Effective networking will be a meaningful skill throughout your career.  By preparing introductory questions, or icebreakers, you can enter a conversation with confidence. From seeking new connections, to seeking a new job, your next opportunity may begin with a simple question.

So, you have a great team and are leveraging your experience as a first generation professional to lead them authentically. You your next priority may be employee retention and satisfaction. Your company or industry may have standard practices (or expectations) for employee recognition, but perhaps you want to incorporate your own unique ways of motivating your team. This Article will share how to find the best ways to recognize your team and some of our favorite award ideas.

Leading as a first generation professional has unique challenges. So far, you have climbed the ladder using your own skills, intuition, and work ethic and may not have experience supervising a junior colleague or leading a team. For this week’s Article, FGPM took a look at research and perspectives from first generation leaders to determine how new managers can leverage their background and individualism to lead their corporate teams.

Corporate jargon is used between colleagues in the modern workplace to introduce new ideas, provide status updates, describe productivity measures, or convey a business message. As a first generation professional, you may not have experience using these words and phrases in regular speech and the definitions may not be available in the employee handbook, leaving you to piece together meanings through office conversation. While corporate jargon can be confusing, this week’s Article provides a non-exhaustive digest of common phrases and abbreviations to help get you started.

LinkedIn can be a valuable resource as you begin, or continue through, your professional journey. Founded in 2002, the professional networking site can help you generate leads, find professionals in your field, search open job opportunities, and research companies (and potential employers) of interest. In this Article, we will highlight five of our favorite LinkedIn features to help you present your best professional self - and one great way to become a thought leader in your field.