College is great but it can create bad habits. The real world is not going to hand you a syllabus and plan out your next 4 months. A very important skill you must develop is the ability to hear instructions that aren’t clearly labeled as instructions. Whether networking or chatting with your boss they will tell you what to do but it can be sandwiched in the middle of a thousand other things.
Say you are on the phone with a contact. She knows you are interested in Capitol Hill or advocacy work. She is telling you about how she worked on two campaigns after college. She then slides in “yeah in fact 3 of my 4 best friends from campaign life all work on capitol hill and have been really successful, they would probably be better for you talk to than me! Haha. So I would really say the things that stuck out to me after I stopped campaign life was…blah blah blah.”
You have to pounce on the fact she has 3 people she considers friends on Capitol Hill and even admitted they’d be good for you to talk with for help. In D.C. Boot Camp I teach D.C. Hopefuls Fellowship members how to take those sandwiched instructions and turn them into tangible results.
At work this can be an even more valuable skill because often these less than obvious instructions are important to the person. In the first example it probably isn’t personally important to the woman that you meet her friends but your boss is different.
Recently my wife and I looked at a condo. The realtor showed up to inform us he was only able to show us the first place despite the fact we asked to look at several. He didn’t pick up on our disappointment. Three or four times I mentioned as we talked I’d love to know what other places have sold for in the neighborhood and how much units charge in rent if they are used as rental units. It felt rude to say “listen these are the things I want you to go do for me” so instead I mentioned them in conversation several times. Three days later he sends me more expensive listings in a different neighborhood. I didn’t respond.
He was not picking up on what I wanted. If your boss casually mentions how several times how she gets yelled at by her supervisor when timesheets are late and you continually sign your timesheet late guess what she is going to start thinking about you? Right or wrong most managers don’t feel like they need to sit you down and lay out exactly what you are supposed to do, they expect you to adapt. I have seen people in every job I had, including myself at my second job, fail because they don’t pick up on what people are asking them.
You have to learn to become an active listener and act upon these subtle instructions!