This might strike you as odd, given all you've gone through to land this new position. Your first inclination might be to take a break from all that “job-search stuff.” Understandable—but unwise.

You're not looking to make a change immediately, not if you've followed the advice in this book and landed the right job. But there's no better way to advance your career than by distinguishing yourself in your brand-new job. And you heard it before and know it's true: The best time to find a new job is when you have a job.

The Top 10 Tips for Your New Job

First impressions are forever—make them count.

Be the first one in and the last one out.

Be indispensable, particularly to your boss.

Be a learn-it-all.

Be known for expertise that nobody else in the company has.

Network, network, network.

Don't engage in watercooler gossip or talk poorly of others; take the high road, always.

Don't sap energy; energize others.

Think before you write; email has no context.

Be all-in, all the time; performance rises above the rest.

Become Indispensable—Especially to Your Boss

As you begin your work, forget about your job title or the technical description of your role. Your real job is all about one person: your boss. Yes, the boss—the person so many of us have trouble working with and even wrongly leave jobs over. Vow to yourself to make sure this relationship is perfect and be set on helping the boss succeed. We know what's at stake: Your boss has the biggest influence on your current job and on your future. He or she is the gateway to stretch assignments, new experiences, and promotions. Need help with a colleague? Want a new project? Is global experience your next logical step? It's the boss who makes it happen—or not.

The starting point (and boiling point) for any relationship, including the one with your new boss, is communication. I've found that many managers and some leaders are horrible communicators. Couple that with the fact that most new employees are somewhat intimidated by a new boss, and the result can be a disaster. Go into this relationship assuming your new boss won't clearly lay out his or her expectations, goals, or instructions. Approach this new relationship with humility—not timidity. Listen (don't just hear) to absorb the boss's message and its meaning, and ask clarifying questions to ensure you fully understand the expectations. Similarly, establish early “check-in” dates and a comfortable communication protocol. This will help ensure that you are not just meeting, but exceeding the boss's expectations, and that you're receiving constructive criticism. Believe it or not, in the real world you probably will not get feedback without asking for it. So ask for it.

For you to become indispensable to the boss, he or she also must be confident that you say what you mean and do what you say—on time and all the time. Watch your do-say ratio. Divide what you do by what you say. If the ratio is less than one-to-one, you've got a problem. In other words, treat your boss like a customer.

Finally, your boss hired you for a reason. Fulfill that reason and follow this simple advice: Don't be among the people who were hired for what they know and then get fired for who they are. Simply stated, don't be a jerk!

Learn all You Can

Be a learn-it-all! The most important reward from your new job—far more than salary, bonus, or title—is what you learn. One of the main reasons you took this new job (if you followed our earlier advice) is to gain new skills and expand your experiences. Now you must seize these opportunities so you can become a better contributor in your current job and position yourself for a promotion or a new job.

I have a favorite saying: “Knowledge is what you know. Wisdom is acknowledging what you don't know. Learning is the bridge between the two.” Remember the 70-20-10 rule? It says that 70 percent of your learning and development will come from assignments that stretch you and allow you to learn new skills; 20 percent will be from other people, especially your boss; and 10 percent will be from training and courses. Avail yourself of every experience and chance to learn. Let your curiosity lead you, and commit to continuous learning.

Learning is all about adapting to the new and different—being open-minded and willing to find solutions that aren't obvious (when the tried-and-true is not so true anymore). As you advance in your career and become a leader, you'll need to retain your curiosity, which will keep you captivated and engaged. Leaders are known for being critical thinkers and able to handle complexity and ambiguity. Start developing these skills now. The more you learn, the more you will be able to accomplish. As you improve, so will those around you. Eventually, the entire organization will improve.

And by the way, to slow down all that job-hopping, the better companies put a lot of effort into offering training for employees. Want a shocking number? I read that companies spent more than $70 billion on employee training in 2015 alone. So don't blow off that webinar from HR that seems deadly dull but will provide you with a critical skill set. (Does the name “Excel” come to mind?) Also, nearly 60 percent of companies in one survey said they were offering to pay employee tuition.

At every level, it's not simply about what you do, but also about what you learn.

Network, Network, Network!

My biggest career lesson is that the world is indeed flat. Someone you know knows somebody who knows someone who knows someone who knows somebody who knows you! As I was writing this chapter, a Korn Ferry board member called me to say he had just interviewed a CEO candidate for a major U.S. restaurant chain. During the interview, the board member asked where the candidate lives. When the candidate mentioned a city in California, the board member replied, “My dearest friends, Bill and Lois Smith, live there.” The candidate couldn't believe the coincidence. “Bill and Lois are my next-door neighbors.”

Hearing this story, I could only hope, for the candidate's sake, that he brings in the trash cans and that his dog doesn't make a mess on Bill's lawn.

The six degrees of separation—the idea that anyone can be connected to any other person through a chain of acquaintances with no more than five intermediaries—isn't just a theory in business and your career; it's a reality! Over my career, I've seen this played out thousands of times. Networking is about using these connections to your advantage. But the biggest misconception is that networking is about you. It's the opposite. It's about the other person.

