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Just Introduce Yourself

It’s so easy to walk into your first job and feel like a stranger in a strange land. But you don’t have to stay that way, and you shouldn’t.

You have to remind yourself to kick your shyness away and introduce yourself. Just a handshake will do. Ask the supervisor who hire you to introduce you around a bit. That’s the best way to make contacts. Then you’ll know what to do and say when you meet these people again.

Don’t do what my friend Sue did at her first job at Entertainment Weekly. “That is one of my biggest regrets: I hardly talked to anyone at all when I was there. I was scared and just thought people would talk to me first. For a long time, I was hung up on the thought that if someone was older, I respected them automatically. And even if someone started on Monday, and I started Tuesday, I just felt they had more experience. In the area I worked four months, I hardly spoke to these people,” she said.

“Of course, now I realize that was the most stupid thing. If I could do that again, I’d remember that it’s so important not to feel shy about introducing yourself. It’s not like you have to be very bold, ready to take over the place. Just introduce yourself and ask if there is anything you can do for them. That breaks the ice.”

Sue believes that if she had introduced herself around a bit, there would be just no telling what other opportunities or what other acquaintances she might have now. Not that she regrets where she is now at all. But had she talked to more people at her first job, “maybe it would have helped me get somewhere sooner,” she said.