Transitioning to the workplace
Manage the transition from university life and prepare for the workplace.
Leaving university to embark on or continue your professional career represents an exciting new chapter in your life – a turning point where you can apply the skills and experience you have gained over the past three or four years in the labour market. However as with any change, differences in routine and lifestyle, as well as joining a new environment, can be challenging. Understanding how the working world may differ from university can help you identify factors you may need to prepare for and implement techniques and strategies to help you thrive in the workplace. Coping with the transition requires resilience and the adoption of a growth mindset, both important career management skills. You will also have developed many transferable skills during your time at university, such as communication and teamwork, which you will be able to utilise in a working environment.
Adapting to working life
As you prepare to join the workplace, maybe for work experience or your first graduate role, you will be entering an environment quite different to your usual university life. Work experience, placements or part-time jobs might have helped give you an idea of some of these differences already. These can include:
Change in schedule and routine
Depending on the nature of your role, you might find you have more of a rigid working schedule than you have been used to at university. Whatever your new schedule looks like, it's important to establish a routine. This means you identify fairly standard times each day when you do things like wake up, go to sleep, have meals or breaks and factor in other things that are important to you. Your social life and interests outside of work are important too and you should still prioritise these – they will be especially important to you when you start a new job and try to achieve a healthy work life balance.
Where you work
Depending on your role, you may need to physically commute into a workplace - this will need to be factored into your daily routine too. Since the Covid pandemic, there are many more opportunities to work remotely (this means you can work from anywhere) and in a hybrid way (some time working remotely or from home and some time spent in a physical workplace). If you do work some or all of the time at home, it is worth considering how you will manage this split effectively.
Managing regular income
Money management and budgeting are life skills - skills you have probably already developed whilst at university. Your first job after university could be the first time you have been responsible for a regular or full-time income. It can be useful to get a good understanding of fundamental financial terms, such as understanding the different components that make up a payslip, budgeting and saving. Websites like Barclays Life Skills and Money Helper offer useful advice for university students and graduates.
Accountability and responsibility
Apart from group projects, you are mainly responsible for your own work at university. Completing your assignments on time, revising for exams and participating in university life are all things only you can do to ensure you leave university with a degree and experience that you are happy with. However, you have much more responsibility in work, and you are accountable to more people. Your work typically has far wider reach and impact, including on colleagues, your manager, clients or other stakeholders, as well as the organisation itself.
Imposter syndrome
It is very common to lack confidence when you join a new workplace, as with any different environment. Transitioning from being on a fairly level playing field with your peers to being part of multi-level and hierarchical organisations can be quite daunting at first. You will likely have a line manager or supervisor, as well as colleagues, with more experience and different skills to you. You might feel like you don’t have the skills or experience to belong in this organisation – this feeling is referred to as ‘imposter syndrome’ and is very common.
It is important to remember that you have done extremely well to secure your new role. The labour market is competitive and employers aren’t in the habit of hiring people who aren’t the right fit for the job! You have been employed because the employer believes you can do the role well and are a good fit for their team. TargetJobs has a handy guide to overcoming imposter syndrome.
Watch the video below to hear from Cardiff University students and graduates about how their work experiences have prepared them for the working world:
Professional etiquette in work
Given some of the differences that exist between university and working life, it’s important that you understand what is expected of you in a professional workplace.
"Professionalism is having the skill, knowledge and confidence to perform a job to the highest standards that might be expected of you. Being professional can mean different things depending on the employer or industry, and the confidence, knowledge or skill expected in one role might not be the same in another. What is the same across different career paths, though, is the expectation that comes with professionalism. Demonstrating professionalism means taking your job seriously, being reliable to your colleagues and caring about your responsibilities and successes."
Read our advice below on the range of behaviours, attitudes and attributes that contribute to professionalism and how you can demonstrate these in the workplace:
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Dealing with problems in work
Hopefully you won’t encounter any problems in work, but they can sometimes arise and organisations like Citizens Advice and Acas offer useful advice about what to do and what your rights are.