Essential Career Advice for New Graduates - Ep. 214

One of the favorite segments of the Chemical show is when I ask leaders what advice would they give to their young self and when they were embarking on their career, or young professionals early in their career that want to achieve their level of success. And I've heard from a wide variety of listeners that they love those insights. So today I have compiled some of my favorites, added my own points of view, and put it all together for you.

So This is an episode to Bookmark, to Save, and more importantly, to share, share it on social media, whether it's LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, whatever your social media choice is. And of course, tag Me and The Chemical Show. And also share it with your new college graduate, your colleagues, or a friend. I hope that you're gonna enjoy this, and I hope you come back to this as you progress along in your career. So it's graduation season.

We have a field of young college graduates ready to embark on professional careers. In fact, I've got one. My daughter, Madeline graduates from Texas State University, with a degree in computer science and she is ready to take on the world. Now, on a side note, Maddie has also been my podcast editor and in charge of the blog for the past two years, so. While you may not have gotten to know Madeline, she has definitely gotten to know you.

And I'm certainly gonna miss her when she moves on and tells me she no longer has time for the chemical show. But be that as it may, what I've got for you today is career advice for new college grads. So number one. Embrace the journey. So, you know, I think there's always this uncertainty when you embark on something new and it, it was college and now it's career. And what I have to say is your career is a marathon and not a sprint.

I. know where you're going or where you think you might wanna be in five or 10 years, and understand that there are many paths to get there. So stack your wins. Be flexible, and enjoy this experience. I. It's gonna be one for the next, you know, 10, 20, 30, 40 years. Kind of scary when you think about it in that term. But enjoy the journey that you're on today, over the next five years and beyond. So that's Kaur peace number one. Career advice number two, use your voice.

You have a seat at the table for a reason. So seat at the table in the office on the zoom call, on a teams call, what have you. You're there. You're there for a reason and part of your reason is not just to learn and listen, but it's also to engage. Engage, share your point of view, ask questions. I. Do it respectfully, right? Especially as you are

embarking in that new role, but you are there, you have a voice, you have a point of view, use it. Um, and that is really critical as you start your career and throughout number three. Build and create your work posse. I call it a posse. Some people say, oh, you should start building your network. And I, I gotta be honest, when I was early in my career, like that whole concept of what is my network and what is networking was a little bit ambiguous. Right?

What I would say to that though is start building. Your posse, surround yourself with good people, right? And think about your posse with multiple generations. People that are more senior than you, that are younger than you, that you can go to for advice. That will lend a hand, that will give you a hand that you can share a hand and lift them up. one of the things I've found is. Leaders often will bring their posse with them to their next role.

So whether that's inside of a company, when leaders are changing companies, you might be destined for the C-suite. You may be destined for a leadership role. And often leaders like to surround themselves with people they know, like, and trust, know, like, and trust how they work. That they're gonna have their back, that they're going to help them achieve the success that they wanna achieve. So even at this early stage in your career, start building your posse. Know who they are.

They may not be your best friends. They may not be the people you socialize with after work, but they are people that have strategic insight, that offer great mentoring and coaching to you that have your back, that can help support you in your career. Know them. Advice number four, have a lower fear of failure than joy of success. So I heard that recently from Charlie Landis, and I love that statement, right? Don't be afraid to take calculated risks. I. Some of this stuff is scary.

It's uncertain. If it was all certain, we'd all be doing the same thing. I sometimes say, you know, if my magic ball or my crystal ball worked, uh, I would be a billionaire. Right? The reality is we don't know what the future holds, but we can. Take chances, take calculated risks and pursue success. So have a greater joy and pursuit of success than you do. Fear of failure. You can fail and recover. You can fail and learn, and recover and move forward.

You're not going to have those opportunities. You're not gonna have those great successes if you don't take a chance. So number five, develop expertise, right? So I've heard this from a number of people. You wanna develop expertise, you want to become known as the go-to person for something. And, and in fact, there's some people that would say, um, you actually wanna have three career pillars. And I agree with that.

You may not have them all at to begin with, but be curious, pursue and develop expertise. Um, by the way, you may not find out what that is right away. It may take you five or 10 years. So. Be flexible,

learn and grow, and continue to pursue that expertise. Dive deep. Don't be afraid of diving deep. You will develop expertise, you'll develop insights. You'll become the go-to person for something. Frankly, you could become the go-to person for several things. Again, back to the whole Build your posse. People wanna surround themselves with people that. Have confidence know what they're doing that they trust.

Part of that is having career expertise, whether it's technical expertise, marketing expertise, sales expertise, business expertise, expertise in a certain market approach way of doing things. Don't be afraid to go out and find and build your expertise at the same time. Know your strengths and your per your preferences, right? So be flexible to learn things, right, but know that you're also not gonna be great at everything. That the first thing you try may not be your thing. but go find it.

Try new things, figure out what the opportunities are. In fact, you know, if I think about how the, uh, chemical industry in all industries have evolved, right? So, um, back when I was first starting my career, right, I think about computers, like they were big, clunky desktops. And now, you know, and then along the way. It migrated to, we all took laptops everywhere. And now you know what? People travel with phones that have more computing powder than their original computer.

Did ways of working evolve your skills and experience, evolve the needs of the industry. Whatever industry you, you end up in, whether it be the chemical industry, whether it be another industry, evolves, but understand your strengths and your inherent strengths and go after that. my number seven, and this is really my favorite, and this is something that I have held true throughout my career, which is when opportunity knocks open the door.

