No one wants to start from the bottom. But that is where the real learning is!
Career lessons I learnt cause I started from the bottom, and set me up for a career of constant learning.
I get it! You have just graduated from college, got a bachelors degree in Marketing or a MBA in Strategic Management or Econometrics — and are all set to conquer the working world and flex your new learnt business skills!
But then — you get into your first job and are given clerical work such as filling data into an excel sheet, cold-calling prospects only to be shunned over the phone or compiling inventory sheets in a dingy backroom.
Don’t worry, You aren’t alone!
After Graduation, when I started my career and joined my first organisation — I was extremely excited to make it big in the corporate world.
I had graduated with a Diploma in Business Management from the Singapore Institute of Management and a Bachelors Degree in International Business from the University of Birmingham.
I came back to my home country, India and started my career in a retail firm that managed multiple F&B super-markets across Bangalore.
My first week at the new job — I was asked to manage the shop floor, stock products on the shelves, help customers find their products and manage the cash counter during billing.
But the reason I had joined the firm was different.
I had just completed my graduation in Business Management and International Business and I felt I could manage a lot more.
But looking back, it is those first few weeks at my first job that set me up for constant learning.
These simple and easy seeming tasks taught me a lot about business, people management, customer centricity, corporate structures and these are some learnings I carry till today:
1) How to interact with customer and listen to customer needs.
While managing the shop floor, I had to pay attention to customers and seek to help them. I had to approach them in a non-intrusive and non-stalker like way and communicate with them to understand what they were looking for.
The store that I was working at was fairly new and was not packed to full inventory. I had to interact with shoppers and understand what kind of products they were looking for so that we could stock them or get them delivered to their homes.
This taught me the basics of customer interaction and customer service, and made me appreciate the power of customer feedback and customer communications.
2) How to build relationships with other colleagues — seniors and subordinates.
While managing the store floor and stocking inventory on shelves I had to co-ordinate with multiple other colleagues who were from different educational and socio economic backgrounds.
They had different views on life, on career and different ways of approaching situations which were quite different from mine.
I had to embrace these differences and learn to work with them.
Though I was more qualified than a few of them, working with them helped me in understanding their challenges and their perspectives and helped me view things from a different frame of reference.
Working with different sets of co-workers has helped me guide subordinates better since I have been in their shoes.
This has helped me immensely in the long run.
I am now in a better position to look at problems from multiple frames of references making me a better manager and people person.
3) How to think on my feet.
A large format super-market floor is busy. Especially on weekends and weekday peak times.
Customers can be demanding, seeking the best service in the quickest time.
While managing the shop floor, keeping check on inventory levels and making sure there are no hold-ups in the billing queue, I was faced with managing multiple tasks simultaneously.
This taught me how to quickly think on my feet, find solutions to problems in new ways and constantly innovate.
4) How small things come together to create a larger system.
Yep, I initially had a very small role to play at my first job.
But within a span of a year, I got involved in more aspects of the business and had taken up more responsibilities.
Setting minimum order quantities, cash flow processes, order placement and tracking processes, inventory swap processes between stores were some of the other tasks handed to me.
I quickly realised that I would not have been able to correctly implement these processes if I had not spent the initial few months on the shop floor stocking shelves, talking to customers or managing the billing counter.
Stocking shelves helped me understand how theft and pilferage can take place.
Talking to customer helped me understand what products are most needed and the seasonal trend of products.
Managing the bill counter helped me understand where things can go wrong and how we can set practices to account for these.
Learnings from these tasks quickly translated into insights that put me in a position to take on bigger tasks.
I slowly understood how things work across the value chain of a business and how each element no matter how small — matters and combines together to create an interconnected system.
Conclusion
These learnings have stuck with me and have helped me be a better team player, manager and business professional today.
At the start of my career, I didn’t want to start from the bottom either. I wanted to directly jump into bigger roles of responsibility — assuming I have the know-how & skills to do so.
Once into the job — I realised there are a lot of smaller nuances, interpersonal skills and processes that one has to experience to understand completely.
I realised that though I did not want to start from the bottom — that is where the real learning is.
In hindsight — I wouldn’t have had it any other way!
Any early career stories that stuck with you? Do share them in the comments below, I would love to know and draw inspiration from the same.