Remember your last semester in college? When you felt you were armed and ready to take on the world… and, were looking for your first job? You reviewed multiple options and decided to accept one of several offers – feeling good that someone wanted to reward you, for what you could do for them.

I want to share some thoughts, which may help you with your choices. My perspective is from a technology area, mainly software engineering or computer science. Some of the details may differ, although the concepts are universal and transferable.

How does one decide which first-job offer to take?

Pick a larger versus a mid/small organization, for starters. You are in your early career formative years, and need to develop the foundation of your professional life. You need some space and time to focus on process (learning to do things in the right way) vs. execution (just doing them). A larger organization is more process oriented. Execution/Delivery of tasks is important within the framework of their process. This will help you, setup better work practices, habits and force you to think through multiple what if scenarios. A smaller company may offer more task execution and variety challenge…. But will eventually lead to short-term vs long term focus. Once you have proved yourself at your first job, developed key professional work skills etc., it may be time to investigate other options – and shift to mid/small organizations.

The next, very important decision for you is the nature of your first job.

This is far more important than you may think it is. When you are interviewing for your first job, fresh out of school – you are selling yourself in the ‘futures’ market. Your valuation is based on your grades, your intern/co-op experiences, how you present yourself, sometimes on “who-you-know”, etc. There is no past on-the-job experience for your prospective employer to base a decision on. So they gauge you on what they consider as your future potential.

A few years at your first job…. and you now have a work identity, closely tied to the nature of your first job. When you decide to search for what is out there in the rolling green grass fields around you – you will sell yourself only on your past. Your current job function will define you professionally and restrict new opportunities. You tend to get ‘branded’, based on what you have achieved in your current job, vs what you may want to work on in the future.

So make sure you do not compromise on your work passion…. when you make your choices. In SW Engineering we have broad hi-level categories – Development and Test. Within each there are multiple options and there is no right or wrong choice – just what you have passion for, and see yourself excelling in.

Remember …. Most of us will have a 40+ years of professional work life. The initial choices you make at a tender adult age, need to serve you well.

What do you think?