When you prove yourself, when you develop that expertise, when you demonstrate courage, when you, understand your strengths and preferences. Opportunity's gonna knock. And often always, like your career path is not necessarily exactly how you laid it out on paper. maybe one step of, it's how you laid it out on paper, but that paper keeps changing and shifting, right? When opportunity knocks. Open the door, be open and flexible, take a chance, right.

Broaden your skills and, um, when you get that chance, show up and work hard. Right. So Michael Hines, north American, CEO of BASF when I interviewed him, talked about showing up and giving 125%, um, and how that creates opportunities. Absolutely. When those opportunities come, they come. Because you're a hard worker and perform, right? So it's not enough just to work hard. That's easy to say, oh, we all think we work hard, right? How about that? We all think we work hard.

But the reality is you wanna work hard and you wanna deliver, and you wanna make sure that it's the right work hard. So that's a extra piece of advice for you. but when you do that, opportunity knocks. Opportunities are gonna come to you, open the door, understand what that is, be flexible. Take that chance. Number eight. Rome was not built in a day and neither is your career, right? So you are going to learn, grow, develop, and test yourself throughout your career.

Where you start is not where you're going to finish. Um, where you start may be amazing and you find out that, hey, this is it. This is, this is the place, the company, the, the direction that I wanna be heading. We may say, well, that was nice. Now I know what I don't wanna do. Recognize, again, I, I talked about this at the beginning. Your career is a journey. It's a marathon and not a sprint. Keep growing and keep going, right? Number nine, Money matters, right?

So this, I, I'm actually grouping a bunch of things into this topic, which is, invest in your company, 401k right away, right? And increase it every time you get a raise, right? So that is maybe one of the best pieces of advice I've ever gotten. it's kind of that set it and forget it mentality. Just keep investing. Right? financial security. It gives you choices, that to me is one of the great things we don't necessarily always talk about.

You think, oh, hey, I'm, I'm coming into the industry, I'm making a great amount of money. It's frankly, lemme tell you a kid, it's never as much as you think it is. Um, because once you start paying bills, you realize just how big your bills are, um, and how expensive stuff is when you're off of, mom and dad's payroll or however that works out. But. Invest, invest, invest in your company. 401k. Invest in a Roth IRA. Invest in whatever financial engine and tool that you want.

Don't be afraid to talk about money. So I, you know, I grew up in an era and, and.

It's hard for me to tell if you're growing up in an era where we didn't always talk about money. learn to be comfortable talking about money, talking about investments. frankly, you know, no company ever wants you to ask about, Hey, what's your salary? And do salary comparisons, but compare salaries, understand, understand what, where you stack up, um, from a salary perspective. Talk about investments. Don't be afraid. You are not the expert. How do you become the expert?

By talking to, friends and colleagues, right? You can talk to 'em and ask them questions about, Hey, how are you investing your money? What have you talked about? What have you done? Talk to your financial advisors, right? And they are there for you. I'm gonna tell you, I don't think I, I give you this feedback because I think sometimes I, I've been afraid to talk to some of these people. Maybe, you know, you've had that experience, being afraid to talk to some of these people.

Engage, engage with Fidelity, Schwab, whomever your, um, financial platform is that your company provides. That's for your 401k, your external financial advisor. Go find one. You should have one. Even when you've got. A dollar to your name. Go figure out who that financial advisor is. 'cause they want you to be successful, right? Here's the secret, they want you to be successful. When your investments are successful, you've got more money to invest. That makes them all happier, right?

So money matters. Know

your money. Invest your money. Don't be afraid to talk about your money, um, in, in appropriate ways, right about investing and where you can go and how you can think about that. Because that creates long-term opportunity. It creates financial security. It gives you a wheelhouse to start maybe investing in your own company, investing in somebody else's company, retiring early, whatever it is that you've gotten your goals and dreams. Don't be afraid to talk about it.

and in fact, that brings me to point number 10, which is communication is key. I've heard that over and over again. You guys have probably heard that over and over again, but. What I'm gonna tell you, you know, what do, what should I be talking about? Like, as a new young college grad, as a young professional, heck, as a mid-career professional, what should we be talking about? I, I like to talk about having, being prepared for show and tell.

So you remember when we were in kindergarten and you'd bring in your toy or you know, Hey, I got a pen right here. You bring in your widget and say, Ooh, I've got this great blue widget. Well, you're not talking about that anymore, but you're talking about yourself. Who you are, how you're contributing, what you're working on. what cool thing did you recently learn? What do you want to do next, right?

Because if you don't tell people what you do wanna do next, what you're doing, who you are, how you work, what you're excited about, they're gonna make all kinds of assumptions. they may think nothing, frankly, 'cause. You know, surprise, surprise. We don't actually think about other people. Most people are egocentric. They don't think that much about other people. Um, your boss is not sitting up at night wondering what you're doing and what you're thinking about what your next career goal is.

Own it. Talk about it, communicate it. I like to talk about show and tell and really being prepared with an elevator pitch. So really, like if you get stuck in an elevator with somebody, you got 10 seconds when the big boss says, Hey, how are you? What's your, what are you working on today? Don't just say, uh, good. You talk to 'em and you say, loving this opportunity. I've got at Company X. Really excited to be working on this project and, and the results. So be interesting.

Be interesting and be interested. Be ready to talk about your contributions, your excitement, where you're going, and really how you fit into the bigger picture. And frankly, communication, of course, is always a two way street. Ask questions, be curious, create that dialogue. So. Those are my 10. Um, this is long and yet it's short and sweet. My advice to you class of 2025, is enjoy the journey. You've earned it. Congratulations.

Congratulations to the new graduates class of 2025, successfully graduating from college and embarking on their next steps, whether it be career or more college and what have you. Your future is bright.