Few successful careers start with a prestigious job. In fact, almost all successful business people – whether working in senior management positions or as business owners – had to start their career in a low-end job. Working in a more basic position at the start of your career allows you to prove your capabilities, leading to promotion, but low-end jobs also teach you skills you simply won’t learn at managerial level. When you are able to learn great things while at the bottom, you will eventually receive the higher pay and promotion that you deserve while walking a humble heart in the corporate world.
Benefits of gaining experience in low-end jobs
Entry-level jobs generally deal with the commonplace, daily tasks involving customer interaction – low-end jobs can be repetitive and lacking in stimulation. However, it is only by experiencing working in these positions that you are able to fully understand what the needs of customers are, and what daily problems workers face as they go about their jobs.
Senior management can often be out of touch, and the reason for this is that they have not always experienced what it is like to operate at the lower levels. In fact, many excellent senior executives are known for spending substantial time meeting lower level employees, or even working in low-end positions for short periods to put themselves back in touch.
Moving through several low-end jobs also helps you to build a broader understanding of the business and its environment. Many graduate schemes put fresh graduates through a revolving program where they experience different business sections, changing jobs every six months to widen their exposure.
The skills you build in entry-level positions
Thought low-end jobs can be trying, with demanding customers and high workloads, the skills built while working in these intensive positions can build the character, patience and understanding that results in great leadership. Many business leaders, such as Vangelis Marinakis, owe much of their business prowess to the work they did in more humble jobs.
As a junior employee, you learn what it is like to be under pressure, which helps you to build your time management skills. Starter jobs also put you in a position of interacting with other employees who may be in less well-paid jobs for a lifetime, which is a good way of learning to understand what is important for certain groups of staff.
Plan on building a career
Low-end jobs are important stepping stones to management and leadership positions, but if your ambition is to move into a top position, you should take care not to remain stuck in more basic jobs. This is where career planning is important: though a low-end job will be your entry point into a successful career in a company, or a stepping stone to starting your own business, there is a point at which you should move on.
Think about what your next steps are, regardless of the position you find yourself in at the moment. Entry-level jobs can be an excellent opportunity to build leadership skills, filling in where other employees are hesitant to participate. If you have a long-term career plan, you will have a better idea of which actions to take in your first jobs to achieve your aims.
