship as a Technology Developer, but I’m back at the bottom of the career ladder again. Here are the things I wish I knew when I entered the world of work.
Working from home should be taken seriously
When you’re working from home, it’s easy to think you’ll just grab your laptop, lay down on your bed and get through the day, and too an extent, this is true. However, it can have repercussions.
Your brain is not a computer, capable of closing one program and opening another on command, it takes cues from the environment around it, and guess what happens when you tell it to work in a place where you usually relax? That’s right, it gets confused and tries to relax during times of focus. Worst yet, your bed becomes the work zone, and sleeping isn’t associated with your bed anymore.
Now chances are, you probably don’t have a home office, neither do I, but it is important to allocate a certain location to work. My personal choice is the dining table, simply because it’s rarely used otherwise.
What if you don’t have an extra space to allocate? Move stuff around. When I did my digital marketing EPA for my apprenticeship, I worked from home for a week, so I took my desk in my bedroom, placed it on the other side of the room, and removed everything from it I didn’t need for work. This greatly helped me improve my focus, and more importantly when I put everything back, my brain wasn’t stuck in work mode when I was trying to relax at my computer in the future.
For more good information on this, read power of environment by James Clear.
Once you find your place of work, make sure to spend some time working on it. Clean your environment, put your phone out of sight and out of reach, and get a decent chair. Dining rooms chairs are alright for about an hour, and then you’re spending unreasonable amounts of time trying to get comfortable.
Look at your CV from the eyes of someone else
Your CV, or resume, is the first thing that people see when you apply for roles, but you already knew that. It’s said so often that it loses it’s importance, but it’s important to imagine what someone else is seeing.
Applying to marketing roles with a CV that shows digital marketing jobs, but lists software developer experience, was more than likely what caused me to be out of work for so long. Offering marketing experience, but focusing on my technical skills is probably the equivalent of ordering a hairdryer that looks good, but comes with a plug for a different country socket.
The same likely applied to software roles with marketing job titles, even though I did a lot of technical stuff, probably was viewed as something I did on the side in my role, as opposed to the main responsibility of it.
Don’t you dare tell me you can’t change
One of the things I hate hearing most is people refusing to pick up something they want cause “it’s not them”. I’m a very keen reader, I aim to read something everyday, and people always point this out to me, saying they wish they read as much as I do.
So I recommend them some good books, I’ve read enough to know the good stuff, but they say they can’t, they want to, but they don’t read, or they only read in specific situations. I’ve tried everything to push people into motion, I’ve offered to be their accountability partner, I’ve offered them a book I’m done reading, I’ve shown how to get a trial to get an audiobook, but they always refuse.
This is a mindset, and mindsets are holes that only get deeper. The longer you’re in the hole, the harder it is to get out of it. If you want to do something, anything, don’t shut yourself out of it. Lower the barrier to entry and commitment.
Want to read but struggling to make routine? Set a daily reminder to read some useful blogs or book summaries, using the time you’d usually spend scrolling.
Want to exercise more? Try taking walks to the shop instead of driving, try walking around on your lunch at work.
I’m not expert at this, there’s still plenty left for me to learn, but I’ve never regretted reading a book summary, it just gave me a better idea of what to look for in the future.