After you’ve accepted a job offer (yay!) and negotiated your salary, it’s time to start your job! Hopefully the first day or two will be dedicated to training and onboarding, but what about after that?
It reminds me a little of the second week of school except that, in a job, you may be the only person learning to navigate things. And you probably don’t have a cool new lunchbox.
So here’s a handy guide to get you started.
Month 1: Listen and absorb. Obviously you’ll be starting the actual tasks of your role too, but approach things with open curiosity. Ask questions, learn who the experts are, and observe how people are interacting with each other. You might even find it helpful to put together some notes about people so you can keep track. Note things like each person’s explicit function (usually their job title), their actual areas of expertise or leadership, important life events, things you have in common with them, and so forth. All that stuff serves to let you be the thoughtful newbie who checks in to make sure Bill’s cat’s surgery went well.
You can also spend part of this first month asking people out for coffee. (In fact, keep doing this because it’s a great way to foster communication and build trust.) You can start to see things more clearly as you get to know people better, which will let you start to see where teams excel and what their blind spots might be. It’s also just nice to know who your coworkers are!
Month 2: Get really clear on priorities and responsibilities. How is your success being measured? How about your team as a whole? How do those achievements fit into the larger goals of the organization? What are your early wins? (Keep a record of these! It’s great to have at your fingertips when you want a raise or a promotion.)
During this second month, you can also start getting a really clear understanding of how communications work (or don’t) on the team. How do people really like to have information conveyed? Who are the talkers and who are the quiet ones? This is mostly so you can figure out how you fit into this communications matrix, but it doesn’t hurt if you notice that Debbie really needs someone to tell her things in person, but Briony likes to be emailed.
Month 3: Own your genius! Now that you understand the basics, you get to really start demonstrating your mastery and areas of expertise. Think about changes you’d like to help shape and goals you want to help meet. You can work the existing systems and tools to your advantage so you’re more organized and focused on your tasks.
And you can start what the projects are that could really benefit from your skills. If you think of yourself as a thought leader, what are those areas of leadership? If you’ve never imagined yourself that way before, what are the things people have consistently relied on you for, or even complimented you on? You can be an independent contributor and still be a thought leader, so take some time to ponder your strengths!
