Starting to work in an organisation is a unique and critically important time that requires you to have a special perspective and use special strategies to be successful.

You will need to recognise that the first year on a new job is a separate and distinct career stage. It is a transition stage; you’re not a college student anymore, but you’re not really a professional yet, either. It is only by considering the first year on the job separately from the rest of the career ladder that the world of work begins to make sense.

Savvy graduates know that many new graduates hang on to their student attitudes and behaviors too long. But few realise that it also takes time to understand and earn the rights, responsibilities, and credibility of a full-fledged professional. There is an intermediate stage that lasts from the time you accept your job until about the end of the first year that can make or break the early part of your career.

There is a different set of rules to follow during this breaking-in stage. Because you’re the “new kid on the block,” people will respond to you differently, work with you differently and judge you differently. In turn, you have to approach them differently too.

There’s a special game being played during the first year, and most graduates don’t know all the rules. It’s only by learning those rules that you can get the strong start your career needs.

Because a strong start is essential to a successful career, it is unfortunate that so few students know how to break in with a company. The key is to come in with enough savvy to have appropriate expectations and attitudes and to know how to establish yourself, to learn the “way things are done,” and to figure out what you need to do to earn credibility and respect. Most new graduates are way off base on all of these.

The way in which you enter a new organisation and a new job will have a major impact on your success within that organisation. Much of your early career opportunity and success will be charted by the impressions you make on the people you work with and the perceptions they develop of you in the early weeks and months on the job.

Research suggests that how you approach your first year will have a major impact on your future salary, advancement, job satisfaction, and ability to move within the organisation -- and your own feelings about success and commitment to the job.

Your challenge in the early months will be to establish your reputation as a bright, capable, and valuable employee, worthy of the respect of your colleagues. If you are successful here, you will quickly be given opportunities to make a real contribution to the company and to make yourself visible to upper management. If you then take advantage of those early opportunities by demonstrating what an outstanding performer you are, more opportunities to succeed will follow.

Mess up your introductory months and you may find yourself labeled as “immature” and relegated to lesser assignments while your colleagues -- and competitors for promotions -- are busy impressing the boss with their professional maturity and success on juicy assignments. That’s not to say that an entire 30-year career is made or broken in a few months’ performance. However, the simple fact is that it can take years to recover from a poor start.