May is a great time of year. The weather turns (finally!) for much of the country and many of us start planning our summer travels — while at the same time lamenting our lack of beach body readiness. Another aspect I enjoy about May are the inbound inquiries I get from college students, some who are about to graduate and are scurrying to find that first full-time job, and others who are looking for some summer experience to help bolster their chances for getting that full-time job when their graduation day arrives.
I do my best to be responsive with these inbounds. I was once a college student trying to piece it all together too. Everyone should think of helping college students as part of an obligation to “pay it back” a bit. Don’t forget that you didn’t land where you are today without a ton of help along the way from conversations with folks who at the time sat in a chair you aspired to sit in one day.
So while I reply to questions from these college students with lots of what seems like obvious feedback … “do lots of informational interviews” … “build out your network” … “figure out what you really enjoy doing on a functional level”, by far the best question I get is the one that goes something like this:
“So Mr. Grey, what would you say is the most important trait or skill that I need to be successful in my first job?”
Okay, first off, I have to tell these students to never again call me Mr. Grey. Mr. Grey is my dad. From that point forward on the call they absolutely must simply refer to me as Brian. Next, this question is usually asked in a voice filled with expectation that I’m going to spew some string of answers that rattle off all the “technical” proficiencies they need to possess, like “…um, yah, so make sure you can do Python, SQL, know how blockchain works across every industry, uhhhhhh… oh yah, be good at AI/ML/VR/AR, know how to calculate LTV and CAC …”.
Thankfully for these youngsters, I don’t go down that path. I assume they can figure all that stuff out — or will take the classes they need to learn those skills. Instead I tell them one simple thing in answer to their question:
“A deep desire to achieve,” I reply. Which is basically another way to describe what psychologists who ascribe to the trait theory of personality would highlight as “conscientiousness, a personality trait characterized by organization, purposeful action, self-discipline, and a drive to achieve.”
At this point, I add a bit of depth to this “desire to achieve” concept. “The most important thing you can bring to your first job — and really every job you ever have — is your desire to achieve on a personal level and therefore on behalf of the bigger vision and goals that your company shares,” I tell them. I go on to share that it doesn’t really matter where they go to school, what their GPA or test scores are, or what specific “expertise” they possess today. For those whom I’ve seen succeed, it’s always been about how much they care about achieving things, and when I try to assess talent it’s about how much I believe they want to do that in a team setting geared towards team goals, not just individual goals.
So what do I look for as authentic signs that someone is driven by a deep “desire to achieve” in the workplace?
Reaching out. The fact that they found a way to get connected to me and took the time to reach out for a call is a good first sign. They are leaning in, not sitting back and waiting for some opportunity to show up in their Snapchat story stream.
Actual achievement. Athletes are good examples here because sports is a great “team” environment, and because athletics comes with plenty of built-in opportunities to fail along the journey, to be set back, and to then test one’s willingness to keep achieving. Being an athlete also demonstrates the ability for people to manage a huge commitment with their academic commitments. Equally valid examples of achievement come from those students who have pursued other demanding experiences like being on debate teams, performing in theater or music programs, or any other extracurricular activity that combines team dynamics, opportunities to fail and learn, and an environment that tests a student on the resiliency spectrum.
Work ethic. I look for signs that they will work hard; that somewhere along the line they’ve developed the inner pilot light that compels them to put in the hours and effort it takes to achieve things. I can see this again through what they’ve done beyond their classes, grades, and test scores. Tell me about something you achieved that took a long time to make happen, where a long time is at least a year (not a couple weeks). Sometimes hearing about a summer job that was all about manual labor is a good signal here. Nobody loves manual labor, but if it’s what a young person has to do to make some money to fund school or some other important means then that’s a good proxy that they are achievement driven.
Curiosity. This one is harder to glean in a call or interview, but certainly becomes clear when someone gets going at a new job. How many questions are they asking? How many people are they trying to connect with in other departments to learn how the rest of the company works — how the “big picture” of what we’re trying to achieve really comes together? Sometimes these folks can be misinterpreted as being annoying or a little too much “go getter”. Bullshit. I’ll take someone who leans in like this and wants to keep learning more and more over someone who sits in their space, heads down, never reaching out to ask “What about …?” or “How do you think we could better…?”
Initiative and the confidence to fail and learn. Finally, I believe that the curiosity bone is connected to the initiative bone. I’ve seen over the years that those team members who combine their curiosity with the ability to take initiative more often than not correlate with employees who are achievement driven. The one caveat here is that it’s important to peel back a team member’s desire to take initiative. For instance, some initiatives are safe and secure i.e. there’s very little risk in failing to achieve the goal tied to the initiative. A better proxy are those initiatives that people propose that seem a bit audacious or tied to “stretch” goals that have a high probability of NOT being fully achieved. The willingness to aspire for something out of reach is the ultimate definition of “desire to achieve” in my book. When we take on an initiative that feels out of reach, and we are able to confidently turn our failure to achieve it into a catalyst to learn and keep pushing to achieve more, that’s exactly how we achieve more than we ever thought we could.
Good luck to all the college graduates of 2018 looking for that first job, and good luck to all the college students in the classes 2019, 2020, 2021, and 2022 looking for a smidgen of real-life job experience this summer. And to all of you, spend less time worrying about whether you took the right classes or have all the requisite technical skills. Instead, make sure you convey and showcase to the people you work for (and with) how much you are driven to achieve and succeed. That matters more than anything else.
Originally published on Medium on May 20, 2018. This Substack version is maintained as the canonical archive.