20 Ways to Stay Involved After Graduating from USU

After all those years spent in school, you’re finally finished.

Now you have time to get a job, be involved in your hobbies, settle down somewhere new—do all the things you've wanted to for years. But how do you keep your friendships and connections alive with your university after moving on?

Here are some ways to keep yourself involved with Utah State:

1. Join the USU Alumni Association.  

2. Post available job or internship positions from your employer on the USU Career AGGIE website.

3. Stay in touch with faculty members or classmates. 

4. Make sure we always have your current contact information so we can keep in touch and connect you with university events and updates.  

5. Keep up-to-date by following us on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and our blog. 

6. Volunteer your time by hosting an in-home networking session with students from USU by emailing sheldon.browning@usu.edu.

7. Connect with other Alumni and students by attending events hosted by the university.

8. Sign up for and read our Alumni e-newsletter and engage in the stories of your alma mater and other alumni. 

9. Organize an service event with other Aggies in your area. (More info coming soon!)

10. Visit campus! It is improving every day.  

          Catch an athletics event 

          See a performance

          Take a campus tour 

11. Show your spirit by wearing your Aggie gear. 

12. Check to see if your employer has a matching gift program, and make a donation to USU.

13. Get an Alumni Association calendar. 

14. Put tradition events like Homecoming Week and A Week on your calendar. 

15. Display your love for USU with an Aggie license Aggie license plate.  

16. Remember USU in your will or estate plan. 

17. Don’t forget to have your children apply for the Legacy Scholarship. 

18. Use Career Services to locate jobs in your area. 

19. Make usu.edu the home page on your web browser. 

20. Earn Aggie Rewards points on your everyday purchases.

Getting involved is easy at Utah State. The education and memories we've gained here bring us together and give us a reason to interact. 

Again, thank you for supporting the legacy of Utah State University. We love that our alumni are so involved on campus and across the country.


What have you found are the best ways to stay involved with USU?

5 Ways Showing You Care Will Help You Land a New Job

Article Originally Published on Levo League

Photo Courtesy of Levo League

Any time you interview for a job, you know companies scrutinize your education, work history, manners, social media presence, wardrobe and more. (Hint: Don’t forget breath mints.) But did you know they’re likely screening for engagement, too?

Disengaged employees are a pox on all they touch — they kill sales, bum out customers and sap the morale of high performers. As employers become aware of this, it’s more vital than ever to display the characteristics of an engaged employee. Here’s how to do it:

1. Understand the concept

Employee engagement is more than good morale and camaraderie. (Click here to tweet this thought.) It’s about giving 100 percent at work. We’re talking time spent, ideas shared, knowledge gained and persistence displayed. It’s about finding meaning and feeling stimulated in your job, mastering a skill set, playing an important role in the company’s culture and taking pride in your work.

2. Share tales of engagement from your last gig

Research shows that only 30 percent of the workforce is truly engaged at work. Employees have checked out due to lack of interest or motivation. Does that include you? Differentiate yourself from other job candidates by offering specific examples of how you’ve engaged in the jobs you’ve had so far.

Did you take on an assignment to expand your abilities? Did you volunteer for the tough job no one else wanted, just to see if you could? Did you start a network for workers in similar roles to share ideas and best practices? Did you recruit a superstar to your team? If you answered “yes” to any of these, say it loud, with spirit, in your interview.

3. Display your commitment to commitment

Engagement at work rests on a sense of commitment — not only to your job, but also to the bigger mission. If you find yourself saying “That’s not my job” or “I don’t know how to do that” more than “I think I can help” or “I’d like to try,” there may be an engagement gap.
Dive in and take on new projects. You’ll learn and be ready to speak about how you do this in a sustainable way. It’s OK to share when taking on too much is a problem, too. Burnout is the biggest risk for hyper-engaged people.

4. Showcase how you’ve become stronger by overcoming challenges

Everyone has challenges in the workplace. Unfair workloads, bad attitudes, challenging market conditions. Truly engaged employees are quick to take ownership for both successes and failures and point to the lessons they learned. Be prepared to talk an interviewer through your trials-by-fire, your resilience and your ultimate success in the face of adversities great and small.

