Having to start at an entry level position can seem frustrating. No one likes the idea of being the lowest man on the totem pole, but sometimes it is the best place to be. Being new to a job or a career comes with substantial benefits- both to you and your employer.
Perhaps the biggest benefit is that we all begin as relatively blank slates, ready to be filled by whatever we and our employers decide. For your employer this is fantastic, as they can teach you how to do things as they want them done. They do not need to break you down in order to build you up the way they want to, they can just build you up. They get to feel like they can mold you however they want to.
However, you still have a substantial amount of say in how you are molded. An entry level position is the perfect place to start figuring out and embodying your personal brand. This is where you get to see what qualities you naturally exhibit in a work environment, and get to work on the ones that you want to exhibit.
Which brings me to the next benefit- the education. The amount you can learn from an entry level position is seemingly limitless. Aside from learning how to do your job (which is not nothing), you get to learn how the field works, what office politics really look like, and how the successful people behave. That last one is perhaps the most important. When you think about how you want to brand yourself for your career, you usually want to emulate successful people.
An entry level position is the perfect place to do this because you are not only able, but are encouraged, to ask questions. If you see someone who moves through the office the way you want to, you are more than welcome to ask them how they do it. Being fresh makes everyone want to teach you, and if you take full advantage of that you will learn exactly how to be seen the way you want to be seen.
The other great thing about being entry level is that no one blames you for failures, but they still appreciate when you succeed. If a mid-level executive starts a project and you are dynamite, and part of the reason it succeeds- they will remember. However, if the project fails, they will get the blame- not you. So you get to learn from success and failure, without having to shoulder the burden of either alone.
Entry level positions are not always shiny or exciting, but they are where we start, and really there is nowhere better to start. The amount you can learn from others, from yourself, and from the job itself is huge. If you go into your entry level position with the intention to learn instead of the intention to make a huge amount of money, you will be quite pleased with how much you earn. Remember that we all start somewhere, so why not start at the entry?