Great question! I graduated during the recession and then also experienced a layoff early on in my career. A solid piece of advice given to me by a friend was not to be afraid to highlight my freelance or extra creative work on my resume. Just because it is not your full time role doesn't mean it's not important.

Once I included all of my work in my portfolio—freelance, volunteer, or full time—I saw an uptick in job interviews and I firmly believe that this helped me land a new job.

Related to this, don't be afraid to network on whatever platform your industry is active in. As a content strategist who writes on the side, I connected with many of the editors I have since freelanced for through Twitter back in the day. In fact, one of these editors gave me another great piece of career advice: always check the front page of the website and competitive sites/publications for wherever you are interviewing on the morning of your interview. It seems common sense, but it's pretty critical to know what the latest news and company priorities are.

There is something to be learned from everyone - even a person whose position is wildly different from yours.

The Customer may not always be right ... but the Customer is always the Customer.

The best advice I ever got was to never stay in my comfort zone for too long.
This advice has helped me be more brave when deciding which user stories to work on during implementation projects, since even though I might be proficient in some areas of the business, I try to always pick tasks that are new for me in order to grow into a better and more well-rounded System Architect :) 

 P/PC Principle which I learned from Stephen Covey (Author of The 7 habits of highly effective people.

Job-Career balance.

Don't just stuck in producing with what you know, INVEST DAILY to improve your production capability by learning and practicing new concepts, tools, debugging methods and attitudes. (Don't forget to include Yoga in this list :)) 

In other words, give more attention to not urgent but important tasks otherwise one day they will become urgent and important and you may end up doing and living with workarounds.

Best advice I got https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uq9dcWO8TvY

I did graduate from a different career (Telecommunications Engneer) and due to the high violence in my country (I did lost many friends) I couldn't continue with my previous job because it required to work on many remote dangerous locations so I decided to take some courses and follow tutorials in youtube in order to learn more about programming, then I could jump into PEGA and now I think I'm in my best time :)

I know it is a sad story but you cannot just give up, there's always room to create oportunities.

"Have you seen a man skillful at his work? He will stand before kings. "

I got good advice in my teens, based on this ancient Oriental proverb, not to be focused on simply getting a 'higher' education, but to educate myself with a goal.  'Become a person with skill, and look at learning as a lifetime activity,' I was told.  I took it to heart, and learned the basics of data processing.  Then at each job, within each relationship, I sought to learn and add to my skillset.  It became a pattern of life for me.  This advice has enriched my life in many ways.

Learning to Dance in the Rain

It simply means that one has learned to not allow anything to deter them from reaching their full potential. They don't just wait for bad things in their life to go away, instead, they have a positive attitude and take challenges head on and enjoy the journey.

There are several amazing answers that I read above and here is my take:

The biggest learning curve I have had is to observe and learn how my immediate bosses react and work to  business situations. However, here are the top two that I have been told directly:

First one - Business is personal.

I completely believe in this. You could be a great Architect/solution developer etc. but until you add your personality, which could be understanding the problem, your perspective  or just how interact with everyone actually matters. This is exactly what will make you stand out (in the right way, of course or at least you would learn what is not going right for you and why at the workplace)So, business is personal.

Second one - While solution-driven mindset, do not forget "what actually is the problem and are you addressing the right problem".

While being in the solution mode, we often jump at conclusions and are so driven to look at the end goal, that is easy to drift and probably just not address the right problem. This is so important, to be first sure of what is the problem and if you are really addressing the right one!

Let me know what you guys think about this.

Cheers - Ankita