You’ve landed your first job. Now don’t sink your career before it starts.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Trading your mortarboard for a company badge is exciting. Just make sure your first job after college is the starting point, not the high point, in a satisfying career.If you’re a new graduate, you were about 6 years old when a basketball player named Tyreke Evans won the NBA’s rookie-of-the-year award with stats comparable to Michael Jordan’s and LeBron James’s in their debut seasons.

You’ve likely forgotten, or never heard of, Evans because injuries, a leaguewide lockout and a two-year drug suspension derailed his promising career.Flaming out at your first desk job probably wouldn’t carry as much public scrutiny. Then again, it wouldn’t come with millions of dollars to fall back on, either.

Better to make strategic decisions early and plan for the day when something in or out of your control goes wrong.Last week I offered five things grads should know when starting out. I focused on tactical advice, like office norms to learn and academic standards to leave behind.

This week I am looking at the big picture, sharing words of caution to avoid sabotaging future prospects.Working for a household name will impress your high-school buddies at your five-year reunion. But you could stunt your career growth by being a glorified coffee fetcher at a well-known company.“Be company agnostic,” suggests Sadé Muhammad, a former chief marketing officer of Time Inc.

who leads her own agency, Zeven. “Focus on the actual craft and be flexible about how you express that, whether it’s through your own work, a company or even volunteering—that’s how I filled experience gaps when I was younger in my career.”I learned this lesson when I accepted two offers after college: a day job at a tiny newspaper in