Full speed ahead: shifting gears from part time to full time
Tips for managing a transition to a full-time workload
About a year ago, I began my journey with Red Hat and PatternFly as a content design intern. This week, I wrap up that internship. But, the end of my internship isn’t the end of my journey. As I finish my master’s degree this week and graduate, I’m excited to transition into a full-time content design role on Red Hat’s PatternFly team.
To mentally prepare for this transition, I’ve been reflecting on what it will be like to double my work time. I’m all for careful planning and preparation, so this reflection has been essential for me. I’ve found that people have a lot of advice for starting a full-time job, but less to say when you’ve already been working part time in the same role. My recent musing has led to a few tips for this kind of transition.
Appreciate your internship experience
Take some time to reflect on how your internship experience was valuable and successful. After all, there’s a reason you’ve been asked to continue working in a role. Appreciate what you’ve learned and accomplished throughout your internship, which has helped you get to where you currently are. And, at the same time, consider how you can use your internship experience to motivate the direction of your transition to full time.
As an intern, you have developed the skills necessary to not only complete work, but also to collaborate effectively with your team. If you’ve been holding back at all, staying quiet in meetings, or doubting your input, take this opportunity to work on building your confidence further. If you haven’t presented any of your internship work — now is the time to do so. Share what you’ve learned with your team and what you value most from your experience.
Scale your workload carefully
When you start a new full-time job you take care in ramping up gradually, until you have enough context and familiarity to tackle a full workload. But when you transition from part time to full time, you often don’t need that gradual ramp up. Instead, it can feel like you have all of the necessary context to immediately double your workload with the double amount of time that you have.
But it’s important to remember that you’re probably not yet used to managing a full workload. It’s easier (and safer) to adapt your to-do list system little by little. If you take on too little and find yourself with extra bandwidth than expected, there’s likely a long list of things you can add to your plate as you go. Alternatively, taking on too much and having to cut things off your list can hurt your confidence early on. This ramp up time doesn’t need to stretch out too long. What’s important is that you’re intentional about learning what a full-time workload will look like for you.
Explore new ideas and opportunities
Lean into exploring what it means to be a full-time employee. Of course, you’ll take on more work in projects you’ve already been involved in, but you also have the opportunity to explore other kinds of work. Use some of your extra time to explore new types of projects and job duties that you’re curious about.
Beyond work, explore what it means to be a full time employee at your organization. Set up meetings with people you want to get to know or will be working more closely with. Get involved in virtual or in-person social events. Learn about the different kinds of volunteer opportunities that are offered. Check out groups and communities that exist for diversity and inclusion or mentorship. Use some of your extra time to explore the culture of your company and what it offers beyond strictly professional work.
Determine goals for your transition
It can be helpful to define some clear and actionable goals for your first 6 months of full-time work (or whatever timeline makes sense to you). This way, you can plan a sense of realistic direction to help you navigate the change.
For example, identify new projects and tasks that you’d like to begin working on and make it a goal to collaborate on a task or create a deliverable. Make a goal to attend meetings that didn’t previously align with your part time schedule to help expose you to new conversations and develop deeper context. Or make it a goal to present some of the work from your internship. Determining goals like these will let you intentionally take advantage of your new workload to continue growing in new ways.
So there are the four tips that I’ve come up with. Of course, this is by no means a definitive list — this is my first time transitioning from part time to full time within a role. But these are some of the things I’m keeping in mind to ensure that my transition is smooth, intentional, and successful.
If you have any other tips, I’m all ears!
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