Two grads started work at the same time.

Knowing he had no experience, the first grad waited to be told what to do. It seemed safer: he would learn along the way and eventually take his shot.

He pursued this approach through changing company priorities, new managers, M&As, etc.

With each of these events his track record was at best obscured, at worst lost. His new managers started from scratch with him each time.

Knowing he had no experience, the second grad started working on his personal brand from day one.

He did all his assigned work of course but also built a network beyond his immediate team.

He also looked at the key business processes, main challenges and revenue generators.

He picked one highly relevant area to focus on and built his brand around that, slowly become its expert.

During his first year he leveraged his network to become widely know in that one focus area.

His network mentioned him often enough that as changes came and went new managers were already aware of his contributions.

Which one do you suppose went further faster?

Any new hire gets a year’s grace period to learn the ropes and onboard, use it wisely.