Jennifer Newman: New grads should be humble in the workplace

This week, CBC's workplace columnist Jennifer Newman is speaking directly to young graduates as they begin their first post-education jobs.

Newman spoke with The Early Edition's Stephen Quinn about what employers want to see from recent hires and how employees can help them succeed.

Stephen Quinn: How prepared are graduates for work when they leave school?

Jennifer Newman: For the most part, they're well-prepared for their fields. Schools generally do a good job of teaching students what they need to know, and the grads are ready to fulfill employer expectations when it comes to technical know-how.

Many employers recognize they'll need to augment a new grad's education. So the employers invariably do a good job of on-boarding — that's explaining what's expected and how things work at the organization.

They'll provide close supervision and in-house training to newbies as well. But, there are some areas where employers find new grads lacking.

What are those areas?

Many employers are happy with graduates' technical skills, I want to underscore that. It's the less tangible skills they find are missing, like attention and concentration.

Some new grads may have difficulty focusing for extended periods, especially when a task is more complex or hard to execute.

An employer I worked with said he was happy with a new recruit's technical ability but he found that the new grad would get stumped and then jump to another less complex task.

The grad had trouble staying focused and seeing things through. The ability to focus requires self-discipline. New graduates can train themselves to be more disciplined or focused, to extend their attention spans and minimize distractions.

So, in other words, watch out for surfing the net, checking your phone or email, especially when a task is difficult.

I imagine that's a fairly modern problem.  Are there other skills or qualities employers say they're lacking from employees coming into the workplace? 

One is humility.

Being fresh out of school can be a problem. There's a tendency to believe what you've learned is the best way to do things. When a colleague does things differently from the way the grad was taught, there's some friction [that] can occur.

I worked with a new recruit who was upset when her co-worker seemed to be taking short cuts, the process her colleague was using was a bit different from the way the grad had learned in school.

New grads need to recognize technical ability eventually combines with years of experience over the long haul and that's going to be a dynamic combination. So, ask questions first before deciding a co-worker is doing it the wrong way.

What about time pressure, how well do new graduates cope with deadlines?

Many grads have experienced deadlines at school as well as the pressure to produce good quality work on tight timelines, especially if there was competition for grades.

That said, time pressure at work is different from time pressure at school.

Work-related time pressure centres on having to temporarily put aside your feelings, wants and desires to meet the needs of the boss, which can come as a surprise for new grads.

The shift towards meeting others' demands and temporarily shifting your own needs is a bit unfamiliar and a bit stressful at first but this transition is an important sign of greater maturity.

Is there anything employers can do to help them out with what they're lacking?

Ask new grads to take on projects while checking back about how they're doing.

If you've got a newbie who's a real keener, be careful not to put too much on their plate.

Monitoring the new recruit's workload and safety with them is important, meet regularly to check-in.

If you have a know-it-all grad remember they are probably trying to impress you or there is a disconnect between how they learned something and the way it's done in the workplace.

At the end of the day it's a two way street. We can learn something from the new grads, the grads can learn something from the workplace.