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If you recently landed your first real job after graduation, you’re probably on a high right now. But your challenge is just beginning, because getting that first job is one thing, and thriving at it is quite another.

How can you succeed in your new position? By avoiding first-job traps like these:

Gossip

It’s practically impossible to avoid office gossip, but you don’t have to take part in it. Indeed, becoming a participant is almost guaranteed to backfire on you.

Listen to the office gossip if you must. Just be sure you don’t generate any of it, especially when you’re new on the job.

Political Battles

In practically every organization, there are certain people who don’t get along with each other. In some cases, these damaged relationships go back for years and have become very bitter.

As a new person on the job, it probably won’t take long to figure out who doesn’t like whom. And it likely won’t be much longer before both sides try to recruit you to their camp. If you sense that a couple of people who hate each other are both trying to turn you against their foe, stay out of the war. Simply tell each person, individually, that while you understand he dislikes the other person, you don’t want to be in the middle. In doing so, you’ll clearly signal to both parties that you won’t be conned into choosing one side over the other.

Trying to Revolutionize Your Job

If you bring the head supervisor a list of things that ought to be changed at work two days into your new job, you probably won’t be praised for your initiative. Instead, you’ll be seen as naive and perhaps conceited, because the supervisor will wonder how you can propose significant changes when you’ve worked been with the organization for such a short time.

You’re far better off observing and learning when you begin your job. Yes, offer your ideas from time to time. But your colleagues have worked for months or years under a certain system within a certain culture, and systems and cultures don’t change quickly.

Being a Know-It-All

When you were little, someone probably pulled you aside and said, “Nobody likes a know-it-all.” Heed that advice as you enter the real-world workplace.

You’ve probably learned things in college that people who graduated just a few years ago didn’t learn. And it’s OK to mention those things on the job, but it’s all in the delivery. You need to acknowledge what’s being done, and why, in your new organization. Then make suggestions based on your own learning and experiences.

Isolation

When you’re the new person, it can be difficult to get to know your new colleagues. Often, your instinct is to keep to yourself or wait until someone invites you to lunch or coffee.

But both of those strategies can leave you feeling isolated and seeming unapproachable. So you need to make the first move. If you hear a few people are going to lunch, politely ask if you can join them. If your company is giving away free tickets to next Saturday’s ball game, be sure you get one and attend. Before long, your new colleagues will see you’re making a conscious effort to connect with them, and they’ll respond positively.

Chances are, your success — or lack thereof — in your first job will have little or nothing to do with your technical skills or academic knowledge. Instead, it will probably rest on your people skills and ability to fit into the organizational culture. You earn your new colleagues’ respect by being someone who is willing to learn as well as teach, listen as well as talk and contribute as well as lead.

Although this year’s college graduates are facing a tough job market (and the smart ones are facing it now, rather than waiting until after graduation), they have an advantage over other job seekers, according to Andy Chan, vice president of career development at Wake Forest University: They are among the age group most likely to be hired in coming months.

“Organizations are very interested in hiring young people because they have a lot of energy and are willing to do whatever it takes to get the job done,” Chan says.

But no matter how well-positioned these young people are, they — and all job seekers — will have a better chance of success if they avoid these common job hunting mistakes:

Not Being Proactive Enough

“This isn’t the time to sit back and be casual in your approach,” says Emily Bennington, co-author of Effective Immediately: How to Fit In, Stand Out, and Move Up at Your First Real Job. “Create a hit list of five to 10 target companies, and really utilize your network to locate an ‘in’ at each.”

Relying Solely on the Internet

In a Yahoo! HotJobs poll, 57 percent of respondents said networking was a factor in landing their current or most recent job. Brad Karsh, president of JobBound, says, “When thousands of candidates are applying to the same jobs online and posting their resume to the same job boards, candidates need to stand out by making connections and networking their way into a company.” Job boards are an important tool, but Karsh says new grads also need to focus energy on networking.

Not Creating Wide Networks

Career expert Liz Ryan agrees that your parents’, grandparents’ and friends’ networks can help you in your postgraduation job search. “Don’t be shy — reach out to any long-ago Scoutmaster, choir director, or babysitting or leaf-raking boss,” she says. “There’s no statute of limitations on networking.”

Not Creating Customized Resumes

“Don’t send out any resumes that simply list your courses, the degree you’ve earned, and your part-time and summer jobs,” Ryan says. ”Use this opportunity to make a stronger statement about what you want to do with your adult life.” And according to Jay Block, author of 101 Best Ways to Land a Job in Troubled Times, younger job seekers often haven’t thought about what they have to offer an employer (as opposed to what they want to get from one). With this mindset, they create resumes that are “boring biographies” instead of effective marketing tools.

Misusing the Internet

Tory Johnson, CEO of Women For Hire and author of Fired to Hired, says, “New grads don’t use LinkedIn — it’s not sexy like Facebook or Twitter — but it’s the best resource for getting names and building a professional identity. Don’t overlook it.”

