Internet is full of articles with similar titles, some written by well-known authors. So, why bother reading this? Well, These points are my observations being in the corporate IT world for about 5 years now. Some of them may be generic for the corporate world in general. You may agree or disagree with a few or many of them. But every individual may have their viewpoint based on the degree of the circle of their experience they are standing on. And I would love to hear your thoughts on it.

So let's get started:

1. The Foundation of your career is very crucial

Colleges and universities form your academic foundation, but their importance gradually decreases when you step into the corporate world. It just becomes the first stepping stone in starting your career. Nothing more. Your academic excellence doesn’t necessarily convert to an excellent career. It depends on how excellent your career foundations are. I’ve seen many people who were not able to convert their academic excellence into an excellent career.

But what builds an excellent career foundation? You ask.

Well, It depends on the work, environment, and co-workers you get at the beginning of your career.
As a graduate, your obvious aim remains to build your experience, knowledge, and professional etiquette. You work as hard as a child who wants to reach up to his/her toy up in the attic. While getting knowledge is in your hands partially, these things still depend on the people you interact with every day.

A graduate is like a seed. It takes some great people and minds to nurture them into fruitful plants.

Having a mentor who can nurture that seed, is very crucial for an excellent foundation of a career.

But a mentor can only write something on a slate if it's empty. It's important for a graduate to wipe off all unnecessary experience, knowledge, and arrogance he/she has gained while in academics, and become a student once again. For a successful foundation, you need to surround yourself with people who not only improve your knowledge and encourage learning but motivate you to achieve excellence selflessly in the early stages. And even scold you for your misdirection and wrong behaviour.

On the other side, If you are surrounded by negative people at the start of your career, please know that you are doomed. Because, it only increases the unnecessary experience, knowledge, and arrogance you’ve gained till now. It diverts your attention from improving yourself to blaming others and increases your ignorance over time.

2. Processes Matters

As a developer, I’ve hated some of the software development processes and methodologies. I mean why do we need so many meetings, checkpoints, and processes to complete a small piece of work. Right? Well, they are there for a reason.

I’ve seen the chaos where there’s no established process, misunderstanding when there’s no meetings and conflicts when there are no checkpoints.

Yes, the processes should not be rigid, It should be agile enough to modification depending on situations. And Meetings should always be time-bound and to the point.

I’ve been first introduced to the Iterative model and then to Agile. I’ve personally liked the iterative model for the fact that it has the best of both worlds: Waterfall and Agile. Or for the fact that requirements are quite stable and easy for modification. But either way, Any established process is required for the team to perform consistently.

3. Building a network is important

Well, I for one, am not the right person to write about this as I am terrible at building a network. But I’ve included this because I realize that not having a good network of people damages your chances of getting good opportunities in the future. I have always behaved self-respectfully in getting in touch with former colleagues. Some may even consider that arrogance.

But I feel you should connect with people who wants to be connected with you. You should pull that string if you don’t get any response from other end. And focus on those who do. It might reduce your network, but it will be of the right people.

4. Comfort Zone kills your skills

In everyone’s life, there comes a time when they have achieved many of the things they’ve wanted, and now they sit back and relax. Everyone deserves to relax if the achievement is huge, but It should not convert into Comfort Zone. If you’ve achieved something excellent, relax, and regain your strength to set up new goals.
How do you find if you’re in your comfort zone or not? It's easy.

If you’re happy (or rather not stressed out) with whatever you do, please know, you are in comfort zone.

I know this is not a popular opinion and it's debatable. People always says that take pride in what you do, be happy in what you do, blah blah, but in ideal corporate world, If you’re always happy (or rather not stressed out) with even the wrong situation you are in, you are in the comfort zone.

You’re getting good pay, praises from everyone. That feels sweet. And who wouldn’t like sweet things?

But remember, sweetness causes diabetes, just the way comfort zone kills your skills.

And how can we get out of our comfort zone? Well that depends, is your comfort zone created by people around you? Then connect with new people. Or is it created by day to day work? Then change the work, thrive for doing better.

5. Learn to face conflicts and failure

This perhaps is the most common and crucial point in all, because we all face that almost daily.

Let’s start with conflicts.

It’s of-course fine to have difference of opinion on any point.

Having multiple minds working on a common thing may bring multiple views to the table and that’s actually beneficial. But the problem arises when these difference of opinion turns into conflicts.

And about failure, many successful people have already talked about failure, so I might not be the right person to comment on that. But certainly, there would be times when you won’t be at your best. Just keep breathing and focus your attention.

6. Respect/Adjust with your colleagues

Your colleagues and superiors play a crucial part in what you become in your professional career. You might be fortunate to have great colleagues that support, understand and motivate you. But many may not be that fortunate.

For those, there are few ways to deal with the situation.

Respect other’s opinions that may not adversely affect you, and Adjust with and understand other’s opinion that may.

There will be scenarios every day where you think, a piece of work can be done easily or better your way, but that may not be accepted. So rather than being heartbroken or hurt, try to find out why your opinion is discarded, compare it with what’s been accepted and improve upon it.

That doesn’t mean you should not voice out your opinions. You should always put your opinion on the table. If it’s accepted, be happy, if it’s not, adjust and understand why it’s not accepted.

7. Never mix up work, family, and friends

This one rule will be more than enough for peaceful work and life. That doesn’t mean you don’t share your good and bad things from work to family and friends and vice-versa, but define a line between what to share and what not.

That also doesn’t mean you don’t make friends at work, but identify the nature of that friendship.

If you cross that thin line of separating work, family, and friends, it will create a mess you wouldn’t be able to settle easily.

8. Be careful whom you consider as friends at work

Speaking of friends at work, it's very important, who you consider friends at work. Because let's be honest, in the corporate world, not everyone is your well-wisher and not everybody is your enemy.

How can you find such friends? You ask. Well, it's difficult.

Because you will get to know who your real friends at work are after you stop working with them.

That sounds crazy, but it's true to nature. True friends at work will always be happy to connect with you, improve one another, share knowledge and have fun even after you are no longer important to them.

They admire and connect with your nature, not your position and power.

But during your ongoing tenure, just consider them as your colleague. As you will eventually find out if they are friends or not.

9. Respect is a two-way street

The statement is self-explanatory. If you don’t give respect to others, you won’t get it from that person and others. There are several aspects to it, however,

Most of the people co-relate respect with position and power. That way, one just becomes an opportunist.

Getting respect is the right of every human being, whether they are powerful or not and knowledgeable or not. People tend to ignore especially those who either do not hold any power or have less knowledge than others. We know the power and position aspect easily, but let me tell you about the knowledge aspect. Those who are less knowledgeable than others, make mistakes while working, requires help by keeping their dignity intact. If you hurt their dignity by unnecessarily scolding them, they might approach you in the same way.

I’ve seen the magic of being a selfless helping hand to those in need, and the beauty of getting their respect back when they approach you.

10. Learning is the real earning

Learn, Earn, Adjust, Respect and Relax. Peace out. ✌