How to Approach Your First Job - Mr. S.Giridhar

By S. Giridhar

It is that time of the year when young people are graduating with college degrees. Some have already got job offers in their pockets through campus placements; other resourceful ones have found jobs for themselves while the rest are on the hunt. Soon it will be July and time to begin work.

A fortnight back I met a youngster, in his eighth month of work, sparkling with enthusiasm, talking about his current exciting assignment where he had been given a lot of freedom and was impatient to get to work Monday morning. It set me thinking on the tremendous importance and value of one’s first job.

My mind went back 32 years to when I began my first job. My brighter batch mates had been snapped up. It was already March and soon I would be out of the institute. Then I got the opportunity to interview with a small but interesting company in marketing and servicing scientific instruments. It was a sales career in Mumbai and the salary was perhaps half of what the others had landed.

But I liked the smell and sound of this company. When I started work, I realized that one had to create one’s own “induction program.” So I would accompany a senior sales engineer to a new prospect or go with a grizzled veteran to a major account and tag along with service engineers to see how they wrestled with recalcitrant instruments and irascible customers. Every order would be cheered in the office as though it was worth a billion dollars. It was the kind of office atmosphere that is most conducive for a new recruit. Simply put, the first timer probably learns more, a lot more, in such small and friendly settings.

Small companies have their own informal way of keeping tabs. If you are determined to look at the positive aspects and opportunities, you will find them staring at you every day. It will only be a matter of time before you hit pay dirt and get noticed. It happened to me in my first job.

B.N. Sinha, managing director of the company, SICO, entrusted increasing responsibilities to me with directions that were stark and simple: ensure that the country sales for the product group jump up otherwise we will lose the agency. The point to note here is the belief that given such chances, youngsters respond to the sheer fun and thrill of responsibility. They are unafraid to make mistakes and grow and unleash their potential within the organization. I remember being entrusted with crucial negotiations but I went into such discussions without fear and without having to look over my shoulder. The takeaway here is that there is a lot of entrepreneurial scope even in the early years of one’s job.

People these days talk of referrals being the best source of potential employees. Back then, within a year of my joining, I was encouraged to identify juniors from my institute for our organization. For a fresh employee, on the basis of his work for a year, to be asked this was so significant in building what is described in management jargon as “ownership.”

Five years later, I left SICO for a much larger organization. For the first time, I felt tongue-tied trying to tell Sinha that I must go. He let me go in great style, saying, “Some folks remain happy all their life in the same place and grow to positions of great stature in their first organization. Others however, feel the need to seek and make their fortune and life elsewhere.”

He then said something almost prophetic: “A good first job is like an umbilical relationship. Wherever you go, whatever you do, you and your first organization will have a relationship that can never be replaced.”

Sinha is 71 years old. SICO has gone through vicissitudes. It did not make the most of its best days in the ‘70s and ‘80s. But more importantly, it celebrates its hundredth year in 2011.

A group of us who began their professional careers at SICO want to come together to help SICO celebrate the centenary in memorable fashion. The first job is about much more than the first salary. Salaries are funny animals and it is impossible to plot or predict the salary graph. More relevant and important is to note that the first job has the life-defining potential to somewhere, somehow calibrate an individual’s appetite for initiative and risk taking, hard work, humility and respect for colleagues.

When I narrated the theme of this essay to a friend, he was quick to point out that what I have described is not restricted to small companies. He cited his own experience in a gargantuan division of an MNC. In that environment, he noted, you can be given significant ground responsibilities beyond what you think you are capable of. Some grow with the stretch, some snap.

No doubt, there are many such examples drawn from large organizations where business units and verticals have the nimbleness and blithe spirit of the small firm to nurture the entrepreneur. There is merit in my friend’s argument and therefore I must clarify that I have only argued the scope and value of the first job using my personal experience with a “small firm.”

" But what I am in a way also advocating is that graduates should seriously evaluate job offers from smaller companies. Even though the organization may not be well known and the salaries comparably less, it may be a good choice in the long run. Like the youngster of 2010 with whom I began this story, the important thing is to give yourself a full chance in the first job, be positive in thought and deed, and see how this excitement helps shape your attitude and spirit for the rest of your professional career. "

– S. Giridhar is Head – Programs and Advocacy at Azim Premji Foundation and can be contacted on giri@azimpremjifoundation.org