Rolonda is a household name from four successful years as host of her own nationally syndicated television show, The Rolonda Show. She is a true personality and journalist-at-heart who gets inside the issue, asks tough questions, and often presents provocative solutions. Her website says this about her: "Rolonda Watts is a friend and confidante with a power behind her voice. If she's saying it, you just know it's something worth talking about." Here are insights she asked us to share with you:

• Making a good first impression: I think that showing up on time, dressing the part and having the right attitude are key. You can have the best grades in the world but if you don't have a good attitude when you walk in the door, it doesn't matter about your grades.

• Your first three months and your probationary period: First of all you have to remember anytime you walk into a new situation people are watching. They want to know how you work out conflict – when things don't go well one day – how do you handle that, can you handle a high amount of pressure. You don't want someone who is going to point a finger and avoid responsibility when pressure is placed on them. They want to know how you get along with people, how you work out conflict at work, because at the end of the day it's the team that makes the bottom line and the team successful.

• Mistakes to avoid as a new hire: Mistakes will happen. What we have to do is to learn from our mistakes. Especially when you're young and getting out of college. You've only been on this earth some 20 years, so there's a lot that you don't know. It's how you handle and recover from those mistakes that make the difference. A lot of time the greatest things in the world come from our mistakes because we promise ourselves we're not going to do that anymore. Focus on the positive things – what did you learn that you can incorporate that would make you better at living.

• Be a standout employee: I always surround myself with people who know more than I do and can bring something to the table that makes me say "wow I didn't think about it that way!" And someone who has the confidence to bring who they are to the table. Everybody around me is totally different, they bring something different to the table and they are proud of what they do and when they shine, I look pretty good.

• My first job and lessons learned: Well, first of all I would say this to students, I had a bunch of internships. I guess it was because I didn't like being at home during the holidays and summer. I wanted to be out of the house and I was always very curious. I had an internship with the Winston Salem Journal. If I didn't learn anything else, I found I loved journalism, but that I didn't want to work for a newspaper. I worked for a radio station and then I went to television. I saved a lot of time because I threw myself into the business, learned the lingo, what I liked and didn't like. In the meantime, I negotiated and exchanged pay for credits and graduated a year early. Because of my internships I had a track record, people knew how I worked, I could get recommendations and had a little experience. These experiences helped me find out what I ultimately wanted to do.