You’re graduating this spring, you’re going to have a shiny new Information Technology related degree and you are raring to get your career booming! Making mistakes is part of human nature and definitely helps us all to learn, but if you can learn from someone else’s mistakes without having to make them yourself you’ll come out on top. Read on for the latest, greatest and most helpful advice you could ever want from top ranking IT Executives.

Shutting those text books at the end of finals this year is hardly the end of your studying, in fact just the opposite, you’re only beginning your constant pursuit of the best possible knowledge! A very popular trend in advice was to keep your mind open to constantly learning. Alex Luch, the Senior Manager of Architecture and Engineering at CVS Caremark Corporation is particularly adamant about this: “Learning is a life long process, be ready to learn all your career if you’d like to have one in IT.” The Chief Information Officer at Douglas College, Ian McLeod, adds, “Listen a lot and say a little. Learn the business.” Listening a lot and saying a little does more for your career than just helping you learn, it also helps keep you from putting your foot in your mouth, a big rookie mistake right out of college. Two birds with one stone in that excellent piece of advice! Henning Dransfeld, independent industry analyst, suggests that you should be learning about other sides of the business you work for too, not just their IT department. “Ask your boss to promote you engaging with business departments which have strong ambitions in IT, such as Marketing,” he advises. The more diverse you are, the more valuable you become as an employee.

Diversity leads into the next most common piece of advice. Be sure to always be flexible! Whether referring to your coding and interactions with customers and users or to your networking, keep an open mind and think beyond just the black and white numbers in front of your nose. “Flexibility. When a customer (user) skips the procedure and it’s blocked, it doesn’t matter if you’re right or not. First, you help and fix the problem. Later you meet your customer and review the procedures…” Alfonso Landaluce, the IT Director of Alfaland, says. Be sure to always be willing to step outside of your own cubicle. JM Auron, owner of Quantum Tech Resumes, wants you to “Go above and beyond. Demonstrate that you’re genuinely committed to the organization – so do what needs to be done even if it may not be in your direct job description,” but he cautions, “I’m not suggesting, of course, going outside the chain of command…” simply reach out and solve overlooked problems and help out your co-workers. Telling you to be flexible is really just another way of saying ‘go with the flow and do what is asked of you.’

A big misstep Auron sees newbies to the workplace making is job-hopping. He says “Everyone makes an occasional misstep – but the fewer on your resume the better the impression… There are very few things that will make hiring authorities go on to the next resume as quickly as a number of short tenures.” It’s okay to make a few mistakes, it happens to everyone, but what will send up a red flag to hiring managers is when you consistently spend only a few months at each company before jumping ship. The exception to this is of course short term contracts, but be sure to make it exceedingly clear on your resume that those tenures are short because they were short contracts, not because you can’t make a serious commitment to an employer. Everyone wants devoted, loyal employees they know they’re not wasting their resources on. Something that might be contributing to all the short lived jobs is your devotion to the field. Luch’s number one piece of advice to new graduates is: “Do what you like – but make sure you like it. If you went into IT for the money – get out for your own good.” IT is a labor of love. If you don’t love it all the life long learning and constant flexibility isn’t going to be fun or interesting for you, making each new job drag just as much as the last one. Take a good look at your work. Do you really like it? That will make all the difference in your career.

Finally, my favorite pieces of advice come from David White, the CEO at Oursource Reality Limited, and McLeod from Douglas College. White suggests you “get a great mentor. Support, questioning, constructive challenging, door opening, training and networking are all much easier with the right person on your side.” Networking is a huge part of succeeding in IT and McLeod advises that you should also “build your network, both inside and outside the organization.” White is definitely correct when he says the right mentor will make that process easier. He or she will have higher level, more diverse and more experienced connections than you’re likely to be able to find for yourself.

These are some amazing gems of advice that these high level executives wanted to share with you. Hopefully you’ll be able to take it all to heart and burst out of that graduation starting gate with enthusiasm as well as direction now, while avoiding some of the most common first stumbling blocks! Now get out there and get those new IT positions! If you want some more tips or some individualized help come check out our other articles at CamdenKelly.com.