Today I came across a post on Xiaohongshu that resonated with me.

This is about a girl who analyzed that after 10 weeks of joining the company, she figured out what the company wanted her to achieve and what this job could achieve for her.

I think her thoughts are worth learning from, as many people have not considered this.

Once they join, they start to get busy with work progress, completing tasks assigned by leaders, attending meetings, often making spreadsheets and outputs...

Work is being done, but confusion arises: what exactly am I busy with? Where will this busyness take me?

In my opinion, a person transitions from an ordinary employee to someone with a career direction the moment they actively think about the following three things:

First: What does the company really want from me?

Not what is written in the JD, but the implicit aspects: does it value speed? Execution? Coordination? Advancement?

Once you understand what the company truly values, your efforts will have a focus.

Second: What can I accumulate in this job?

Many positions seem simple, but they contain a heap of transferable skills: writing clearly, explaining well, breaking down tasks, controlling pace, communicating with people, reporting upwards.

These things you take with you are worth more than the skills themselves.

Third: Does this job make me more replaceable or irreplaceable in the future?

The more you can do the parts that are hard to standardize and replicate, the more your career security truly belongs to you.

So for everyone who just joined, I always suggest:

Don't rush to fill up the tasks at hand; first, think clearly about whether this job can make you better—how it can make you better, how deep the change can be, whether it’s something you can take with you.

When you start to reverse engineer your path using what the company achieves for me, you are no longer just someone being assigned tasks; you are actively managing your own career.