2+ years of working - a reflection
It’s hard to believe that I’ve already completed ~2.5 years of full-time work… I feel quite different than I did when I graduated at home during the pandemic in May 2020 and when I first started at Microsoft in the ACE Rotational Program in August 2020.
Meeting Microsoft’s CMO as part of the ACE Rotational Marketing Program
Although I found it daunting to summarize the myriad things I’ve learned during my first full-time job, I eventually came up with the following “work lessons” - a couple pieces of advice that I’d share with someone who’s relatively new to the corporate workforce. They’re listed in no particular order.
I am still actively working on all of the below, as I have so much room for improvement! However, I’m incredibly proud of how much I’ve learned and grown. Do any of these takeaways resonate with you?
It’s important to develop and share your point of view. In the beginning, especially as a new hire and someone early-in-career, I often felt like I didn’t have enough information or authority to firmly state or defend my opinion on a topic at hand. However, I realized that it was unlikely that anyone in the room has 100% of the information to talk about a matter, and there was a reason I was in that room. My opinion was valuable! Given my upbringing, it has taken a while for me to internalize that notion and to practice sharing my opinion–and it’s another step to adjust to sharing my opinion in the corporate world. Although I’ve experienced challenges that led me to doubt that I had adequate credibility or knowledge to have a strong perspective, I understand how important it is to continue pushing myself to do this.
Showing up, jumping in, and driving things forward with thoughtfulness, thoroughness, and great communication matter a lot! Related to the above, I discovered that people really appreciated my enthusiasm, can-do attitude, communication, and ability to drive projects forward. Even if I felt “inadequate” for being early-in-career or having not gotten more information on a situation (sometimes, meetings create more questions than answers), the natural energy, clarity, and organization I offered over the period of the collaboration mattered a lot.
It’s all about prioritization. There is always an endless number of things each of us could be doing. I remember having a difficult time initially prioritizing all the different workstreams I could be engaging with to advance my team or product’s mission. Over time, I learned that it’s critical to think about your time constraints, what work will drive the most impact or results, and how my priorities ladder up to my larger team’s priorities. This really matters with getting visibility/recognition, achieving a promotion, and playing a critical role for the business. Prioritizing is essential to keep you sane and focused on a day-to-day, and I’m still most definitely figuring that out right now.
You’re going to make mistakes – try not to be too hard on yourself or take it super personally. I grew up having internalized that making a mistake meant failure and punishment - it was feared and unacceptable. I noticed that even with small mistakes at work, I would become really annoyed with myself—how could I let such a small thing slip? However, that unnecessary “perfect” standard is draining and counterproductive. I’m still unlearning the idea that mistakes are 100% bad, and while some of my mistakes could’ve been avoided, I want to be able to accept the mistake and not lose my momentum with solving the problem at hand.
Lean on your support network—they want you to succeed and can each help in different ways. Often, we don’t really know how to do something or understand clearly what’s going on - that is 100% normal. It’s taken me a while to ask for help, but especially at work, it’s critical. When I have been lost, my instinct was to talk to people 1:1 – whether that be folks in your team or mentors in a totally different world. I needed the human connection, sharing of experiences, brainstorming or problem solving together, and genuine interest to support. It takes time to find the “right” support depending on the ask or challenge at hand, but gathering different perspectives and doing this outreach have helped me both tactically for projects and day-to-day problems and in a bigger picture way regarding future career growth. While sometimes I set up calls out of necessity (I really needed guidance), I realized these calls also helped to grow and maintain my network. Folks comment on how I’m great at reaching out and keeping in touch, and I’m going to continue doing so. I’m grateful that I have people in my corner (sometimes, it felt like I did not). It’s important to remind yourself that support is out there and that you deserve the support.
Every interaction you have builds your reputation. It was always interesting to review feedback from my colleagues—I noticed many would comment similar observations around my strengths, collaboration style, and impressions. In every meeting, chat, email, etc. I am leaving an impression and building my reputation, and that’s kind of daunting to realize. It’s hard to be on top of it 100% of the time, and I didn’t take every opportunity to consciously “build my reputation.” However, I realized that if I keep showing up in my authentic way with a genuine intent to want to understand, collaborate, and drive success, my strengths will shine through.