5. Show that you’re an intrapreneur

Intrapreneurs are engaged employees with an entrepreneurial mindset. They act like owners, developing innovative solutions to problems and adding value beyond their job description. Give examples of how you proposed a product or service idea that helped those outside your team, how you identified a specific problem and implemented a solution. Then get ready for that “welcome aboard” handshake.

Engage at work, volunteer, hustle, show intrapreneurship and land your new job. And who knows, if and when you go all in, you might create your own position within the company.
Or create your own company.

Article Originally Published on Levo League

The Job Search Advice You're Taking Too Far

Article Originally Featured on the Muse.com

Photo of man job hunting courtesy of Shutterstock.

As a job searcher, you’re doing everything right. You have your interview answers perfectly scripted out, you tailor each and every resume you send in, and your LinkedIn connections far outnumber your Facebook friends. Every piece of job hunt advice that you’ve ever heard or read, you’ve put into practice.

But that ever-elusive job offer still hasn’t crossed your desk. What gives?

While the job search advice you’re following may be on point, the way you’re using it may not be helping your cause as much as you think. For a lot of tips, there’s a fine line between using it correctly and going a bit overboard (or even in the wrong direction).

Read on for a few great job search tips—and how they may be working against you.

Good Advice: Make Connections on LinkedIn

LinkedIn can be a job searcher’s dream. Through your connections, you may find that you have a link—and an immediate in—to your dream company. So, creating and cultivating new connections is extremely beneficial.

Taking it Too Far

Blindly clicking “connect” on hundreds of profiles and sending the generic invitation might land you a few extra connections, but it won’t get your profile a second glance.

Instead, recruiting expert Jenny Foss recommends first searching for contacts from your email address book. “Then invite them—but make it personal. LinkedIn will give you the option of sending a default ‘connect with me, please’ message, but don’t use it—sending a personal note will set you apart right from the start.”

Casting a wide net is beneficial, but only if you truly have some sort of link to those target connections. This is where LinkedIn’s “People You Might Know” feature comes in handy—to suggest classmates, colleagues, and former co-workers that you might not have previously thought of.

Good Advice: Explain That You’re the Best Candidate for the Job

Obviously, you want your potential employer to fully understand that you’re a great candidate; that you have all the skills you need to succeed in the position and that you’re the best man or woman for the job. So, it’s important to convey confidence in those abilities at every step in the process, from your cover letter to your interview questions.

Taking it Too Far

Overconfidence can actually be a downfall, as I learned from a hiring manager recently. I was in his office, talking about my writing experience. He asked me if I’m dissatisfied with my writing. “Of course,” I told him. “Sometimes I look back at things I wrote and wonder what in the world I was thinking.”

He chuckled knowingly and explained that he’d just interviewed a young man, fresh out of college, who answered the same question by asserting that he never wrote anything he didn’t like. And for the recruiter, that was actually a bad thing. You see, he wanted someone who not only had a realistic idea of the job (in this situation, that you’d have to write a lot of copy—quickly—and probably wouldn’t have time to make each piece perfect), but also had the desire and capacity to learn and grow. In the end, the somewhat over-confident graduate wasn’t deemed a good fit for the job.

While you shouldn’t discount your abilities (and you should certainly make a convincing case for yourself), there’s a big difference between showing confidence that you can do the job and conveying so much confidence that you end up coming across as arrogant or naïve.

Good Advice: Practice with Mock Interviews

Interviews are tough—and you want to make sure you’re prepared. So, asking a friend to help you run through practice questions is a great way to help you organize your thoughts, learn how to structure standout answers, and prepare yourself for the potentially stressful and awkward environment.

Taking it Too Far

Believe it or not, over-preparing for interviews can actually be detrimental to your chances of landing the job. As Foss explains, “It’s just as bad (or worse) to over-rehearse than it is to fly entirely by the seat of your pants.”

When you have too many memorized answers packed in your brain, you’re more likely to spend the interview trying to remember each scripted answer, rather than engaging in the conversation. The back-and-forth will seem unnatural and forced, and you’ll likely come across as insincere.

Instead, Foss recommends spending the majority of your prep time thinking over your career experience to date, jotting down a few bullet points about specifics you want to hit on. “Think about what you’re most proud of, what you struggled with, what you learned from the struggles, where you developed management skills, how you got to be so good at problem solving, and so on,” she explains. “When you’re confident with the specifics of your story, you’ll have a much easier time drawing from your experiences and articulating your worth, no matter what you’re asked.”

