1)Earn your managers trust immediately.Do this by getting assignments done before they are due.Ideally your manager will learn to have a "fire & forget" mentality.They give you a task and forget about it before they KNOW it will be done.Earn your peers'/team members' trust.You need to be known as the person that gets the job done.Do not ever say,"It is NOT my job".That type of thinking leads to failure.It is your job,if you do not know how to solve the problem,find someone who else.
2)The interns that make the long lasting impression,the ones who get that position before they graduate,are the ones that have that winning,passionate attitude.
If you take interviews as an example,the people who leave a positive impression during an interview are the ones that have that twinkle in their eye.If I have a choice between two people,both have relatively the same skill set,the person who has the passion will always get the job.In certain cases,it is possible that the person with a weaker skill set will beat someone with a better skill set if their passion and attitude sells the.
3)Networking is extremely important.The reality is that it is not WHAT you know that matters most but,WHO you know.Get involved with as many employee run organizations or niche focused organizations as you can.Attend as many education lunch & lern or networking events as you possibly can fit into your schedule.These types of activities will often give you you opportunities more that you can imagine.Think back to high school,it was those people who were involved in extracurricular activities that generally got into a better school and received the scholarships.The same s true in the working world,the more you get involved the better.
4)Involvement also adds that extra moral booster to your day.Even if you have the best job in the world and you absolutely love what you do.Everyone needs something more to keep that boost going.
5)Make it a habit to learn every day.If we reduce a hour or a half from the time spent watching television and invest it in reading a self help book,read blogs related to your domain,or a magazine or a paper we could make a meaningful investment of time to benefit yourself and your career.
Learn from your mistakes.It is said that Benjamin Franklin failed 10,000 times before he finally had one of his greatest successes in his life,the invention of the light bulb.Look at a failure as an opportunity to learn.At every failure make it a practice to think of ways that can you do it better the next time.
6)Some other good habits to get into are performing a monthly SWOT(Strengths,Weaknesses,Opportunities and Threats)analysis of you every month.A monthly retrospective is also helpful.Look back on your month,what went well for you that month?What did not go so well?Identify some action items that you can use to continuously improve your performance.