Failing to Follow Up

It’s not enough to send resumes and pray the phone rings, Johnson says. She cautions job seekers not to expect their resumes to be discovered in that big black online hole. “Hustle to follow up,” she says.

Setting Expectations Too High

Johnson says new graduates too often focus on looking for the perfect job, instead of a first job. “Especially in this economy, the first job should be about finding a position where you’ll learn a great deal, you’ll be super busy and you’ll be surrounded by lots of people,” she says.

Appearing Unprofessional

Make sure you’re ready for employers’ scrutiny, says Tim McIntyre, president and CEO of The Executive Search Group. That means you should “sanitize your MySpace page — right now. It will be checked,” he says. He notes that many college students will need to change off-color voicemail greetings. Ryan adds, “Don’t assume that Facebook’s privacy settings will keep your youthful antics away from curious eyes. Rid your profile page of any photos of the ‘three Bs’ (beer, bongs and bikinis).”

Not Taking the Job Interview Seriously

Even when you’re applying for an unpaid internship, you need to adhere to common standards of professionalism. McIntyre says those standards include demonstrating you’ve researched the company and dressing appropriately. Block adds that new grads are often unprepared for tough but common interview questions, such as “Where do you see yourself in three years?” and “What are your weaknesses?”

Not Using the College’s Career Office

“A career office can help [students] identify networking contacts, learn important job search skills, and significantly improve their resume and cover letter,” says Wake Forest University’s Chan. Ryan agrees, but adds that this is just a first step. The career office’s job is to “to prepare you for your job search, not to conduct it for you,” she says. “Use LinkedIn, reach out to everyone you can and begin researching employers who’d be likely targets for your job search.”

Job seekers have had the same list of critical skills to brush up on or acquire for decades — things like careful follow-up, attention to grammar and punctuation, and great listening abilities. But today’s overcrowded job market and the ever-shrinking attention spans of hiring managers are creating brand-new job search requirements.

Here are five new must-have skills for job seekers today:

Pain Spotting

It used to be that you could apply to a job and parrot the requirements listed in the job ad. But simply saying, “You want organizational and communication skills? I’ve got ‘em!” won’t cut it anymore. Every job seeker says the exact same thing in his cover letter. These days, you’ve got to do more. You’ve got to figure out — by reading the job ad and researching the employer — what sort of business pain lurks behind the job opening.

What are your choices? There’s growth-related pain, and there’s consolidation-related pain. There’s pain associated with customers fleeing, with competitors outsourcing the work and cutting costs, and with a shortage of talent in an industry. When you know or can guess at the pain behind the job ad, you have something of substance to say to a hiring manager. Until then, you’re just another banana in a very crowded bunch.

Storytelling

“I have a strong work ethic and get along with all kinds of people” is about as compelling as “I had cereal for breakfast” — but, worse, it’s not even believable. Anyone can claim these characteristics, and nearly everyone does. To get a hiring manager’s attention, tell a brief and powerful story that demonstrates what you get done when you work: “When our big Q4 product release was delayed a month, I put together an outbound-calling campaign that kept our accounts from bailing and got us $450,000 in preorders” will let a hiring manager know some of the good things that happen when you showed up, saw and conquered.

Using a Human Voice

The old “results-oriented professional with a bottom-line orientation” style of resume is as out of date as high-fructose corn syrup. A human voice in your resume and your other outreach to employers will separate you from the boilerplate-spouting legions of typical job seekers. Replace tired corporate-speak like “Met or exceeded expectations” with a concrete, visual bullet point like “I sold our sales VP on a matrix territory structure that boosted sales 14 percent.” Don’t be afraid of the word “I” in your resume, or of using vernacular. Real people — such as your next boss — use slang every day.

Showing Relevance

The typical job seeker has a one-size-fits-all resume that gets pressed into service whether the open position is for a purchasing coordinator, a marketing assistant or a human resources analyst. That’s no good. Your background won’t be relevant to the hiring manager unless you highlight the accomplishments from each past job that have the most in common with the role you’re pursuing. For a purchasing job, spell out your negotiating milestones. For the marketing role, tell the reader how you created or maintained a database and about your writing and creative skills. For the HR opportunity, describe the times when you untangled thorny human problems. Rewrite your resume as often as necessary to make sure your most relevant stories come to the fore.

Knowing Your Value

No one will pay you more than you think you’re worth, so know your value before you begin an active job search. Monster’s Salary Wizard is a great salary research tool to start with. Know what you’re worth so you don’t get lowballed in the hiring process. If you and an employer have wildly different ideas about what your background is worth, keep looking. Even in a tough economy — maybe even because of if — your ability to solve expensive employer problems is worth a lot more than peanuts. Arm yourself with information, and then get out there and tell your story.