First, assess your situation compared with the broader market:

• 41% of college grads Say They are “underemployed”
• 63% say they need more training
• 77% of new grads expect their employer to provide formal training
• 48% received formal training from their employers

Your situation is not unique according to new research conducted by Accenture (NYSE: ACN).  If you feel “underemployed,” you are not alone.

Next, explore what, if any, training opportunities are available through your employer.  Don’t be disappointed if you there is no training or insufficient training available. The survey reveals that employers are not investing in training for new professionals.

Finally, create your own professional development plan.  There are many resources available for free or minimal cost that will greatly improve your skills and value as an employee.  Here is a short list of possible action steps:

• take an online course from one of the MOOCs (related post: MOOCS For Your Professional Development)
• join Toastmasters to improve your public speaking skills (related post: Why public speaking scares you?)
• attend networking opportunities in your industry (related post: Everyone Has Something to Contribute)
• read any of the hundreds of career books available today (related page: Career-ology Reading List)

The bottom line is this. . . if you feel underemployed, recognize that this is likely a temporary situation.  Take advantage of the opportunity to tune up your professional skills.

One way or another, work can get to us. Stress in the workplace is a common experience among professionals at all levels of their career, so don’t feel too bad when you finally feel it. It’s easy to get bogged down by the pressure and the deadlines. It’s also unnerving to have to deal with office politics or the feeling of being overworked, underpaid or underemployed. Every professional must know how to deal with workplace stress so it will not get in the way of their productivity and progress. We all have our own ways of coping with stress, but first, we have to recognize what causes it.

How to know whether you are stressed at work?

It is important to recognize when you are feeling stressed, so you can monitor your reactions.  Even if you don’t notice, a co-worker might bring it up or call your attention to it, especially when your behavior affects impacts others.  Lack of focus and concentration at work is one sign. Loss of interest at work may another indicator. Irritability, depression, muscle pain and headaches can also occur.

There are many causes of stress at work. Anxiety causes stress as well, so if you have worries about not meeting deadlines, not living up to expectations, or being laid off, you can become overwhelmed. Fatigue can also set in, and you might have trouble sleeping. Eventually, you might become apathetic to your work and colleagues. These are signs that you should deal with your workplace stress.

Responding to stress at work

Each of us has ways through which we manage stress.  You might find it hard to communicate with your colleagues or bosses.  You will start taking things too literally as well, which will make you more reactionary to others’ comments or responses. It will be hard for you to control your emotions and deal with things properly.

Reducing stress at work

Decide to take action by dealing with stress. One of the best ways to do it is to live a healthy lifestyle. Make sure you get enough sleep at night so that you feel well-rested to take on another day at work. Exercise regularly so that you will have energy every day. Start eating healthy.

Managing your time at work properly can also do wonders for you. Prioritize your tasks and know which ones you can delegate. Limit distractions and allot enough time for all of your projects. Don’t overbook yourself and dedicate your time to unimportant things. Balance your schedule so that you will have enough time for leisure, family, exercise, and other activities.

Recognizing and coping with workplace stress can be a challenge especially as a new professional.  Feeling the pressure is normal, but instead of giving in to it, let it fuel you to become better at what you do. Don’t let stress get in the way of your success.

Facebooking as a professional is different than Facebooking as a student.  

A recent survey conducted by Fierce, Inc. that included more than 800 executives and employees in multiple industries found:

• nearly one in three employees have witnessed or know of a coworker reprimanded for an inappropriate FB post
• nearly 40% of employees engaged in some form of inappropriate communications such as gossiping or flirting
• over 50% of employees say FB is ineffective at enhancing work relationships
• 60% of Millennials believe that FB helps build relationships with colleagues even though their older colleagues do not

Does your employer have a policy regarding the use of FB and other social media sites?  You need to know the answer.  If the answer is “yes”, you must understand and adhere to the policy.

11) Persevere – You will encounter many challenges in your career.  Your response to those challenges will say more about you than your successes.

Try not.  Do, or do not.  There is no try. ~YODA, Jedi Grand Master

12) Communicate with confidence – Communication via the spoken and written word are one way to demonstrate your professional abilities.  Practice public speaking and perfect your writing skills, until you far surpass your peers—the bar is usually not that high.

The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and the lightning bug. ~Mark Twain

13) Display humility – Demonstrate humility and personal accountability in your career and you’ll never go wrong.

There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self. ~Ernest Hemingway, Author

14) Be flexible – As a recent graduate or new professional, be flexible in your career path.  Build career skills that transcend your current function, role and industry make you invaluable in the marketplace and provide more opportunities.

Change is the only constant. ~Heraclitus, Greek Philosopher

15) Make connections – Networking is a key professional skill.  If you focus on what you can do for others, networking won’t feel like a chore.  Your efforts will be rewarded in what you’ve given and what you will receive.

Dig the well before you are thirsty. ~Chinese Proverb

6) Connect the dots – Consider the big picture and where your career fits in your company, industry and the worldwide economy at this moment in time, in addition to, the past and the future.

We often need to lose sight of our priorities in order to see them. ~ John Irving, Author

7) Display realistic optimism  – There will be plenty of opportunities in your career to be optimistic (or pessimistic) depending on which you choose.  Choose wisely.

A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty. ~Winston Churchill, Politician

8) Continued improvement – Throughout your career, there is one constant which is YOU.  Be the best professional you can be.

Formal education will make you a living; self-education will make you a fortune. ~Jim Rohn, Entrepreneur

9) Commit – Your commitment to a task, the project, your job and your organization is being measured everyday by your subordinates, peers, colleagues, managers, share holders, customers and clients.  If it is not 100%, others will know it.

