6 items to teach your new, entry-level employees

What can drive employers nuts about entry-level employees who are, pretty much by definition, new to the workforce?

This matters to us a lot because College Recruiter believes that every student and recent graduate deserves a great career, and so anything that they’re doing but shouldn’t (or shouldn’t but are) gets in the way of that. Fortunately, we’re seeing a lot less of these issues today than years ago from the more than 2.5 million students and recent graduates of one-, two-, and four-year colleges and universities who use our site a year to find part-time, seasonal, internship, and entry-level jobs.

Karen Young of HR Resolutions shared six items that employers should expect to teach their entry-level employees. Her consulting company works side-by-side with its client partners to help create workplaces where employees want to come to work every day, so she’s got a pretty good handle on these items that we’ve all had to learn from experience:

1. Interpersonal skills – Know how to communicate properly with peers, supervisors and those that report to you;
2. Spelling and grammar – Oh, how spell check has become a problem!
3. Air of entitlement – Earn respect in the workplace from those that have “been there, done that.”
4. Frustration – You are not the first to be frustrated and you won’t be the last – it’s the cycle of work (which is why they call it work and not vacation)
5. Complaining – If you bring a problem to me, bring a recommended solution. Problems without solutions may be viewed as whining. Bring me a possible solution, even if it’s outside of possibility/probability, as that shows me you have a vested interest in working to make things better instead of expecting them to be better without effort.
6. Dating co-workers – Don’t date someone you work with – just don’t. And, in case you’re really interested in that hot co-worker, look back to the start of this sentence: don’t date someone you work with!

One of the benefits of hiring college and university students and especially recent graduates is that they’re typically more mature and experienced than a high schooler. Many have had several jobs and maybe even an internship or two. It is the added maturity, education, and experience that leads a lot of employers to hire students and recent grads from one-, two-, and four-year colleges for their part-time, seasonal, internship, and entry-level jobs.