Thinking About Full Time

As I’m in my senior year of college, naturally, I’m starting to think about my post graduation plans. At least in the near future, I’m likely going to work in the industry.

According to James Currier’s fantastic piece, Your Life is Driven by Network Effects, my first full time job is an important decision that has a sizeable effect on my entire career.

The professional relationships you form during your first job are the seed of your professional network which influences the arc of your career — from how you think about work, to how you’re known, to the geography where you have advantaged job access for a long time.

Currier gives the advice to ignore income, passion, and skills and work with people whose career path you want to emulate.

He suggests a few questions to focus on:

• Is this job in the right city? The city I want to live in long term?
• Will I like and respect my co-workers? Will they like and respect me?
• Do I want to be like my bosses someday?
• Do my co-workers career aspirations match mine?
• Am I going to be working with the best?
• Is there a strong culture and camaraderie?
• Will I have opportunities to prove myself to others at my company to build my network bonds?
• Are employees proud of their company and their brand? Do they enthusiastically recruit? Do they seek each other out when outside of work? This indicates strong network bonds are forming.
• Are there politics in the office that could threaten the building of strong network bonds?
• Lastly, because top performers tend to congregate in rising companies, if it’s a startup, ask if it has strong potential defensibility against competitors, especially network effects, and whether it has the 9 habits of world-class startups.