Good Advice: Use the Job Description to Tailor Your Cover Letter and Resume

When a hiring manager reads your application, you want him or her to immediately recognize how your background and experience make you the perfect candidate for the job. So, use the job description as a guide to fill your resume and cover letter with the right skills and experiences.

Taking it Too Far

Pulling keywords from the job listing and slapping them on your application materials probably won’t have the effect you’re going for. When you include every phrase from the job description, including generic staples like “hard worker,” “fast learner,” and “excellent communicator,” you’ll take up a lot of valuable space—but you won’t actually convey to the recruiter that you’re any of those things.

Instead, pull skill- and experience-based qualities from the job description (e.g., “hands-on experience with Google Analytics” or “experience with Object Relational Mapping frameworks”), and then show how (by using your past accomplishments and responsibilities) you meet those requirements.

Then, in the interview phase, you’ll have more opportunities to showcase those soft skills (like having a thirst for knowledge or being a quick learner) by telling anecdotes of how you've displayed those qualities in your past jobs.


As you can see, good job search tips can turn into bad advice pretty quickly. But by taking a step back and reevaluating your approach, you can get back on track in no time.


What other good job advice have you seen gone wrong?

7 Things to Remove From Your Resume ASAP

Article Originally Featured on The Muse.com

Photo of keyboard courtesy of Shutterstock.

We all talk a fair game about what needs to be on your resume, but there’s also plenty of stuff that should be removed. The fluff. The blabber. The full-on oddities. And even some of the details you think are important.

Here’s the thing: If you want a shot at grabbing your target audience and showing them what you’re made of, every section of your resume needs to be thoughtfully constructed, and every word carefully placed.

So, let’s all get out our big red markers. We’re going to start marking that baby up. Here are seven things that you absolutely must drop-kick from your resume.

1. An Objective

The vast majority of objectives say nothing. Oh, so you’re seeking a challenging position with a growing corporation that will allow you to make a positive contribution, are you? How groundbreaking.

 

Instead

Craft an executive summary or “Who I Am” section that showcases your overarching value proposition (or, as I call it, your “So what?”) and speaks directly to the stuff you know the target audience is going to care the most about. This is your chance to make it clear you’re a strong fit.

2. Weird or Potentially Polarizing Interests

Do you practice witchcraft, preside over your local gun club, or spend endless hours practicing your extraordinary mime routine? Terrific. But unless you are applying for jobs that will specifically value these interests (or they’re flat-out amazing conversation starters), leave them off. Decision makers will judge the heck out of you if they spot hobbies that fly in the face of their own personal beliefs or seem odd.

 

Instead

Include interests only if you feel they support your overall professional message and brand. If you’re a dietician who maintains a recipe blog for fun, yes. If you’re an accountant who enjoys photographing people’s feet, absolutely not.

3. Third-Person Voice

The fastest way to sound like a pompous goof is to construct your resume in the third person—à la “John raised more than $70,000 for the organization.” Every single time I read a resume in which the author does this, all I can think of is someone sitting around in a smoking jacket, with a pipe, pontificating on and on about himself. Don’t do it.

 

Instead

When you write a resume, your name and contact information are at the top of the page. For this reason alone, the receiver will most assuredly deduce that the document he or she is receiving was, indeed, from you. So write the resume in the first person, minus the pronouns (e.g., “Raised more than $70,000”).

4. An Email Address From Your Current Employer

Nothing says, “I job search on company time” quite like using your current work email address on a resume. Unless you own the company, it’s poor form to run your job search through your company’s email system.

 

Instead

Easy–use your personal email for all job search business. And, ideally, your own time.

5. Unnecessarily Big Words

Why “utilize” when you can “use?” Why “append” when you can “add?” It’s not “analogous;” it’s really just “similar.” Using non-conversational words doesn’t make you look smart; it makes you look like someone who spends too much time in a thesaurus.

 

Instead

Run the “would I ever say this in real life?” test on every phrase and sentence in your resume. If you find words or statements that don’t read like something you’d say? Change ’em up.

