Season finale: Finding joy in your first job

The First Two Years

In this season finale of The First Two Years, hosts Akshaya Chandrasekaran and Rahil Philippos analyze listener survey data to identify what truly drives

Key takeaways

• 60% of survey respondents attributed their early career happiness to their peer group and mentors rather than salary or company prestige.
• Only 5-10 out of approximately 100 survey takers cited compensation as the primary driver of their initial job satisfaction.

Main topics

• Early career happiness drivers
• Mentorship and peer support dynamics

Notable quotes

"don't assume, ask and seek clarification."

Conclusion

The episode serves as both a reflective farewell and a practical guide, emphasizing that

Transcript preview

Speaker 6 (0:05) Welcome to The First Two Years, an early careers podcast from the Ken. I'm Akshaya Chandrasekaran and this is the season finale. A goodbye episode. But before we unplug the show, I wanted to thank you, our listeners, our most cherished collaborators. We could not have made the show without you and I don't mean that in a figurative way. For the past six months, each week, You have trusted us with your stories. You've shared your curiosities and questions. How to walk away from an unhappy job? Why do some people get promoted over others? Is finding a mentor crucial to my success at work? Must your colleagues also be your friends? And what exactly is cool to wear to work? We have taken all your questions, both big and small, to experts. Best-selling authors, organizational psychologists. HR consultants, founders and leaders from across the world. This joint project between us at The Ken and you has been one of the most rewarding and meaningful things I've ever worked on. Then why are we ending it? Well, I'll let Rohan answer. Speaker 3 (1:12) Hi, this is Rohan Dharmakumar. This is probably the first time you're hearing me on The First Two Years. I'm the Ken's co-founder and CEO. We took the hard decision to end the first two years for two reasons. Firstly, because Akshaya, your wonderful host and our wonderful colleague, is leaving the can. Now, normally, when we lose a podcast host, we coach a new host to take over an existing podcast. But in this case, Akshaya's exit made us take a hard look at our initial hypothesis behind the first two years. Truth is, Picking 18 to 25 year old professionals as our primary subscriber base helped us sharpen our topics, as you would have realized from past episodes. But it also made our podcast less appealing to a broader subscriber base and audience. Thus, we're going back to the drawing board and remaking plans for a new careers podcast. One that will walk the fine line of being appealing to many more career professionals, managers, leaders, coaches and founders, but one that will still have the sharp point of view like most of the Ken's podcasts. If you have ideas and tips and feedback for us, please write to us at podcasts at theken.com or you can even write to me directly at rohin at theken.com. Back to Akshaya for her final episode. Speaker 6 (2:40) Okay, welcome back to the first two years. It's me, Akshaya. And I'm once again joined by the wonderful Rahil Philippos on the final episode of the first two years. Hi, Rahil. Hi, Akshaya. Wow. Okay, big day. How do you feel? Well, I think you know this. I've been absolutely paralyzed thinking about this last episode. What is that? Analysis paralysis? Like you think so much about something for so long and then you don't do anything about it. Like it's such a difficult thing, right? To figure out what's Speaker 2 (3:08) a Speaker 6 (3:08) satisfying way. to end a show and end a season. And I was searching for the right way to say goodbye for so long. And I've come to the conclusion that the best way to do it, a way that has worked for us for so long, is to do it the Tifty way. Okay, Speaker 5 (3:25) what does that Speaker 6 (3:25) mean? Okay, Rahil, stay with me. Tifty is a show about self-discovery. Right. It's for Speaker 5 (3:32) young, ambitious professionals. to Speaker 6 (3:35) help them succeed in whatever capacity, right? Whatever success may mean for them. Exactly. Yeah. I'm glad you're with me on this. So if it's a show about self-discovery and we have spent the last six months trying to figure out what's holding people back from succeeding. Right. So I thought today, since it's the last episode, why not talk to people who have been there, done that, about things that actually propel them forward instead of thinking about what set them back. Interesting. Okay, Speaker 5 (4:04) so while otherwise we learn from each other's problems and the solutions we found, we can also learn from their happiness, right? Because, I mean, you spend a quarter of your life at work. So finding joy there. What's better than that? What's better than that? Exactly. Even I'm curious though, Akshaya, what did people who enjoyed their early career kind of get right? Right? Like, what do they feel had the most impact on their happiness? Right? Was it their, I don't know, their role, the company they were at, their peer group? What did you find out? Speaker 6 (4:36) The thing is, even I was thinking like, these will be the factors that determine their happiness. The role, the company, the compensation, all of that. But sometimes, very simple things like... they moved to a new city and found their independence. You know, in the survey responses, you'll see very simple answers like, or even better, it's simply quitting their first job that brought them a lot of happiness because it taught them what they don't want from their careers and stuff like that, right? Like a bunch of different factors and very surprising insights from the survey, actually. And the good thing is that we work at the Ken and one of our undisputable advantages is that we have a very loyal subscriber base that actually engages with us, listens to our podcast, takes all these surveys and they actively communicate with us. It's like a two-way communication, right? It really is pretty amazing. Speaker 5 (5:24) So you went ahead and you asked them directly. Exactly. And spoiler alert, they really came through. It's so crazy that you literally got a hundred people to take that survey in a matter of three to four days. You know, they shared their story with us. And honestly, I just can't wait to dig deeper into the survey and like really get into it and break it down. That's exactly what we're Speaker 6 (5:44) going Speaker 5 (5:44) to Speaker 6 (5:45) do, right? So today on the show, for one last time, before we turn the lights off, we've got stories from our listeners about what made them happy in their earlier career. So we're going to end it on a positive note. That's amazing. So all meditations are the Speaker 5 (5:57) most... rewarding aspects of their first job that truly set them up for success. Let's get into it. Cannot wait. Speaker 5 (6:30) Okay, just for context, let's start by describing who these people were, the people who took the survey, right? Close to 50 % of these people started their careers in the last decade. So between 2010 and 2020. Speaker 6 (6:42) Oh, so they're all like decades into their careers, reflecting back on what their early career was looking like. Exactly. And 30 Speaker 5 (6:50) % Speaker 6 (6:50) of them were tech employees. Speaker 5 (6:52) The remaining are from different fields like design, product, HR, sales and marketing and business. Speaker 6 (6:59) Oh,