Companies have very limited interests: making money, saving money (the same as making money), and saving time (which also makes money).
Actually, you wouldn’t want it any other way, since this keeps those paychecks coming your way. Developing business values that demonstrate sensitivity to the profit imperative of a business endeavor is the mark of a true professional.
1. Productivity: Always work towards enhanced productivity through efficiencies of time, resources, money, and effort.
2. Economy: Most problems have two solutions, and the expensive one isn’t always the best. Ideas of efficiency and economy should engage your creative mind in ways that others would not consider.
3. Procedures: You should recognize the need for procedures and understand that they are implemented only after careful thought.
Understand and always follow the chain of command. Don’t implement your own “improved” procedures or organize others to do so unless you’ve squared it with the higher-ups.
As you develop this suite of transferable skills, learned behaviors, and professional values your confidence in taking on new challenges will grow.
You ask questions, look at challenges calmly and at mistakes squarely, and make changes to eradicate those mistakes. In short, you develop the quiet confidence of a professional who can deliver the goods.
Your technical skills may help get you an interview, but if you want to set off light bulbs in the interviewer’s head and get that job, you must show you can do what it takes to help the company make money.
