Every business loves young and ambitious employees. They offer great value to a business and can often come up with new ideas. I would offer you the following advice:

* Find a hole and jump into it. Basically find something that will of value to your company and make yourself the expert of goto guy for that service etc. Think of things like understanding a particular market such as young single men, or maybe be good at thinking up jingles, slogans etc. Anything that will have people coming to you to ask for your advice or including you on your team. You must be careful that you are not only known for this otherwise they will promote you so that they will not lose you!

* Keep your eyes open and your mouth shut. Take every opportunity to learn things by observing others. Try not to be seen as the upstart who keeps asking questions at awkward times. People will understand that you need to ask questions at your stage in your career, but try to make them insightful and at appropriate times. Dont ask questions about things you can easily find out yourself, but dont take too long on completing tasks because you dont know what you are doing.

* Find a mentor.Sometimes people are recommended for a particular role or position. Often a more experienced colleague will do this for you. Try and establish a two way professional relationship with a more senior member of staff who will mentor you in exchange for your views etc. This does not mean fetching their coffee etc, but contributing positively to your mentors work load maybe offering a different view on a matter or providing information on a matter that you have researched.

Lastly, be professional, be useful and develop your skills and experience. If you are pleasant to work with and contribute to your projects and assignments and are seen as an asset to the company you will climb the ladder.

Lee Lister

Lee Lister is Management Consultant and Program Manager with more than 25 year's management and consultancy experience and more than 20 year's program and project management experience in projects for Banking, Finance, Insurance, Leisure and Government bodies. She also have more than 10 years bid management experience ranging from bids for medium companies to large international and infrastructure bids.

British born, Lee received her BA(Hons) Financial Economics from the University of Essex. She went on to work in or for a considerable number of countries within Asia and Europe as well as Australia and the United States. While building a name for herself through helping company restructure, change management and project management consultancy, Lee became a well-known figure for her skills in analyzing, problem solving and trouble-shooting. She has consulted for many major industries, including banking, telecommunications, insurance, transportation, leisure and governments from many different countries. Some of the companies who have benefited from Lee?s expertise are Hewlett Packard, Siemans Nixdorf, Electrolux and the Philippines government.

Whilst working in the Far East she became a recognized expert on preparing and evaluating large World Bank Proposals (infrastructure projects within developing countries). These accomplishments called upon the skills of bid and project management, risk assessment, contract negotiation and supplier management and required dedicated work to very tight time scales. This expertise was acknowledged by an invitation to be the principle speaker at an International Business Development Conference in Washington, USA. She has also consulted at very senior level in several countries.

She owns and manages two companies, Biz Guru LLC in the USA and Biz Guru Services Ltd in the UK as well a considerable number of profitable web sites. She works almost entirely via the internet, visiting clients on site during major consultancies and training. Her Internet skills span from when major companies first started to consider obtaining their own web sites. During these years, she has kept up to date with the rapid changes on the internet, including the dot com boom and the resulting bust ? which her own web based companies survived.

She regularly consults, writes and lectures on business, bid management and marketing and has published numerous courses and books.