Entering the workforce is often quite exciting for any freshly minted graduate. After a long and challenging 16 years of academic life followed by a tiresome ordeal of searching for jobs, getting into the white-collar workforce in the context of Bangladesh is synonymous with making it big. However, the excitement of the new professionals often goes away within a short time of them entering the workforce, as they find it quite difficult to cope with the pressure of a formal setting as well as maintain their personal lives since entering the labour force from university entails a significant paradigm shift.
Shibly Ahmed, a recent graduate from the University of Dhaka who started his corporate life as a stockbroker, states that although the transition from academic life to corporate life has not been that smooth, he knew what was coming. He also stated that for a rather smooth transition, it is essential to do internships and traineeships during the junior or senior year of university, as it helps one to acclimate to the work environment.
He also affirms, "Relationships with colleagues might be one of the most crucial aspects of entering the workforce right after university, as a fresh graduate often finds it challenging to navigate professional relationships, which might often lead to conflicts as well as toxic workplaces."
He also suggests keeping a clear boundary between professional and personal relationships, as it might not only lead to an uncomfortable situation in professional life but also come out to be a huge impediment when it comes to maintaining work-life balance.
Another significant problem that new graduates face in the workplace is meeting deadlines. While in university, where deadline grinding happens to be the norm for a lot of people, in a dynamic work environment, it is often not effective, and as a result of getting used to the work pressure, it feels quite suffocating for the new graduates.
The efficient way to overcome this challenge is to come up with feasible as well as sustainable proceedings from the beginning of work life, as it will not only help someone to efficiently cruise through the challenges of early work life but will also help someone avoid burnouts, which are quite common in the early stages of work life.
Another challenge that new graduates face is severe anxiety in going on with the work schedules and deadlines, as well as overall maintaining a decent image in the workplace as a diligent employee. Samin Rahman, who works as a teaching assistant for a renowned private university, said that it was his performance anxiety that made the first few days of his work life extremely stressful.
"I always have the urge to excel in whatever I do; hence, when I entered my work life, I had quite an issue as it was a completely new setting for me, and I worked more than the work hours in order to make everything look perfect."
However, he doesn't recommend that to anyone, as he states that the work superiors would already notice your efforts, and striving for perfectionism in the early years of work impedes quality work from getting done. He also encourages fresh graduates to utilise the employee wellness programmes present in most offices in order to cope with stress as well as maintain sound mental health.
Right after university, any workplace might feel challenging as well as being in a completely different dimension from what someone was in. Although the challenges persist in the early phases of work life, it gets better if someone is well aware and tackles the problems accordingly, and the ability to acclimate to new situations improves drastically with time.
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