Early Stage Professional - Fergus Mellon

"EARLY STAGE PROFESSIONAL: getting it right" is designed to help the very smart, but professionally unsophisticated group of employees who are in the workplace: those in their first five years following graduation. The book provides Early Stage Professionals ("ESP's") with everything that they need to meet their goals as they move from early stage through to more sophisticated, Growth Stage Professionals. Everything means charting out the basics (when to get into the office, how to take vacation, have effective one-to-ones with their manager) through to the more difficult topics such as the appropriate expectations of managers, dealing with workplace conflict, how to avoid office politics and everything in between. This is a battlefield- (ok workplace-) tested guide to being successful as an ESP. This is not a "if you do this you will be Mark Zuckerberg" work of fiction (although if it leads to that, then great!). Instead this is a realistic guide for everyone who wants to succeed in their first five years and ensure that they can meet their personal goals over a 45+ year career (skilled individual contributor, first level manager and then onto something even more lofty and maybe even CEO). It is not a get rich scheme! It is "real." Being "real" is important. As I say above there are books out there that set recent graduates up to fail primarily by setting sky high expectations (CEO by 29, founder of multi-billion dollar business by 30 etc) which can make Early Stage Professionals feel like failures and so trip them up by making poor decisions either in the workplace (misplaced ideas on how to get ahead that cause more harm than good). In addition to setting ESP's up to be disappointed they do not provide good advice on how to achieve in their early years in the work place as well as help define what success really is. All this is a recipe if not for disaster, then certainly sadness and confusion! Move over Helicopter Parents (or maybe "Buy this for your ESP Helicopter Parents"!), this is a truly invaluable guide for "Professionals in the Making" and compared to the $100,000+ cost of college education is a bargain!