Big Lies about your First Job

Ever feel like you’re too smart to be doing the mundane tasks required of your day job?  Ever start to question the value of your college degree at work?  Did you assume you would be thanked and taught by your boss the way you were by your professors in college?

Michael Ball’s “You’re Too Smart For This: Beating the 100 Big Lies about Your First Job” is a simple and short book that brings recent grads back down to reality with short answers to each of the 100 big “lies.”

What assumptions did you have about your first few jobs?

For example, “lie #33: You’re One-of-a-Kind to the Company.”  You worked hard in college, you have a totally “unique” personality and you are the apple of your parents’ eye.  That transfers over into the real world, right?

Michael Ball compares entry-level grads to commodities (read: a dime a dozen).  Many of us have been wined and dined by large companies, and told that our individual personalities and successes are so important to them.  Then we signed our cheesy pre-made offer letter and became a number in our tiny cubicle hoping to stand out.

As much as we’d like to be seen as “the one” by our employer, we are often seen as low priced, indistinguishable and undervalued worker bees.  Ball compares this to a college hook up.

Don’t get discouraged, you can turn this bleak portrait around!  Moving from an employer’s “random hook up” to that “special someone” will require consistently producing high quality work and building your personal brand among co-workers.

I highly recommend “You’re Too Smart for This” as a resource to leave on your bookshelf in times of need.  The book takes a realistic look at a lot of myths and gives you a new perspective on how to handle them.