First Jobs Aren't Child's Play

The Imprint Stage

The first year on the job is all about learning. "We refer to it as the 'imprint stage,' " explains Timothy Clark, 42, a first vice president at First Chicago, who runs the institutional-trading desk and who manages the First Scholars in his area. "There's a lot that they want and need to know, and you're worthless to your organization's long-term health if you can't pass on some of your experience to them."

At First Chicago, much of the imprinting takes place during one-to-one mentoring relationships -- often between scholars and young managers. Jason Rosenblatt, 22, and Candice Kline, 27, have developed such a relationship. Rosenblatt became a First Scholar after graduating from Duke last year. Kline is his first boss. They work on a team that develops software products to perform complex currency calculations for international clients. Heady stuff, but Rosenblatt says that he's keeping up. And he credits Kline, who includes him in every meeting that she goes to. "We sit down and rehash everything that happened during the meeting. That gives me an opportunity to pick her brain," he says.

At Enterprise, entry-level workers easily find branch managers to emulate. "I used to take notes on what I liked about each of my managers," says Tim Hutchins. "I've picked the best traits from each." Not that Hutchins has fully formed ideas about what he'll do with all of those superhero leadership skills. The best first jobs play to such uncertainty. At Enterprise, entry-level jobs are multidisciplinary -- by design. Management trainees market and sell, they run operations, they do the books. If employees like Hutchins ultimately decide that they want to focus on, say, human resources, they can move to a regional headquarters after a year or two. But Enterprise figures that new employees should first have a chance to discover skills and interests that they never knew they had.

Charles Schwab elevates that discovery process to an art. No participant in its Wings Program arrives with a predetermined job title or departmental assignment. Instead, before they apply for permanent positions within the company, newbies take on a series of short-term assignments of their own choosing. Schwab created this approach for one reason: The talent market dictated it. "We got many of our young employees through temp agencies," says Laura Stepping, 38, who helped create the program. The best workers -- the ones whom Schwab was actively trying to hire full-time -- actually liked the temp situation. After all, temps can leave and not come back if they decide that they don't like a company.

So Schwab designed its new program to resemble a temp-agency experience. "Schwab is a big company, and there's no reason to expect that 22-year-olds will know what department they want to work in," Stepping says. "By letting them select various interim assignments, we're telling them that it's all right to explore, that it's okay not to be sure about what you want to do."

With interim assignments, everyone wins. Wings associates get to explore a wide range of functions and departments. And, because the Wings Program funds their salaries, line departments are eager to take associates on. Managers in those departments can then use the interim period to audition associates for permanent jobs.

Compare the search for a first job to picking out your first car. You wouldn't buy a car without taking it out for a spin first. So doesn't it make sense to test-drive your first job? "Schwab didn't have me pigeonholed the day I arrived," says Cher Lee, 23, who graduated from the University of California at Davis last year with an economics degree. She worried that prospective employers would assume that her potential was limited to crunching numbers. "Schwab made it sound as if I could go anywhere."

So Lee put the company to the test. Although her background in technology was limited to a weeklong course in HTML coding, she decided to pursue an assignment that involved Web design. Working in Schwab's nonstandard-assets department, she developed an online reference tool to help Schwab employees understand the exotic securities handled in that department.

Wings associates commit to Schwab without having any idea what their salaries will ultimately be. Their starting base is about $30,000 -- less than the new-hire pay at most investment banks and consulting firms in San Francisco. Although all associates get raises once they decide on a permanent position, there's no guarantee that they'll earn what they could elsewhere. Big money isn't the draw. "This is a job," Lee says, "where the value comes in being able to push your career in whatever direction you want it to go."