5 Things I Wish I Did at the Beginning of my Corporate Career

I spent 5 years working a corporate job, and I floundered nearly the entire time. 

I remember feeling like such a loser at work because I never got the recognition I felt I deserved, I was told I was intimidating, and I could not find it in myself to care in the same way I saw my coworkers did. 

After I left corporate and spent time ~reflecting~ on what did and didn’t go well during that time, I had a few realizations. 

1. Not everyone is cut for corporate, and that’s okay (I’m not)
2. I could have been A LOT more strategic in how I navigated my time

Today, I am going to share 5 things I WISH I did from the get-go of my corporate career. 

Doing these would have made my life way easier, and my time at work significantly more successful. 

Here’s a quick preview:
👉🏻 Put together a 30/60/90 day plan

👉🏻 Set career goals

👉🏻 Create a task-management system

👉🏻 Use the X-Y-Z Formula on my resume

👉🏻 Create an interview Rolodex

Now let’s get into the details!!

👩🏼‍💻 30/60/90/ Day Plan

A 30/60/90 day plan is a strategic outline that you can create and use to set goals and define success during your first 3 months in a role.

The plan is divided into 3 distinct phases:

👉🏻 30 Days: EDUCATION

👉🏻 60 Days: CONTRIBUTION

👉🏻 90 Days: INITIATIVE

Following a structured approach like this can help you quickly acclimate to your role, understand and align with company expectations, and begin showing measurable progress and impact.

✅ Set Career Goals 

I struggled to stay motivated and to care at my job because I didn’t have any goals!

There are 3 types of career/professional goals to set:

👉🏻 Role-specific: These are directly related to your job duties

👉🏻 Development: What skills do you want/need to learn?

👉🏻 Income: How will you make more money?

💸 Create a Task-Management System

The purpose of this system is to keep track of what you are working on, and the VALUE you bring to the table as a result. 

On a weekly basis, you should track:

👉🏻 Projects/ what you’ve been working on

👉🏻 Value-add of each project: think about IMPACT

👉🏻 Follow-ups/ unplanned asks

👉🏻 3-5 accomplisments

You can learn more about how to do this with the Own Your Career Template. 

📊 Use the X-Y-Z Formula on Your Resume

The X-Y-Z Formula is defined as:

“I accomplished [X] as measured by [Y] by doing [Z].”

It highlights the impact you had at work, while putting that work into context for the recruiter to better understand what you were doing. 

At least 50% of your resume bullets should follow this formula (but ideally, ALL of them will!)

⚡️ Create an Interview Rolodex

An interview Rolodex is a repository for you to prepare and plan answers to potential interview questions.

I always fumbled in interviews until I did some serious prep where I wrote out answers to common interview questions and incorporated all of my most-important experience!

With all of this in one place, when you get to an interview, you can mentally flip through the Rolodex and confidently answer the questions!!

Take your professional power back and read OWN YOUR CAREER!