How often have you heard someone say, “How am I supposed to get any experience if I don’t have any experience?” If that sounds familiar, you may want to pivot your search and look to find entry-level positions
in your field; because those jobs may be the answer.
But gaining experience isn’t the only consideration for starting from the bottom. Consider these eight ways that working your way up from the ground floor can benefit your career:
1. Getting a foot in the door
At the beginning of your career, an entry-level job is often the first step in your career; you get to show up and gain your first experience in a field, industry or type of role. Additionally, beginning or starting over in an entry-level position could get you in the door at a prestigious company, or connected to important decision makers. Some positions are “launch pads” because they get you in an organization and allow you to build a reputation, and make the types of connections you need to be considered for higher level work.
2. Develop a network
When you begin on the ground floor, you have the opportunity to develop an encyclopedic knowledge of who does what and where to go when you need help in a particular area. Not only will you be able to connect the right people to issues, you’ll have a tremendous internal network for referrals as well.
3. Be a better manager
If you can empathize with the people that work for you and for your clients, you will be able to serve them better. In terms of employees, you’ll know how to remove their obstacles and make their work more rewarding. An added bonus is you’ll be able to help clients find the solutions they need to have a great experience with your product.
4. Become a solutions guru
When you rise through the ranks, you learn first-hand what the day-to-day issues are and how to solve them. This type of knowledge is invaluable when you are given the ability to address these challenges from a high-level. Knowing what to fix and how to fix it, is a skill set with value beyond measure. If you make this your goal, you’ll greatly increase your chances of success.
5. Know the business from the ground up
If your goal is to be an entrepreneur or CEO, it often isn’t a walk-on role. You’ll have to get in the trenches and learn what is necessary at the every level of an organization. It is imperative that you can look into the workings of your organization and know which levers to push in order to accomplish your goals, whether it is to increase production, improve customer service, or decrease company waste. Someone who has risen through the ranks will have insights that can’t be bought with a degree.
6. Developing your skills wins over money goals
If an employer asked you where you see yourself in five years and you answered with how much money you’d be making, they’d have a pretty good insight as to what is important to you. And even though it is good to have financial goals, you need to have career development goals that drive you towards your ideal job, one that fits the way you work, your strengths and passions. If you have a goal to develop the value you create for a company and are striving to play to your strengths, the money will follow. If money is your only goal, you might fail to get anyone else interested in your dreams and hit a dead end.
7. Work your way up
Great opportunities for entry-level work exist in many areas including hospitality, retail, telecommunications, and media. Some of these industries might not sound like your first choice, but you’d be amazed at the scores of transferrable skills you can pick up in each of these industries at the entry level. You might cringe at the thought of being on the front lines of customer service, but being able to deliver a product in a way that thrills and delights customers is a crucial skillset to gain that will be forever marketable throughout your career. In every job, at least part of the time, you get to interact with others as part of your day, gaining that skill is immeasurable. You could find yourself in a role that requires you to sell, another skill set that is transferrable to any job whether you become a supervisor or start your own company, knowing how to engage a customer and close a deal will be to your benefit.
8. No shortcuts
There are great stories of lucky breaks, and once-in-a-lifetime opportunities, but these stories are few and far between, and usually gloss over the part where the “lucky” person has often paid their dues for years, working a tough job in a demanding industry before they got to their current situation today. If you want to gain knowledge about how people you admire accomplished their career goals, take the time to ask them. Research their story and figure out exactly the type of work, preparation, and diligence it takes to be ready when opportunity knocks.
It’s tempting to want to shoot for the corner office with the big title and a big salary to match, but it might not benefit you to skip too many steps in your career. If you ask your friends and mentors later in their career, they’ll tell you that those early positions, the tough ones without a lot of glory, those jobs are ones that shaped the rest of their career.