# Being a New Grad Here is a Service to Yourself

[Kevina Wang, Docs Operations & Social Product](https://www.clipboardworks.com/resources/blog/author/kevina-wang)

December 10, 2025 5 min read

While recruiting at Clipboard last year — if you’re going through recruiting here now, or considering starting — I was (also) in the weeds of the internet digging for what working at the company is like, and uncovered how lengthy our recruitment process can feel. Joining your first job is already nerve-wracking. Exciting, thrilling, yes, but if I’m being perfectly honest, _nerve-wracking_. During any recruitment, there are already swimming questions of

“Is this the right fit for me?”,

“Am I locking myself into a path I don’t want to go down?”,

And here at Clipboard, the reigning thought of “I’m scared to invest so much energy just for nothing to come out of it.”

I thought this too. But three months into working here, I’ve realized the length of the case is actually a tool working in your favor as a candidate — it’s the most accurate, intimate preview of what you’ll end up doing here, and whether you’ll love — or hate — what you spend most of your weekdays doing. **The case has turned out to be a near 1:1 mapping of what working at Clipboard is like.** I _urge_ you to leverage it, because frankly, Clipboard or not, it’d be a disservice to yourself to optimize saving a month during recruiting at the cost of years in a culture that you don’t love.

One counterargument here is “I already know what I like to do: [fill in the blank: working with data, talking to people, etc.].” However, it’s starkly different to theorize versus work through the actual line of thinking that constitutes your everyday here; the latter provides you with an honest, indisputable understanding of whether this is what you want, and the former gives you a best guess. And let’s be honest, if you’re applying to Clipboard, you’re someone who cares about what you’re spending your career, time, and energy on.

So do the case, and do it well (See our talent team’s take on case studies [here](https://www.clipboardworks.com/resources/blog/how-we-hire-at-clipboard), and more posts on our culture [on our blog](https://www.clipboardworks.com/resources/blog), we like to write), as a service to your future self.

## Working at Clipboard as a New Grad: How the case has been a 1:1 mapping in practice

**Day One in a Nutshell**

The case indexes on if you _like_ and if you show _potential_ in four buckets:

> 1. Talking to customers  
> 2. Making sense of data  
> 3. Producing quality written reports as deliverables  
> 4. Being granted autonomy to solve open-ended problems

On my first day here, I was tasked with 1) calling 10 customers (bucket 1), 2) digging through our databases and tickets pertaining to my team (bucket 2), and by the end of the week, producing a written 3) week one learnings report (bucket 3).

**Autonomy at Clipboard: You’ll be trusted more than you expect**

Regarding bucket 4 (making judgment calls on what to prioritize), my team rightfully did not give me full autonomy on day one. I did not know what I was doing and felt like a lost puppy, and I wouldn’t wish my decision-making on anyone. But three months in, I’m leading the optimization and automation of the processes I was introduced to on day one. Within my first three weeks, I evaluated whether we should invest in a six-figure purchase of a vendor and ultimately helped close the deal. I am now building one of the Operations team’s first AI-enabled workflows to reduce long-term costs and deliver a better customer experience for our users, all of which are opportunities I didn’t think I would be trusted with for far longer.

**What Excites You Matters Here**

At a company dinner, two months in, the CEO asked about my past projects in mental health and social connectedness. He was genuinely curious about interests that, on paper, had nothing to do with my role, and remembered details I’d mentioned in passing weeks before. I expected the conversation to end there. It didn’t.

Three weeks later, I deployed an experiment to cultivate community among Clipboard workers and shipped a v0 of a TikTok-like workplace reviews feature to encourage workers to share honest insights with one another. When management sees what energizes you, they actively carve out room for you to take ownership of it. My sample size is limited, but I’m willing to bet that few companies grant new grads the level of autonomy that Clipboard does, and inevitably, with that, the opportunity to give it your best shot, make mistakes, try again, do better the second time around, and grow as a result. That is the Clipboard new grad experience.

**I can’t tell you if Clipboard is right for you, but the case can.** Give it your full effort, feel it out, and trust your gut. If you love it and find yourself here, your first day will be terrifying, three months in, you’ll still have nerves, but they’ll be the nerves that mean you’re growing and making an impact faster than you thought was possible.

Kevina