6 tips for new workers from 'The Young Professional's Survival Guide'

Landing that first job can be nervewracking enough – and then comes the process of learning the ins and outs of workplace etiquette. What's okay and what's not? Check out these 6 tips from C.K. Gunsalus's new book 'The Young Professional's Survival Guide.'

1. Choosing between jobs

Noah Berger/Reuters

What should you do if you have just accepted a job offer that you are happy about – but then find out that your dream job is available? Gunsalus suggests thinking over what the search for the job that you just accepted was like. How long was the process during which you were considered? How much will you inconvenience the company if you tell them you can't take the job now? If they conducted a search for many similar jobs within the company and you were one of dozens hired, it's a different situation than if you are the only person hired and you did three interviews. If you do take the dream job, you will be affecting your own reputation. Consider if it's worth that.

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Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

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