Get Noticed by Those Who Influence Your Career

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James Hooper

It’s often hard for graduates and Millennials to get noticed when they first start their jobs. Usually this is not for the lack of trying.

Through my own experience I have listed a few ways to get noticed by those who influence your career.

1. Be the expert

I think that it’s important to identify your strengths (if you find this difficult ask someone to help you) and to make sure that others are aware of them also. I don’t mean that fact that you can chug a beer in less time than it takes to say cheers, but more on the lines of being an Excel whiz kid.

Once people recognise the fact that you are an expert (a loose term, but if you can convince yourself that you are, you can convince anyone) in a specific field, people will approach you for help and word will spread that you’re the man!

All this will undoubtedly lead to you becoming known as the person to go to when you have a problem. From personal experience, I know that this in turn can produce the kind of relationships that you must develop in order to progress in your career.

2. Be interested in your co-workers.

Actually being interested in your co-workers is not hard to do and if (and this is usually the case) reciprocated can be an avenue in to new projects and additional work that they may be connected with. Before you say ‘but they are so different to me’ stop and instead think that somewhere you will have something in common with practically anyone. This may be that you live in the same neighbourhood, follow the same sports team or are vegan! Once you find the connection the possibilities are endless. I spend each Monday morning discussing the trials and tribulations of the weekend’s soccer results with three senior managers who sit near me. This has directly lead to me working for one of them after being recommended on of the others. It’s the basis of networking; find a way in and stay interested and maybe more importantly interesting.

3. Make a statement in what you wear.

Now, getting noticed is the easy part when it comes to clothing, the more challenging aspect is to make the right impression. Don’t worry I’m not going to launch into an Esquire-esque style report, but rather a simple reminder. Dress according to the office dress code (usually unofficial but blatant to see). In some offices this may be the traditional blue suit and white shirt, in other you can lose the jacket and in others still you can say goodbye to the tie. Whichever level of dress you fit in to just make sure to look sharp and as if you’ve spent at least 5 minutes preparing in the morning. If you do nothing else please follow one simple rule… never, and I mean never (not even at Christmas) wear a comic tie!

These are just some of the things that I have observed during my first few months in the corporate role. Even the brightest, most hard working of us need to get noticed at some point and the above mentioned are some simple ways of achieving it.

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