17 Worst Career Mistakes to Make at the Start of Your Career

Who doesn’t make mistakes? From following the wrong route to a destination to simple oversights likemisplacing the toothpaste, most of our days are filled with some mindless mistake or the other. Nowmost of these small mistakes have no significant impact on our professional life. However, we willshortly talk about some of the worst career mistakes that can seriously wreck your work life, andeverything associated with it.Yes, these are mistakes that you cannot afford to make if you want a smooth and productive career.When you look at these from outside, some of these might appear extremely obvious. But when you arein the heat of battle, it is not uncommon to lose sight of the obvious.Let's go ahead and talk about seventeen of the worst career mistakes that you cannot make at the startof your career.1. Building a comfort zoneAll of us subconsciously get inside bubbles with work that we can either do well or makes us feel good.The same applies to people. We only tend to associate with people who make us feel good and feelcomfortable. Now, there is nothing bad about being comfortable at work. However, doing only thosethings that will make you feel comfortable in not a favorable career exercise.The thing about stepping out of your comfort zone and doing new things is quite cliched. But it’s equallytrue. C-level executives and top managers in companies always have an eye out for people who do morethan they are supposed to.Successful executives and even entrepreneurs are people who dare to do new things every day of theirlife. Having said that, do not try to get into things that you do not fully understand and mess things upfor the rest of the team. Instead, respectfully ask your manager or supervisor for more work.2. Being under or overdressedDress appropriately. While how you dress depends on what is allowed and what is not allowed in yourorganization, some rules apply universally. As a rule of thumb, follow the managers and other topexecutives and see how they are doing it. You can safely emulate their style.If you are still in doubt, contact the Human Resources and ask them about how you should be doing it.Above and over that, wear things that keep you comfortable through the day. You need to spendanywhere between eight to ten hours at the office. Wearing clothes that are too tight or skimpy willmake your day longer than it already is.In case you make an error here, do not mind. Public memory is short and any so-called fashion mishapwill be forgotten quickly. Just make sure you do not repeat the same mistake the next day or week.3. Doing research-free workAll of us wait for that one big task that will let us prove our worth. When that big task comes, theexcitement might throw you off your guard. It is a common career mistake to forget your plan of actionincluding the research.Remember, any big task will be preceded with a lot of research. This is irrespective of how much youalready know and what you have studied at school. With a new/big task, always avoid the easy way anddo sufficient research.Even as you are doing the research, do not rely heavily on any one source. Be sure to consult multiplesources simultaneously. Again, it is easy to forget all of these and go for the shortest distance. But thatwill only indicate to your employers that you have no intention of making a difference.4. Being underconfidentYou want to impress everybody during your initial days at work. You will soon realize that makingeveryone happy is just not possible. But that’s another story for another day. The real risk is if you carrythe pleasing attitude for too long and end up being underconfident at work.Being underconfident is one problem that gives rise to many others:•••••You do not feel like sharing your ideasYou do not speak where you are supposed to speakYou create an air of underperformance about yourselfYou let people walk all over youYour immediate supervisor refuses to back youAs you could imagine, none of these help you with real growth in your career. And all of these stemsfrom you being underconfident. You must get over this. How you get over this under-confidence ispurely up to you, though. You can watch videos on YouTube, speak before a mirror, practice meditationor even read out loud from a book.5. Getting too friendlyThis is the opposite of the last point we discussed. You do not want to be too friendly with yourcolleagues right at the start. They might tag you with words like ‘easy’ and ‘flaky’ and you do not wantthat to happen, especially at the start of the career.It could totally be the case that you are an extrovert and are easy-going by default. That should not stopyou from exercising a little of caution and reserving your thoughts for a while. However, if you do havegood thoughts and want to share them, do not shy away.What you definitely do not want to do is ask people out for parties in the first week itself. But if youreceive invitations to office parties or parties hosted by colleagues, feel free to attend. The moral of thestory here is to be professional and not be over-friendly with colleagues right at the start.6. Killing timeLet’s all take a short break at this point and ask ourselves a simple question:How far do you want to go in your career?If the answer is really, really far, pay attention to what’s coming next: you cannot afford to waste solittle as ten minutes of a working day. In fact, many of us will waste an entire career doing the bareminimum at the workplace and willfully killing whatever extra time we have. Such people do seriousinjustice to their own potential and to the work environment around