How to build self esteem for Graduates 2021?
When you are a grad many things are new to you. And you have questions: What is best first job? Should you add a master’s degree? And should you move to a new city or even a new country to broaden your horizon?
Besides the big decisions after getting your degree in 2021, you might start to think also about your brand new professional personality. Being a student is great, but for many male and even more for female graduates the move from college and university to the business world and the first job is a big step because they feel the need to reinvent themselves. Graduation somehow can come with loosing self-esteem and self-confidence. Especially for the class of 2021, who finished school, college or university in a pandemic. From student to professional is a step which doesn’t come easy. I can relate to that.
From student to professional – my journey of learning how to become a confident women
After I finished my PHD at university with 28 years I felt amazing and proud for approximately four weeks. With the start of my job search this feeling changed. I became aware that in my first job I will start at the very bottom. And this was hurting the self-confidence I gained throughout the final months of my PHD. The university was a safe territory. But a company is something completely different, something I don’t know nothing about (at least I told myself). And so, I started to talk myself into a negative spiral of doubt.
I was questioning my capabilities (good at writing a thesis but not at writing a PowerPoint presentation). I was insecure that my peer group, who did a bachelor or master and are already 2-3 years on-the-job, will be too far ahead. Or that the expectations from potential employers will be too high as I Idid a doctoral degree. Wouldn’t it look stupid that I will now start as a junior somewhere with my kind of scientific background?
It was getting worse by the day. I was caught between knowing what I already achieved and fearing what might come in the future. My reaction to the low self-esteem was that I accepted the offer of a graduate program in a PR agency. 18 months of learning and junior work. It was not what I wanted for myself. I already spent ten years at university learning and hoped that this was over. Was it a good decision? If you are curious, jump to the end of the article, where I will give you my opinion.
What could you do after graduation to build and boost your confidence? Here some ideas for graduates 2021.
Define your self image
Instead of allowing my self-doubt to take the upper hand and ignoring all the positive encouragement I got from my friends and my family, I should’ve started with defining my professional identity. It is worth to reflect on what you are and how you would like to be seen. Write down your thoughts and shape this positive vision of you.
If you don’t know where to start, here are some key questions for you:
When your fellow students and teachers describe you, what are the categories they use? Cooperative, competitive, solution focused or thoughtful are only a couple if ideas.
When you would write your bio, e.g. for the intranet of your new employer, how would that look like?
If your new boss would introduce you at the first all-hands meeting, what would she/he say about you?
Know what you’re worth as a graduate of 2021
One reason why I lost confidence after graduation was the low level of experience. But is it true that I had no real-life experience? How about you?
I did a lot of internships in PR and communications during my student years and was therefore not that inexperienced. There had been already a number of projects I worked on during my studies. These are actual experiences e.g. in team building, organization, presentation and reporting. So instead of thinking that I don’t know nothing I could’ve written down a list of experiences and could’ve tried to “translate” them into the typical business vocabulary that you can find in job offers and job descriptions.
Don’t overdo the part. It would look unrealistic, but be confident that you already have basic skills in the most important areas of business. Don’t forget to put resilience, flexibility and a positive mind-set on your personal list of soft skills. You just lived through the Covid-19-pandemic. This counts for a lot of experience!
Build your confidence network and safety net
You are not alone with your feeling of self-doubt. Why not partner up with others from your peer group? Sadly I learnt about the concept of a “wingwoman” much later in life - that’s why I would like to introduce it to you today. The best you can do is to find your wingwoman (could also be a man).
A wingwoman could either be a more experience mentor for situations like major presentations or it could be someone from your team who is slightly more senior for situations like team meetings. What is the job of a wingwoman? A wingwoman makes sure that your idea is not getting lost or “stolen” from somebody else during a meeting. She is holding eye contact with you and with this is giving you a positive, encouraging face to look at. She might be the one to applaud first, laugh at your jokes or repeat your idea: “I like what Emily said…”.
In general a wingwoman is your sparring partner. She needs a briefing beforehand about your goals so make sure you talk to her first. But after that it is just being there for encouragement. I am working as a wingwoman for many of my team members. When I see that one is nervous before e.g. going on stage or in front of the management group I often offer to act as their wingwoman proactively. And to just be there, smiling, nodding is enough for them to feel stronger. This also offers the opportunity to get and give feedback in an easy non-offensive way from a buddy. So much worth in the first years of a job!!!!
Try it for yourself with one of your colleagues. You will see that a confident network within your company is a great thing to work on directly after starting your first job! It is also fun.
How to give yourself a smoother start into the job life?
Coming back to my own history and the question if I made the right decision by doing a graduate program in a PR agency…it was totally the right decision for me. It allowed me to lower the expectations I had towards myself a tiny amount and to focus more on just trying things out. Being an official beginner was helping to accept that I couldn’t know and do everything perfect at once. I was allowed to ask questions and seek for help. It was ok to say: “Hey, I don’t know how this works, can you give me a nudge into the right direction? Or is there an example case I can read? Can I join a customer meeting just to get a feeling of how this is working?”.
It was an amazing time. Because I smoothed the start for myself. And you know what? With all the experience I already had with my university studies and my thesis and being just a little bit older than my peers I was really successful in the first months and took co-responsibility for a 300k account in the first two quarters of the program. Just by telling myself that I don’t have to be perfect I freed-up so much positive energy that it was actually pretty good.
Some relaxation can help your self-esteem!
My recommendation is therefore that a program like a nursing graduate program, teaching graduate program or a marketing graduate program could be exactly the right thing.
Also internships at Microsoft, Google and Dell or in an accounting firm or PWC or Accenture could be a first start if you couldn’t get the full gig at once. Why not use the time after graduation to look around in a couple of different company cultures and sectors to explore where your passion for a job really lies?
Dear graduates 2021, you have it all in you! Be confident yourself and others will be confident in you.