How to Be Proactive at Work to Stand Out - The Muse

How to Be Proactive at Work to Stand Out - The MuseHow to Be Proactive at Work to Stand OutCongratulations to Erin Olander for her winning essay on What Career Advice Would You Give to Your Younger Self? The runner-up essays will be published in the coming weeks, so stay tuned for more terrific career advice from a few of our readers.I wish someone had warned me that when you get your first job, no one is going to tell you what to do. (Well, OK, in some positions they will- theyll have specific training sessions for you to attend, or assign you to a specific rotation for a year). But if youre like I welches four years ago, armed with a liberal arts degree and no relevant experience in the industry youre about to enter, then the following words are for you. There are no midterms or finals anymore. Theres no syllabus that outlines when papers are due or suggests additional reading (as you can probably tell, I welches always very good at doing what I was told). At work- whether youre st arting a new job, you just got promoted, or youre making a career change- you have to figure out how you can contribute. Being proactive is key. But when you dont have any experience or the right kind of experience, being proactive can be challenging. And what I wish I could go back and tell my 22-year-old self is this Ask questions. Ask so many questions that you start to annoy your manager (because genuine curiosity and enthusiasm will never actually annoy your manager). The beauty of being new is that no one expects you to be an expert.Asking questions however, requires some measure of vulnerability. It means being willing to admit what you dont know. This is something Ive always struggled with. I spent the first year-and-a-half of my job right out of school asking zero questions because I was working for incredibly smart people, and I didnt want them to think I was stupid. That was stupid. I lost out on 18 months of learning and building skills that probably wouldve propelled me to where I am now in my career a lot sooner.Because heres the hard truth No one is going to take you by the hand and tell you how to move forward on your own career path. My managers were too busy doing their own jobs to think of extra tasks or projects to assign me that would help me grow. During the 18 months in which I wasnt asking questions, I was executing everything within the scope of my job description seamlessly. But thats all I was doing, and I was so, so bored. Turns out that the best way to prove youre ready for more responsibilities is to just actually take on those responsibilities. When I finally realized I wasnt going to move up the ladder at my company by doing only what was expected of me, I started to proactively look for ways to help my team. When my manager said Wouldnt it be nice if we had a report that... or We dont have research on those competitors... I jumped at the chance to fill in the gaps. And my supervisor noticed.I wish I could tie up this anecdote b y telling you that asking questions and being proactive led to a promotion and that Im now doing exactly what I want to be doing. Im not, and I cant even sweeten this story by telling you that I got promoted. I work in an industry thats facing some pretty complex challenges right now, and unfortunately the opportunity to move up within my old department didnt pan out. But I can tell you that Im kicking butt in my current role and recently received an exceeds expectations rating during my year-end review, which is pretty rare at my company.And while Im not exactly where Id like to be, I did learn this The most successful people Ive met throughout my professional experience know what they dont know, and arent afraid to admit it. They are inquisitive and enjoy figuring out how they can help their teams, regardless of what their job title is. They are thinkers and problem solvers, and most importantly, they dont sit around and wait to be told what to do. For the past year, for example, Ive been fortunate enough to work for someone who fits this exact description. My current supervisor joined my company last year after having spent 12 years in a completely different industry. On her first day she probably asked me 30 different questions about our distribution processes. Now just one year later, shes led and executed several projects that have resulted in significant cost savings for the company and improved processes for product shipments. Shes successful because shes curious and thoughtful and enjoys figuring out how she can help our company move forward, which, in turn, has inspired me to do the same.So while school is over (and may have been for quite some time now), learning doesnt have to be. And if you want to continue to move forward, your education will never be finished. But just how much you decide you want to learn and grow is completely up to you. Judging from the few years that Ive been out in the real world, I can tell you that limiting yourself or st opping when you finish the assignment wont get you anywhere that matters.Photo of woman working at computer courtesy of alvarez/Getty Images.