New hires are not only having trouble finding work—they’re also facing some significant challenges once they enter the labor market. The COVID pandemic left some young people without years of normal social interactions, and rapid developments in AI mean that young people who haven’t thrown themselves into learning the new technology are already behind.
Luckily, there are ways for new hires to succeed from the start, according to Jacqui Canney, chief people and AI enablement officer at software company ServiceNow, #386 on the Fortune 500. The topic is particularly front of mind for her, because more than 22% of open roles at the roughly 27,0000-person company this year are designated for those early in their careers. The company also plans to take on 530 interns this year.
Start by showing up to the office in person, she says. Caney says early-career workers especially should cherish that time, because the best learning happens when people are in the same room. She advises those new to the workforce to be present in meetings regardless of whether or not it’s their job to solve the problem at hand.
“They need to see how the company operates, the good and the bad, and there’s a lot you pick up on the way, just listening,” she tells Fortune. “You don’t need to be here five days a week, there’s a balance, but I do think being in-person is important.”
Secondly, younger workers should constantly be coming up with new ideas. When onboarding new workers, ServiceNow takes a significant amount of time not just training these folks for their individual roles, but also encouraging them to get involved with offering up potentially helpful suggestions. In this vein, the company hosts many hackathons to get this group thinking about AI, and ways that it can help the company. She recommends young people looking to be successful don’t hold back when it comes to pitching new products, or ways to make work more efficient.
“They’re literally the most AI-enabled workforce right now that we have in the whole company, and we don’t want to turn that off,” she says.
But Caney does have a word of caution to new hires who are often quick to highlight academic achievements over more standard work experience, because they believe it’s not relevant to their current position. That’s the wrong move, she says, because early jobs can help build those crucial hard-to-measure soft skills that employers are looking for in employees.
“You learn something in that first job that has nothing to do with the job you have now,” she says. “But it taught you about responsibility, or dealing with the public, [or] maybe, even service.”
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