them.Perhaps the worst thing about killing time at the workplace is that you seldom realize it. In that case,here are a few pointers. Check if you are doing any of these things:••••You feel a constant urge to scroll the social mediaYou are found talking to your friends during office timeYou chat with your colleagues about everything except workYou are either the source or a major contributor to office gossipIf you qualify for one or more of the above points, it is time to stop killing time. Stop killing time and tryto do some work that is a little outside your comfort zone.7. Working only for the moneyLet’s be honest – who doesn’t work for money? In fact, if you are not getting paid enough for the workyou do, look for other options. But an equally big mistake would be to focus only on the monetaryaspect of things. What’s wrong with that? A lot of things. To start with, people who work for money onlytend to do things that will maximize only their immediate gains. This could lead to disaster in every way.Another problem about working for money only is that you might have to change your job often.Honestly, that should be your last option to grow in your career. It will affect your resume badly.Moreover, your loyalty will be thoroughly questioned after a while.8. Not taking enough breaksThe body and the mind need timely intervals to function optimally. Some of us are so engrossed in tryingto leave a mark that we burn ourselves out. It could be that your workload is too exhaustive, or you arejust slow with the new job. Maybe you are even thinking about work (if not actually doing it) during yourpersonal time. That is always a mistake.Even if you are doing it out of love for your job, you cannot do it for long. At some point or the other,you will have to do it not whenever you want, but whenever your boss wants.All things considered, productivity drops. Things spiral downward rapidly to a point where yourrelationship with your boss becomes toxic. Once you hit that point, there is no way to repair things andyou should start looking for the next job in your career.The moral of the story is to work when you are supposed to work. Keep our personal life personal. Andunless it is both important and urgent, do not burn your fingers with more work than you can handle.9. Absenting networkingYour first job will hardly be your only job. There’s a fair chance a healthy career will take you places.Those places do not arrive on your doorstep. You must find your opportunities by yourself.The key to maximizing your opportunities at the right time in your career is to have a wide network ofpeers. But the problem is the network doesn’t build itself. You must start networking with influentialand promising individuals right at the start.You can build a network both with your immediate colleagues as well as with people with similarqualifications in other companies. In fact, you can be ambitious and focus on networking with peoplewho are way out of your league. You never know which opportunity comes knocking at your doors.10. Failing to get recognitionThere is a rather simple problem with several hard-working employees who fail to get the recognitionthey deserve. They are somehow led to believe that recognition will come to them. If you are one ofthose employees who assume that your good work will be recognized and even rewarded automatically,you are severely mistaken.Here’s some good advice for you: do not make this weird career mistake. Once you do good work, youwill be the first person to know about it. Make sure to stir up a mini storm of sorts every time you dostellar work. Communicate it to not just your manager, but try and get it featured on the companynewsletter as well.If required, be shameless enough to ask your manager to give you a written appreciation for your work.Do not just bide by what the company does or does not for such cases. There is absolutely no harm inasking your boss for differentiated treatment.11. Closing communication linesTreat this as an extension of the point about networking we discussed a while ago. As is true for so manypeople before and after you, you will progress from your first job. Most of us have mixed feelings aboutthe first jobs of our lives. However, that should be no reason to snap ties with our ex-bosses andcolleagues all together.Always keep in touch with your professional contacts. They may or may not be capable of adding valueto your lives later. But going by the law of averages, they add to the probability of your next big break.To keep communication lines open, you will have to let go of ego issues, if any. Only then can you createa natural bond with your colleagues, both past and present. If nothing else, keep wishing them onimportant occasions, especially their birthdays.12. Failing to leverage on your personalityNature blesses everyone with a distinct personality. The magic of working together with a team is ineach person exploring their personality to its fullest. Do not try to hide traits of your personality that youmight feel are too over-the-top or introverted.Instead, try and leverage upon unique aspects of your personality to see if you can:Bring in more sales for the companyCome up with a creative ad for your brandCreate an automation for an otherwise boring and unproductive processInspire discipline among other colleaguesHelp your co-workers with a vital doze of laughter every now and thenThe golden trick here is to play on your strengths. Explore your strengths and deploy them to the benefitof your work.13. Carrying a bad attitudeNo one really notices the quality of work you do in the first week. But they all notice the attitude you