Take care of yourself when times are uncertain and turbulent. You need to rest, recharge, and maintain your resilience, even if it doesn’t feel like you can. I experienced some difficult months of work, where everything seemed to be chaos. I felt lost, orphaned, and disoriented. While I know how to better function if I’m in this situation again, my first time undergoing this turbulence led me to healthy action thankfully: I prioritized taking care of my mental, emotional, and physical health. And I’m so, so glad I did. I re-started therapy through Microsoft Cares and saw my therapist in person for the most part. I went to physical therapy, took more walks, and made sure to enjoy physical activity. And I kept spending quality time with friends. Something as simple as getting coffee or lunch at the office with a friend or colleague made my day that much better.
Build upon your strengths + trust your intuition and innate capabilities. I realized it was so important for me to discover and embrace what my top strengths were—and that it helps to let others know what these strengths are too. I took the Gallup Strengths test, but you can discover your strengths with your own reflection and from feedback you receive. Understand how you typically positively impact a project or collaboration. I’m still figuring out how to think about gaps/weaknesses, but I think that’s where consulting others who have strengths in areas that we are weak could help us decide how to work with our weaknesses. As for “trusting my intuition”—I think I fell into self-gaslighting more than I would’ve liked. It’s hard, but it’s important to have a firm belief in yourself. As you find yourself in unfamiliar situations, or you change your understanding of yourself or a situation, or simply feel lost, it’s critical to hold onto your self-confidence and intuition. Give yourself more credit! You will find a way.
Understand what impact means, then know how to document and talk about your impact. Often, I would get so busy and caught up in my different projects, that I wouldn’t pause to think and write down–what exactly did I do today or this last week that translated to real impact? Something I’ve heard senior folks say is to differentiate between activity and impact. Is the time I’m putting in really leading to the outcomes that are important (based on your priorities, re: above)? Can I talk about how my work has led to an impact to someone else on my team or someone else who has no context? When I was switching roles and interviewing, I realized I had to dig deep into my memory on examples of how I uniquely created impact for my product/project, as I didn’t do the best job of recording these examples as they were happening. I realized I could’ve also asked collaborators for their feedback—how I’ve worked with them speaks to my impact!
Speak up. Related to #1 and #8, if your intuition is to speak up about something, please listen to it. It’s important, especially when it comes to creating psychological safety and inclusivity for yourself and others. Whether it’s about getting more support from your manager for a complex project, to a comment that didn’t sit well with you, to someone glossing over your portion during a call – speaking up can make a difference. When I went through challenging times, handling factors outside my control, I thoughtfully raised the flag to certain people to help me resolve an issue in which someone doubted my capabilities. I trusted my gut that something was not right, checked in with myself on my comfort or safety regarding to speaking up, and then did so. It’s a practice I want to continue to cultivate.
And now for a few shorter ones…
Ask for feedback when the project/collaboration is fresh. I didn’t do this enough, so I feel like I could’ve gotten better or more comprehensive feedback if I did so!
Document your work! (Emphasizing from #9) Sometimes, since you’re moving fast and short on time, you won’t even think to make a one-pager with summaries and links. However, it’ll save you time later and helps you prepare to talk about work you’ve done. Honestly, I forgot some of the important work I did a year ago because—while the relevant files are a folder and notes are aplenty—I didn’t organize the information and document the work in a succinct way for myself.
Keep in touch with people. They appreciate it. Colleagues have commented that they think I do a great job with staying in touch and catching up. I have the inclination to set up these chats, which is great. However, one thing I’m still thinking about is how to ask better questions during these chats or even prepare for them, even though they might be more casual.
Keeping reaching out to folks—98% of the time, they’ll want to chat or find you someone that would be a better fit to help you. I also don’t mind at all cold emailing anybody to set up time to learn about their work. However, I’m wondering how any of these chats might turn into mentorship or even sponsorship vs. just being a pure informational or one-time advice-sharing chat.
Take time to reflect and increase your self-awareness. I didn’t journal or write out career reflections as often as I wanted to, but through casual chats with peers and more formal 1:1s with mentors, I did these reflections. Consider how you best process and solidify learnings.
I’m looking forward to how I will evolve and apply everything I’ve said above. It sometimes scares me how much farther I have to go, how much I don’t know yet, or how much I still haven’t figured out. But, I’ll get there!
Thanks for reading.
Melinda