Advice for a Graduating Pharmacist
After putting in years of hard work during school, being a new graduate pharmacist is the first phase of a new and exciting career. If you have your graduate pharmacist resume together and are ready for the next step, here are five tips to help you succeed.
Engage Your Professional Network
As a pharmacist new graduate, networking is crucial for your career. Building, maintaining, and strengthening relationships with people has many benefits. Specifically, networking helps you build a reputation, increase connections, find inspiration, and share ideas. Overall, these benefits improve the quality of your work and increase job satisfaction.
Being visible in your field is the best way to show your colleagues that you’re reliable, talented, and supportive. When people respect you and want to work with you, they will think of you when new and exciting opportunities arise.
Learn From Your Mistakes
Experience really is the best teacher. The lessons we learn from our mistakes provide opportunities for success in the future. Past mistakes let us look at things with a sense of before and after. What did you learn that you didn’t know before? How can you apply that looking forward?
Don’t fear mistakes. Embrace them. Look at every mistake as an opportunity to learn, grow, and be better. Making mistakes as a new graduate pharmacist teaches you things you won’t learn in school.
Experience is One of the Best Teachers
In addition to learning from your own experience, take the time to learn from the experience of others. It is important to listen to what senior pharmacists have to say as they have many years of experience and have likely run into the same problems you will face in your career.
Communicating with other pharmacists and learning from what they have to say is a valuable asset as you grow in your career. Don’t shy away from constructive criticism. Instead, strive to use it to improve your performance on the job.
Keep Your Notes From Pharmacy School
Experience is an important teacher, but you should hold onto those notes from pharmacy school.
The things you learn in school serve as a good foundation for orienting yourself to new areas of the pharmacy and are very useful when changing career paths and transitioning from one area of practice to another.
Think of these notes as the foundation of your career and use them to get your footing and a quick refresh when facing something new.
Be Positive
Positive thinking not only helps you in your career but in all other areas of your life, too. Taking the time to do what you enjoy outside of work helps you maintain a good balance and is extremely important to maintaining a positive attitude.
Whether it’s spending time with family, reading, hanging out with friends, or heading into the great outdoors, taking time out to do what you love goes a long way to helping you stay satisfied with your job and your life.
The Five Pieces of Advice for a Graduating Pharmacist
Whether you are looking for your first position or are a recent graduate looking to make a transition, the right approach can make the difference in your success.
Engage with your professional network, learn from your mistakes and the mistakes of others, maintain a positive attitude, and hang onto those notes from pharmacy school. You never know when they’ll come in handy.
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If you enjoyed this article and you’re excited to start your first job in this wonderful field, check out the blog below on tips for your first day on the job!