We Spoke to Charlotte Hopkins, who is a fundraiser at Roy Castle Lung Cancer Foundation about her views on Professionalism and being a Young Professional.
Hi Charlotte, let’s start by asking what does the term Young Professional mean to you?
Whenever I hear this term I always think ‘YoPro’ or ‘Yuppie’ and tend to think of cool young people starting out in life in very cool jobs in very cool companies where they earn a load of money and living in cities like New York & London.
I think in reality a young professional is someone who is starting out in their career and making a life for themselves. In their jobs they are taking on responsibilities, adding value to and finding value in their role and striving towards development.
Do you consider yourself a young professional?
I suppose I am if I really think about it.
However, I compare myself to other people and see how much more they have achieved, how far they’ve progressed so quickly and how much they are earning, and it makes me doubt my position as a young professional.
In your opinion, what is the most important element in being professional?
Adding value to yourself. I talk about it a lot, but I don’t see it being professional if you can’t find the value in what you are doing. I’ve worked in roles where I completed the same processes day in day out and was never responsible for my own tasks/time. But these weren’t challenging me and it made me feel less independent and pretty much a dispensable member of the team.
Charlotte left us with some inspiring words on the dangers of comparison.
It’s so easy to compare yourself to what your friends/university and school colleagues are doing and feel left behind. In that situation, I found that I made poor decisions in order to keep up with them and actually it put me even further back. It’s important to not care what other people are thinking, or what you think they are thinking, and just focus on yourself.