6. Tiny, Unimportant Jobs From 15+ Years Ago

Your resume is not an autobiography of every job you’ve held since you graduated; it’s a marketing document. So, unless something you did more than 12-15 years ago is vital for your target audience to know about, you don’t need to list the entry-level job or internship you held in 1994. It’s totally OK to leave some of the life history off.

 

Instead

For each former job, think about what you did or achieved that will be required (or will hold significant value) in your next role. Showcase only that stuff. If your first job out of college does nothing to support this overall message? It’s probably not needed.

7. Lies

If you’d like me to, I’ll launch into the story about the field engineer I worked with who was this close to landing a great job—until the employer conducted a degree verification and discovered that, while he’d taken courses at that university, he didn’t graduate. The kicker? He didn’t even need a degree to qualify for that job. But because he got caught in a lie, he didn’t get it.

 

Instead

Strategize. (In this case, I would have suggested that this engineer load his education section with professional development courses and certifications, which would have made an equally great impact.) Whatever you do, do not lie.


Editing a resume can be tough. People tend to be quite attached to the things they’ve done or accomplished professionally, and passionate about their outside interests. But the bottom line is this: You need to have everything working for you on your resume. Be brutally objective, cut the fat, and for goodness’ sake, leave off all details of your vast collection of clown figures.

 

Article Originally Featured on The Muse.com

Do you have any additional suggestions of things to remove from your resume?

How To Deal With A Difficult Boss

Article Originally Featured on Levo League

Photo Courtesy of Levo League

 

We've all had to work with that person: The clueless colleague who keeps putting her foot in her mouth because she can’t read the tension in the conference room. Or that strange boss who latches onto an idea as “the next best thing” when everyone else agrees it’s a walking disaster.

If your day at work regularly plays out like a scene from “The Office,” you’re not alone. A whopping 94% of managers surveyed by the authors of “Toxic Workplace! Managing Toxic Personalities and Their Systems of Power” said that they worked with a “toxic” person. And the behaviors that drove them crazy weren’t necessarily as obvious as bullying or harassment; acts like passive hostility or team sabotage were among the causes for stress.

Want More?
It’s possible that the executive who constantly gives you backhanded compliments isn’t just being Ms. Insensitivity. She may lack emotional intelligence, or EQ, defined as the ability to read the social signals around you and react appropriately. Those with a high EQ have greater self awareness; better control over their emotions; the ability to motivate themselves; show greater empathy toward others; and have good interpersonal skills, which is useful in areas like conflict resolution and team building.

This means saying what you mean, without the frills. In other words, don’t use sarcasm; the coworkers you’re trying to reach aren’t going to pick up on that. And always tell the whole story; organizational psychologist Sigal Barsade explains that emotionally unintelligent people need to know what data or information they are missing.


Give constructive criticism.
As awkward as it may be, people with low EQs need feedback, and even in real-time, if possible. And you should always give it with a calm demeanor, because they are more likely to mirror that behavior back. If you need to schedule a time with your manager for a more sensitive conversation, read author and consultant Judith Glaser’s seven tips for how to prepare for the talk at Fast Company.


Remember, however, that a high EQ doesn’t necessarily mean you are virtuous (as Fast Company’s Drake Baer points out, both Martin Luther King, Jr. and Adolf Hitler had high EQs)—it’s more about whether you can read your environment and react accordingly. Still, those with high EQs are more likely to be successful in their jobs. And those with low EQs can make others feel like they are talking to a brick wall.

So how can you get across to your emotionally unintelligent bosses and coworkers who can’t seem to get a clue? Follow these tips to improve communications:

Don’t condemn them.
Most people want to vilify low-EQ coworkers, but don’t fault them for skills they don’t have. “Emotions are information,” Barsade tells Fast Company. “In essence, people who are low in [emotional intelligence] are lacking the ability to take in, understand or process a really critical part of the way that we communicate in the world. If they can’t read your emotions, they won’t be getting all the info you’re naturally sending them.”

Be as clear as possible.

Now about that coworker who won’t stop clipping his nails in the office …

Article Originally Featured on Levo League

4 Tactical Tips for Your First Days at a New Job

Article Originally Posted on Levo League

Starting a new job should mean new adventures, new possibilities, and new outfits. However, the reality is usually far less glamorous. During my time at LivingSocial, I’ve trained hundreds of new hires, and I watched as some instantly demonstrated their capability, while others tripped over their shoelaces (figuratively speaking). Even experienced managers sometimes fall victim to amateur mistakes, so here’s a list of four tips to help guide you in your first 30 days on the job.

1. Build Relationships

Being the new person in the room, you may be waiting for a colleague or manager to introduce you to everyone else. However, they may not remember to do it. That doesn't mean you get a free pass. You should never miss an opportunity to introduce yourself. On the crooked path of networking, you never know who’s going to recommend you for your next plum project or future position.

My insider tip is to not just meet everyone in every room, keep notes on who was there. When you go back to your desk, send each of them a personalized email saying that you enjoyed meeting them and you hope your paths cross again. I like to use a uniform subject line for these notes (ex. “Lovely to meet you!”) so when I search my inbox, I have a listing of everyone I met and the date I met them.

2. Show excitement for your role

The most painful new hire interaction I ever witnessed was when someone in his first day on the job openly asked about applying for a new position within the company. Though it may be tempting to put yourself forward as a candidate, most companies expect you to be in your position for three to six months before they’ll even consider you for an internal transfer. Also, asking about other opportunities may cause people to question your loyalty and enthusiasm.
If you do hear about openings in a department that really excites you, see if you can get to know people who work there. When you casually ask them about their projects over coffee, it seems as if you’re demonstrating an interest in both them and the company, not like you’re sniffing out your next move.

3. Know when to ask questions and when to go it alone

As a new hire, there are a lot of things you won’t know. This ranges from not understanding how to use the phone system (a sometimes embarrassing reality) to being unsure of the organization’s strategic priorities. You want to make sure you’re asking the right questions, or else you may seem like the office mosquito.

Keep a notepad by your desk and write down your questions. You’ll be shocked by how many you cross off on your own. After you have four to five questions collected, you’ll be prepared to approach your manager with an organized list. As he or she answers your questions, make sure to take careful notes and listen for how they found the answer. That way, you won’t have to ask them for help next time.

4. Learn how to be a casual professional

Some office environments are extremely buttoned up, while others are far more relaxed. I’ve worked in both, and what I’ve seen is that one type of person always prevails—the casual professional.

A casual professional never compromises on the fundamentals of professionalism: being on time to everything, accountable for her work, and extremely respectful of her colleagues. However, she also understands how to authentically represent who she is as a person. Successful professionals often end up working long hours, and it’s neither fun nor realistic to only talk about work. You should selectively let your colleagues know a bit more about you – it’ll humanize you and make you more fun to be around.

Please be warned that it can be difficult to strike a good balance, so to make sure you’re on the right side of casual, watch the behavior of people who are admired at all levels of the organization. If you think they’d do it, go for it. This may mean telling your co-workers about a non work-related interest (food, sports, and the arts are usually safe), or buying beer for your colleagues at the end of a particularly rough (or awesome!) week.

Whether you’re starting today or in two years, please know we’re wishing you the best of luck in your new role.

Have you recently started a new job? What do you wish you had done differently during your first month?

How to Ace Your Next Phone Interview

Article Originally Posted on Levo League

Photo Courtesy of Levo League

 

As a stellar would-be employee, you want to sail through the interview process. But before you think that all you need is a knockout résumé and a killer outfit, think again. Nowadays, there’s a step before the in-person interview: the phone interview.


“The global economy means more and more cross-border hiring, where an initial phone interview becomes even more important,” says Sanjeev Agrawal, founder of Collegefeed, a career marketplace for college students.


Employers are increasingly opting for phone interviews to screen potential new hires. By doing so, companies can sort through candidates without committing to the expense and time required for on-site meet-ups.

A survey conducted by OfficeTeam, a staffing agency based in Menlo Park, Calif., polled 515 human resources managers, the majority (57%) of whom reported that phone interviews happen “very often.”


Furthermore, Paul Bailo, author of “The Essential Phone Interview Handbook,” says, “All jobs start with a phone call.” Meaning: Even if you aren’t scheduled for a formal phone interview, any conversation with a potential employer, however brief it might be, makes an impression.

Not being face-to-face with someone doesn’t mean that you don’t still need to bring your A-game. You might have the best intentions, but what you say and how you say it (tone, pace, inflection, etc.) can easily be misinterpreted. Here is some step-by-step advice to help you give good voice.


