by Scott Martindale
  President & CEO, Sabrient Systems LLC

With another graduation season upon us, I would like to share my updated 10 tips for career success, specifically targeted to new grads and young professionals. I have expanded the list this year from 7 to 10. Of course, this is still far from an exhaustive list, and I’m certainly not claiming to have fully leveraged them all to maximally benefit my own career. (In fact, I wish I could go back in time and implement them more fully.)

They are simply a set of critical habits I have compiled based on experience, observation, reading, reflection, and thousands of conversations, meetings, presentations, negotiations, and interactions throughout the years while working within various organizations large and small, ranging from a major multinational corporation to solo independent consulting to a small, entrepreneurial business.

In summary, they are:

 1. Don’t burn bridges
 2. “Seek first to understand, then to be understood” (re: Steven Covey)
 3. Be a problem solver, not a problem creator
 4. Operate with an owner’s mentality
 5. Never stop learning and growing
 6. Become a skilled networker
 7. Determine your own definition of success
 8. Build your personal brand
 9. Display a “can-do” spirit
10. Take calculated, asymmetric risks

Some of these tips may not be the ones you typically hear at commencement addresses. So, please share this article with the new and recent graduates in your life. By the way, seasoned professionals might appreciate them as well. Read on: