Transition from campus to corporate: It's not just about engineering knowledge

It’s been two weeks since I started to have a “real” work for an international company that manufactures engineering and technology products. But it’s actually been more than two months since I got accepted in the company because I had to undergo through this so called “new-hire” employee training for 2 months before I get to handle my job functions. In that duration, I had to make huge adjustments to cope up with the huge changes that I faced. The following things are the ones I learned and am still trying to change.

 

1.    1.   School Mindset – College is full of theoretical stuff especially in engineering that is why I was often told by my mentors at work to think in terms of applications and not in ideal conditions.  In the real world (yes you are said to be in the real world once you work), there is no ideal system and everything affects everything. The company I work for manufactures engineering materials and provides solutions to customers who are mostly industrial. My job is to make sure I give the customers the right product for their applications. And in my case, I can’t just give what is the ideal solution for the customer. There are many things to consider aside from the applications of the customer. The economics also plays a huge role because as expected, the customer always wants to cut cost and the same time to have the best product and because it is still the customer who decides. I cannot also give products to any customer. For example, I cannot give products to places which we are “red flagged” especially those countries who are at war because the products might be used for weapons of destruction. 

    

     But anyway, being logical and analytical is surely an advantage at work. In my case, I am not easily convinced of something unless I see the science and math behind what was being taught to me so even though being theoretical is not really an advantage, the attitude of being detail-oriented and practicing deductive reasoning is a plus.

At work, the theoretical things learned at school is just a small part of what is actually needed.

  

2.     2.  Dealing with colleagues. – In college, you can definitely choose who to go with during lunch or during a lakwatsa. But at work, you cannot actually choose who your workmates would be. It’s hard for me at first because I don’t really like to mingle with people whom I am not really close to. But I understood that good relationship with my workmates is really important since we would be working as a team. And even people who are not directly on my team are also good to befriend because of the great leverage that their connections can give in the future.

Instead of being resistant to make new friends, I had to change to a more approachable and friendlier person.

 

3.     3.  Communicating with others – In the office, I noticed that all people who are on the top are good communicators. But being good in communicating is not just important for presentation purposes but also for establishing camaraderie  and networking with people which are great leverage in climbing the corporate ladder. Well, that is what most people want but I don’t really like to climb the corporate ladder if I don’t like the job function of my boss. I believe stress can kill any motivation I have in going to work so stress is something I am really careful to deal with. Many people are sick just because of stress. 

One great way as I learned to reduce stress is to work with people you like working with but since you can't choose your workmates, you have to like working with the people around you and it starts with communicating with them.

t   The takeaway in this article is that succeeding in work is not just about how intelligent you are.  As I heard from our HR, "IQ gets you hired, EQ gets you promoted."



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