Step 1: Prepare, prepare, prepare

Step 2: Take care of the basics

Photo Courtesy of Levo League

Step 3: Put on your game face

Step 4: Take advantage of the invisibility factor

Step 5: Remember the 3 C’s–concision, concentration and courtesy

Step 6: Follow up

“It takes days to get ready for a phone interview,” explains Bailo. On day one, he advises, do all your research. Take to Google to find out everything you need to know—and more—about the company. Then, on day two, write out a list of questions, like, “What specific qualities and skills are you looking for in a job candidate?” or “I read that the company ____ (insert recent company success here). How do you see this position contributing to the continued success of the organization?” This will demonstrate your interest in the company, and the job, and show that you’re a highly qualified applicant. Agrawal points out, “Phone interviews are a great opportunity to find out more details about the job, the company, the work environment and the team, as job descriptions are notoriously vague.”

Another tip: Find an online photograph of the person who is interviewing you. Search on LinkedIn or on the company’s website. It’s much easier to talk with someone when you know what he/she looks like.

Nix any noisy interruptions such as barking dogs, crying children or blaring car horns. Get everyone out of the house, or make sure to have an isolated room where you can lock the door.
If possible, use a landline—a cell phone connection is less reliable, and the call could always get dropped. No landline? Then make sure that your cell phone is fully charged and that you take the call in a place where your reception is at its best. And remember to get the interviewer’s phone number in case you get disconnected

Dress as you would for a face-to-face interview; you’re more likely to feel and sound professional if you look the part.

Remember to smile: You can’t sound bored or uninterested if you have a smile on your face. Put a mirror on your desk to see your facial expressions when you talk. You have no body language with which to reinforce your personality; it’s all about the voice. To keep yours sounding tip-top, swallow a teaspoon of honey or suck on a lozenge one hour before the phone interview to reduce dry throat, and have a glass of water nearby during the actual interview.

Phone interviews are a lot like open-book tests: You can have all the information you need to know (about the company and the person conducting the interview right in front of you). Also, to cut down on the papers-rustling-in-background noise, tape a copy of your résumé and job description to the wall, at eye level, for easy reference.


Concision: Phone interviews are shorter than in-person interviews, which means you have less time to make a good impression. So avoid long-winded answers that could make you lose your audience. Keep your responses to no more than three sentences. The day before the interview, practice asking your questions aloud and, while you’re at it, rehearse your answers to some potential questions that the interviewer might ask you. (Think old standbys like, “What are your strengths?” and even the open-ended “Tell me about yourself….”)

Concentration: Stay focused and take notes during the call. It’s not the time to organize your mail or reply to emails. “If you feel you are easily distracted and drawn to multitasking, remove or turn off anything you might be tempted to use,” says Bailo. “You must listen carefully so that your responses are on point.”

Courtesy: Be professional and be polite. “At the end of the call, ask, ‘Do my qualifications meet the company’s needs?’ Then ask when you can meet with them in person,” suggests Bailo. And, Agrawal adds, “however the interview goes, end with ‘thank you.’ The last few words of a conversation are often the most remembered.”


Twenty-four to 48 hours after the interview ends, send an email thanking the interviewer for the opportunity and summarizing what you spoke about during the phone interview. The subject line should be: “Your name and the position you applied for.”

If you want this job, now is the time to restate your interest. And, if you really want to appear smarter than most, include a link to an interesting news article about the company that you already found during your preparation research.

Article Originally Posted on Levo League

Everything You Need to Know About Making Friends in the Office

Article Originally Featured on Levo League

Whether you’re at your first job, fresh out of college, or on your fifth career change, everyone worries about how well they will get along with co-workers. Sometimes you really hit it off and stay friends forever, even well after you've left the job. Other times you dread going into the office each day because you don’t feel like you connect with a single soul. Both are reasonable and very real scenarios. And there are ways to manage both so they don't take away from what you show up at the office to do every day: your job.


Levo spoke to Shasta Nelson, life coach, CEO of GirlfriendCircles.com, and author of the book Friendships Don’t Just Happen, and asked her about everything you need to know about making friends in the office, including who you should pursue and who you should stay away from.