The man who will use his skill and constructive imagination to see how much he can give for a dollar, instead of how little he can give for a dollar, is bound to succeed.  ~Henry Ford

10) Be alert – Opportunities in your career won’t always find you.  Be on the look out and willing to create opportunities for yourself.

If opportunity doesn’t knock, build a door. ~Milton Berle, Comedian & Actor

Stay tuned for “15 Things Successful Professionals Do: Part 3 of 3″ next week.

1) Fail – At some point in your career, you will encounter failure—your position is downsized, you get overlooked for a promotion or bonus, you choose a job that isn’t the right fit.  You cannot have success without failure. Stop.  Assess. Adjust. Keep moving forward.

When I was young, I observed that nine out of ten things I did were failures.  So I did ten times more work.  ~George Bernard Shaw, Playwright

2) Set Goals – You must identify and develop the critical career skills with the same discipline of your formal college curriculum.  As a professional, you are responsible for establishing and working towards your goals.

People with clear, written goals, accomplish far more in a shorter period of time than people without them could ever imagine. ~Brian Tracy, Author

3) Don’t rely on luck – Luck is only one small part of the professional success equation.  Without mastering the right skills, you cannot rely on luck alone.

I am a great believer in luck.  The harder I work, the more of it I seem to have. ~Coleman Cox, Author (interesting note: Thomas Jefferson is often incorrectly cited as the source of this quote)

4) Track progress – Like setting specific goals, tracking your progress against your career goals is important.  Make adjustments when required, but stay focused on your progress.

Without continual growth and progress, such words as improvement, achievement, and success have no meaning. ~Benjamin Franklin

5) Act – This is your career.  Take responsibility and take action.

If you’re trying to achieve, there will be roadblocks. I’ve had them; everybody has had them. But obstacles don’t have to stop you. If you run into a wall, don’t turn around and give up. Figure out how to climb it, go through it, or work around it. ~Michael Jordan, Professional Athlete

Stay tuned for “15 Things Successful Professionals Do: Part 2 of 3” next week.

What is a MOOC and how can you utilize a MOOC for professional development?

A massive open online course (MOOC) is an online course aiming at large-scale interactive participation and open access via the web. In addition to traditional course materials such as videos, readings, and problem sets, MOOCs provide interactive user forums that help build a community for the students, professors, and TAs. [Wikipedia]

Last November, the New York Times declared that 2012 was The Year of the MOOC.  The leading MOOCs are Coursera, edX and Udacity.  These platforms are associated with top-ranked colleges and universities including: Harvard, MIT, Stanford, Georgetown, Brown and Penn.  Most of the courses are free and many offer a certificate of completion or other similar credential when you complete the course.  Also, online courses offer flexibility that you won’t get from a traditional classroom-based course.

Here are a several courses that you might consider as part of your individual professional development plan:

• Introduction to Finance
• Critical Perspective on Management
• An Introduction to Operations Management
• An Introduction to Financial Accounting
• Introduction to Statistics
• How to Build a Startup

Of the three MOOCs highlighted here, Coursera offers the most courses that are relevant for general professional development.  The suggested courses make sense if you don’t have previous experience in a particular subject.  For example, if you are pursuing a management role and will be responsible for managing a budget, an accounting course will be useful.  Nearly everyone will benefit in their careers with a solid understanding of statistics. MOOCs provide a convenient, low cost (or no cost) method to build a portfolio of skills that will support your professional goals.

For managers:

1. Maintain meeting discipline.
2. Stop demanding or expecting instant responsiveness at every moment of the day.
3. Encourage renewal.

For individual contributors:

1. Do the most important thing first in the morning.
2. Establish regular, scheduled times to think more long term, creatively, or strategically.
3. Take real and regular vacations.

Harvard Business Review wordmark (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Peter Bregman, author of 18 Minutes: Find Your Focus, Master Distraction, and Get the Right Things Done, has written two outstanding articles for Harvard Business Review | HBR.org which focus on, well. . . focus.  New professionals and CEOs will benefit alike.  After implementing these habits, you will gain laser-like focus in as little as 10 minutes per day.

In Two Lists You Should Look At Every Morning, Bregman recommends creating two lists: 1) Your Focus List; and 2) Your Ignore List and reviewing them every morning.  These are not to do lists, but rather major areas of focus for your life and serve as a guide when deciding how you spend your time each day– “because time is your one limited resource and no matter how hard you try you can’t work 25/8″ as Bregman notes.

In The Best Way to Use the Last Five Minutes of Your Day, Bregman recommends reserving the last 5 minutes of your day to examine everything that happened and reflect on the following questions:

• How did the day go? What success did I experience? What challenges did I endure?
• What did I learn today? About myself? About others? What do I plan to do — differently or the same — tomorrow?
• Who did I interact with? Anyone I need to update? Thank? Ask a question? Share feedback?

Register on Bregman’s website to download two free templates that you can use to implement these two practices.

My advice to craft your elevator pitch (also referred to as your “30-second pitch”) is to provide at least one interesting hook which prompts the listener to ask another question about what you do.  Alternatively, it should provide enough color that it is memorable while also easily conveying what it is that you actually do.

Deborah Greyson Riegel offers some very sound, practical advice in her Fast Company article.  Here are the highlights:

• Don’t speak the way you write.
• Utilize common vernacular (aka, use the simplest language possible).
• Turn your pitch into a question.
• Practice saying your pitch out loud, with feedback.
• Be willing to forgo your pitch entirely.

Read the full article.

Deborah Grayson Riegel is a communication and behavior expert, and is the president of Elevated Training Inc. and MyJewishCoach.com. She is the author of “Oy Vey! Isn’t a Strategy: 25 Solutions for Personal and Professional Success.”