Five Business Apps for New Grads

Modern mobile phones do more than make calls. They’ve quickly become essential to businesses as methods of communicating, storing data, surfing the web, and completing various tasks. With more apps being released every day, it’s hard to keep track of all of them.

Fortunately, new grads have an advantage over many other people in the workplace: They’re younger and more familiar with technology. If you’ve just graduated and are looking to enter the business world, make sure to familiarize yourself with these five business apps that businesses can’t live without.

• Trip Cubby. If you have to travel for work, you should be tracking your mileage. Even if it’s not a company expense, you can still claim it on your taxes. Get in the habit of tracking your driving by using the Trip Cubby app, which logs trip data for multiple vehicles. You can even export reports to email to yourself or your boss to provide a neat list of where you’ve been.
• Dropbox. Many students are already familiar with this, but if you’re not using it already, you should be. Dropbox enables you to save documents to a cloud host, which lets you access them from anywhere using the mobile app. You’ll never have to worry about losing reports or files in a hard drive crash again, and you can show information to anyone, anywhere when it’s remote-hosted through Dropbox.
• mbPointer. Students are often well-versed in delivering PowerPoint presentations, and this is a skill that will serve new grads well in the business world where meetings and presentations are a necessary part of the job. This helpful app converts your smart phone into PowerPoint remote and mouse pointer no matter what computer you’re using for the presentation.
• HoursTracker. If you work a regular nine-to-five job, you don’t need to worry about tracking your hours. If you’re in a freelancing field, however, this app can help you maintain records on when you’re working. You punch in and out on the phone the same as you would click into work with a time card, and the app produces a time sheet that can help you build an invoice when billing clients.
• Evernote. This app is the ultimate evolution of a sticky note. You can use it to collect and store notes, images, videos and sound clips, and all of your information is kept in a secure cloud server for easy access. Evernote is particularly popular among creative professions, but grads entering any kind of job can utilize this sleek and useful method of organizing ideas.

Mastering new technology is just one way to make yourself stand out in the workforce. By staying ahead of the curve, you can make a long-lasting impression on employers and improve your productivity. Even better, apps make your life easier, so you can learn to work smarter, not harder, by utilizing this technology.

Image credit: Yutaka Tsutano.