Photo Courtesy of Levo League

If you really feel a connection with a co-worker, is it a good idea to try and deepen that relationship? Or should “office life” and “real life” be kept separate?
No! I don’t think they should be separate at all! In fact, that really is one of the last places to make friends where we have one of the biggest friendship challenges taken care of for us — consistency. That’s why it felt easy in school – we saw each other every day. In “real life” it’s actually much more difficult to see each other regularly enough to build up that familiarity and comfortableness. The office is perfect, since you both have to spend so much time there. I’d definitely try to deepen that relationship, so much so that I’d encourage you to practice being friends outside of work, too, so that when one of you leaves the job you already have other structures in place for your friendship to continue.

How concerned should you be about making friends in the office, even at the basic level of casual friendship?People who have friends at work are way more inclined to report job satisfaction and companies recognize that that’s one of the best ways to retain employees. We will put up with a lot of stress and non-ideal job descriptions if we like the people we work with, so I’d say it’s worth being a pretty high priority at work. Plus, this is where you spend most of your time, so it make sense that at minimum you want to be surrounded by people you’re friendly with, even if they don’t all turn into consequential friendships.

Are there any “rules” to making friends in the office?I’d say two good principles are to, one, take it slow, and two, don’t let your friendship ever make others feel excluded in the office. The first one is super-important: don’t over-share with someone. Vulnerability — sharing more about yourself with less of a filter — is one of the actions that develops a friendship, but I encourage everyone to engage it step by step so that really you’re never taking a big risk, as much as you are many, many small ones. But that’s even more important at work, where you don’t want to share too much with someone before you’ve co-created a trusting relationship with each other. 

And the second rule speaks more to making sure your friendship is adding to the office dynamics, not excluding others or making people feel wary, left out or suspicious. While at work, invite more people to join in your friendly relationship—invite others to sit with you at lunch — and try to do more of your eventual secret-sharing outside of the office.

What are some good ways to explore deepening a relationship with a co-worker?Probably start with friendliness and chit-chat, talking about the weekend, and what TV shows you’re watching. Then the next goal is to find a way to spend more substantial time together, so usually an invitation to grab lunch together, attend an event together, or meet for drinks after work will help make that happen. And this is where it may stay for a while—friendliness in the office, friendship for an hour here and there outside the office.  In fact, if this is as far as it goes — it’s an incredibly valuable relationship that will increase your happiness at work. In some cases, you may want to grow it to the next step and that means eventually starting to get together when it’s completely unattached to work, such as brunch on the weekend, a double-date with the boyfriends on a Friday night, or getting together to watch your favorite TV shows one night.

Can you — or should you — ever be friends with your manager? Or, if you are a manager, friends with your subordinate?This one can be tricky because there is not a “one size fits all” answer. Our personalities, company culture, and individual job descriptions will inform the decision. But in theory, I’d say yes. We can be friends with people even if we have different roles at work. Obviously it requires both people respecting the other so much that neither one shares confidential information or asks for favors at work. And the two rules I mentioned earlier–taking it slow and not letting your friendship make others uncomfortable–are even more important. But the first two steps of friendship—being friendly and starting to spend more considerable time together—is more than appropriate, in my opinion.

Fights among friends are inevitable, and can become even more hot-button if that friend is also a co-worker. What is your advice for dealing with conflicts with friends in the office?This goes back to the second rule—don’t let your friendship make others uncomfortable in the office. That means they shouldn’t know you’re fighting. You don’t gossip about her, talk about her, or take it out on each other. Maturity means trusting each other so that even when we’re mad or disappointed,  we can still trust each other to have our backs. It also speaks to the “taking it slow” part—you should never have shared more than you felt the relationship was ready to support. By the time you fight, you should have some considerable history between the two of you where you can trust you’ll both make up and be closer than ever.

What should you do if you don’t feel a connection with co-workers, on even the most basic level? (Assuming that you enjoy your job.)Bonds can always, always be developed, in some form or another. The best place to start is with having enough conversations that you can start seeing where you both have similarities or where you “get” each other. We all have more things in common than we realize — even if we have a 40-year age gap, opposite political views and are in completely different life stages. I believe that those who seek, find; which means that if we say to ourselves, “I am choosing to like you, now I’m going to keep looking for the reasons,” we will always find them!


What has worked for you when it comes to making friends in the office? Tell us in the comments below.

Article Originally Featured on Levo League