[Jamestown1630]

This is an excellent article.

My advice to young people has always been to take any job you can get, and learn everything there is to know about it - Make Yourself Valuable, by being supremely knowledgeable and reliable.

My brother's advice has always been that '80 or 90 per cent of everything is whether people LIKE you and can trust you' - so the advice to always be positive and kind is very valuable.

[SamAdams76]

My advice to young people has always been to take any job you can get, and learn everything there is to know about it - Make Yourself Valuable, by being supremely knowledgeable and reliable. My brother's advice has always been that '80 or 90 per cent of everything is whether people LIKE you and can trust you' - so the advice to always be positive and kind is very valuable.

That's pretty much it. I didn't need a college education to quickly get to a six figure salary. Be dependable, be positive and forget about the limits of your job description, learn and volunteer for everything that makes you more valuable and useful in the work place.

If you want a promotion, take on the responsibilities of the position you strive for. It will make you a no brainer for the position when it becomes available.

[InterceptPoint]

My advice to young people has always been to take any job you can get, and learn everything there is to know about it - Make Yourself Valuable, by being supremely knowledgeable and reliable.
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Spot on.

My slight variation on your very fine advice: I tell young people to get so good at your job that you are “invaluable”, that the business you work for would suffer if you left.

Knowledge is indeed power, even if you are just flipping burgers.

[palmer]

Make Yourself Valuable,

It's funny but every time I talk to self-proclaimed "failures" (people who do job interviews but never get offers) they have a raft of excuses about their age, being out of the workforce too long, etc. I ask them how they offered to make themselves valuable to the company where they were interviewing. They typically have no answer.