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Ask HN: Skills/training for new grads and knowledge workers?

by ericlamb89 on 2/14/23, 1:53 AM with 9 comments

When I graduated from college, I was completely unprepared to work in the "real world". I had some technical skills from classes, but I didn't have any working experience, so I was quite lost. Things we take for granted like email/calendar/to-do management were new to me. I learned these on the job as well as other things like using excel, working with data, effective presenting, etc. Now I'm managing a lot of new grads and I want to help them learn these things faster than I did.

I'm curious on peoples' thoughts around any of these: 1. Have others had this experience? 2. How did you learn how to operate in the working world? What we were some of the most important skills, mental models, etc that helped you succeed? 3. Has anyone experienced any effective "bootcamp" style training programs that help new grads or even experienced knowledge workers level up in these areas?

  • by kratom_sandwich on 2/16/23, 2:29 PM

    I recently took the IPMA (International Project Management Assoociation) Level D exam. If focuses - and in my understanding, this is the key difference from other project management exams - not on project management itself, but rather on competencies a project manager should have. Naturally, these include compentencies more closely related to project management (aligning a project with the orgnizations goals, ...), but also more general competencies like communication, conflicht management, self-organization, etc. Some of the advice was surprisingly hands-on (e.g. when to tell jokes!).

    Anyway, my suggestion is to have a look at the syllabus [1] and see if there are topics of interest to you. If yes, I'm not necessarily advocating to take the exam, but rather to read the study materials (they include suggestions for further reading as well).

    [1] https://www.apm.org.uk/v2/media/1qedrjtq/ipmasyll-leveldcert...

  • by kingkongjaffa on 2/14/23, 8:16 AM

    > 2. How did you learn how to operate in the working world? What we were some of the most important skills, mental models, etc that helped you succeed?

    It’s different for everyone depending on their role and company size / org / culture.

    One thing that remains universal is writing for yourself and others is a high leverage activity.

    Get used to writing and journaling, write for yourself to clarify thoughts. Write for others to educate and persuade.

    > 3. Has anyone experienced any effective "bootcamp" style training programs that help new grads or even experienced knowledge workers level up in these areas?

    When you are just starting out you learn on the job, find mentors and internal experts to help navigate the tools and processes. The biggest skill here is being proactive and taking copious notes to get up to speed on the jargon and “how things work”.

    Usually you hit a ceiling and either find an individual contributor track or a management track. If you need some rounding out then you go do an MBA.

  • by jobsort on 2/14/23, 2:15 AM

    I found that StyleCop and FxCop helped me learn engineering best practices when I was out of college. I highly recommend setting up ES Lint (if your codebase is in JavaScript) or the likes. Having engineering best practices enforced during code reviews helps too.

  • by giantg2 on 2/14/23, 6:51 PM

    Where did you go to school that you didn't know email, excel, and presenting? These should be standard in just about any college and most high schools today.

  • by bosch_mind on 2/14/23, 4:36 AM

    Learn to be humble and welcome failure at work. Ask a lot of questions, ask for help. Read books. You’ll be good after a year.

  • by vic_aace on 2/14/23, 4:42 AM

    While teaching myself several subjects, I often found myself in need of clear, specific steps to complete tasks or recall previously learned information. It was both tedious and confusing to read through volumes of information to connect the dots of how to do or how I did something in the past.

    To solve this problem, I'm building an app called stepback.app. It allows you to easily create simple, intuitive step-by-step guides that can be stored in a knowledge base. This knowledge base can be easily accessed and shared with colleagues or in your case new grads. If you are interested in learning more about how it can help you streamline the learning process, please let me know.