Welcome

Intro

You are just out of college – you know, that incredible four-to-six years of no-responsibility-and-fun-five –nights-a-week – and it is your first day at your new job. Your boss asks you to schedule a meeting with your team. It seems like a pretty simple request, but you have no idea where to start and you begin to wonder to yourself: why didn't they teach me how to do this in college? Now, you don’t have to wait until you make that first mistake on the job to learn these critical skills. What They Didn't Teach You in College will help college graduates like yourself avoid the bumps and bruises often suffered by new college graduates working in a corporate environment and will thus give you a leg up against your peers.

Sure, universities will argue that what you learn in your coursework is the most important factor in future career success. However, in the daily reality of the world of work, job specific training and/or skills are only one component of your career development and, in many cases, are only a small piece of what makes your performance stand out to leadership. The other factor you are evaluated on is typically referred to as your “soft-skills” – such as organization, communication, and social aptitude. These are things that you don’t learn during your study groups or in your math and science books in school. While it may take years to learn the ins and outs of your specific department, these simple skills can be applied starting day one which will allow you to outshine your peers while also disguising the fact that you have just graduated college and this is your first real job.

Looking back at the first few years of my own career, I was shocked by the lack of preparation I had to function outside of a formal educational environment. Taking a second look at some of my emails, meetings, and communications from the beginning of my career, I was outright embarrassed at how informal and, in some cases, how unprofessional I was. Some of the things I learned throughout those first few years were so basic, and could be applied so broadly, that I struggled to comprehend why there wasn't a class or even a seminar to teach this stuff.

Thus, an idea was born. My original intent was to publish these lessons in a book but given the ever changing landscape of the corporate world and technology that supports it, I thought a website that could continually be updated and get feedback from others would be the best way to get the word out. The lessons in this website will discuss the basic expectations of any employer, yet they are rarely formally taught, documented, or published… until now.

A special thanks to Katie Sophiea Jeffrey for her contributions.

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