As you start your new job, your networking should kick up a notch. For one thing, news of your job change will probably spread through your network, especially when you update your LinkedIn profile with your new job title and links to your new employer. You will probably receive some congratulatory emails—and some requests from people in your network for career advice based on how you landed your new job. They may be where you were at the start of this process: They want to change jobs but don't have a clue about how and where to start. Pay it forward! Your recent experience in the job market—what worked, what didn't, and the dos and don'ts of interviewing—will help the next person. This is another way to develop and enhance your network by focusing first on what you can give. You should be known as someone who's genuinely interested in others.

But that's not all. Your new company is a network. Approach it every day in that way. It will pay off in the long run, and in the short term there are huge payoffs. Companies have formal organizational charts, policies, and procedures. Yet in almost every company, there is a unique culture of how things are actually accomplished. I call this the informal network—the influencers, the people to whom you turn to get things done. Immediately talk to your peers to figure out this network: “Who are the influencers?” “How can I best work with her?” “What does he appreciate or dislike?”

Most people, though, don't think of their jobs this way. They walk around in a state of comfortable numbness (to paraphrase Pink Floyd). Instead of leading with their ACT, they give too little thought to the lasting impression they're making.

Such was the case with Beth, an operations manager at a midsize company where she had worked for several years. Then the company was acquired by a larger firm, and things began to change. Because of her seniority, Beth assumed she was safe.

One day, two consultants came in to meet with Beth and others in her department. She brushed them off, saying she was too busy. Finally, she agreed to meet with them, at the insistence of her boss. But instead of giving them her undivided attention, Beth came to the meeting with food she'd brought from home and microwaved in the kitchen. Not only was the smell distracting, but she sat there with her head down, eating.

Most people give too little thought to the lasting impression they're making.

Flash forward about two months. As the integration of the two firms progressed, Beth's position was eliminated. Imagine the consultants' surprise when Beth tracked them down on LinkedIn and asked them to introduce her to other companies, because now she needed a job. The consultants made a couple of half-hearted attempts to help her, but didn't go out of their way. They weren't being unkind. Given how Beth had acted in the meeting, recommending her to other companies seemed like a risk to their reputations.

Moral of the story: No one has a crystal ball on his or her desk. You don't know what's going to happen—whether you're going to receive a surprise promotion or the unwelcome news of downsizing in your department. You cannot prevent things beyond your control. But if you become indispensable, learn all you can, and approach every interaction as a chance to network, you will come out on top.

Be an Outlier in an Uncertain World

In this ever-changing world, the one thing we can be sure about is that tomorrow won't look like today. Globalization, digitization, automation—these forces of progress are putting stresses on how and where we work. Some jobs that exist today will go the way of the blacksmith and the retail clerk. The way I see it, we're in the midst of a labor evolution—much like in the late 1800s. The ripples visible today are likely to become tides of significant change in the decades to come. How can you continue to be relevant? The answer is to be insatiably curious and be a learn-it-all.

Despite all the technological innovations of the past century, a simple truth remains: It takes talented people to make businesses successful and organizations great. Companies everywhere will still need to attract, develop, and align people who represent a mosaic of talents and abilities—diverse by every definition. Inclusive organizations will embrace the multiplicity of differences as a competitive edge for understanding and serving global customers.

You want to be part of that mosaic. You want to stand out as being engaged in what you do. You don't want to go with the crowd—head down, drawn along by the current.

Allow me to share a story with you: Years ago, I went salmon fishing. It was a magnificent fall day. Towering trees with burgundy, yellow, and orange leaves shimmered against a blue sky. Wearing heavy waders, we stood thigh-high in the river, casting into the current. The salmon run was so plentiful that the fish literally bumped into us as they moved in one mass, following an instinctive urge to swim upstream.

Then suddenly, one fish broke above the surface. Strong and nimble, it made a perfect arc in the air—a “flying fish” out of its element. The sun caught the scales on its back, turning them shiny and iridescent.

I stood there watching in amazement, caught up in the beauty of this outlier. Something innate in this one fish—an individual among a streaming mass—made it rise above the complacency of the rest.

That image has stayed with me, a reminder of the temptation to float along “in the stream” with everyone else. Surrounded by so many others who are content to stay where they are, people can easily fall into the dangerous trap of doing what's enough, but not too much. They play it safe, never going beyond what's expected. They are the 80 percent who accomplish the 20 percent. The result is going with the flow, hooked by disengagement and entangled in nets of complacency.

What about you?

Are you willing to be an outlier, to be among the 20 percent who accomplish the 80 percent? Do you have the hunger to rise above the rest? These are not merely clever metaphors or rhetorical questions to contemplate. They go to the heart and soul of this book: No matter what tomorrow's workforce looks like, no matter what new “hot jobs” emerge, you need to “exercise” to grow in your career—to commit to self-improvement, to be agile and adaptable, and to learn. In other words, you need to take control.

I leave you with this: Rockets didn't take us to the moon; innovators did. Transformation isn't achieved by a machine; it takes the mind of a dreamer.

Rockets didn't take us to the moon; innovators did. Transformation isn't achieved by a machine; it takes the mind of a dreamer.