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Do your research
Having transitioned into many new roles before, I know the feeling. It’s nerve-wracking. It’s almost like the first week of school where you’re wondering, will I know anyone? Will anyone like me? What do I say? How are people seeing me?
Well, to alleviate some of that stress, what you can do is do some research before your first day. Go on to the company website and take a look at who’s who, what they’ve posted about recently, what news articles have cited this organization so you have a general sense of what this organization does, where it’s going, what its priorities are and that give you a good sense of what environment you’re even stepping into.
The next step is to do some background research on your future coworkers. So go online, go on social media and take a look at the profiles of your new colleagues. Where do they go to school? What prior work experiences have they had? How long have they worked in this organization? What commonalities might you have with this individual? Did you go to the same school, grew up in the same hometown, have the same interests? This can all arm you with talking points on your first day that can make breaking the ice all that much more easy.
Build relationships early
I remember when I was first starting out, I had five, 10, sometimes 20 people reach out to me and say, “Gorick, we’re so excited to meet you. Let me know if you have any questions.” At which point, I thought I just asked a boatload of questions in my interview. I don’t have any more questions. Leave me alone.
And I’ve heard this from so many people starting in their new jobs, they’re fatigued just from the interview process. So they want to take it easy before their first day. And yes, it’s important to take it easy, but one of the things that turns out to be a hidden opportunity in the workplace is that whenever someone reaches out to you, that’s actually an opportunity for you to say, I’d love to get to know you better and learn about what you’re working on and how I might be able to help. Might you have some time in the coming days to hop on a video call.
These are hidden opportunities to build these relationships early on before you even start in a new role. And once you’re in those calls, a habit to build is to end every conversation with, is there anyone else you’d suggest I speak to? To which people will often say, “Oh yeah, you should totally speak to this person, this person, and this person. Let me go ahead and introduce you now.” So what you just did there is turn one conversation into three, into five, into 10. And before you know it, you’ll have familiar faces all around the table. So speaking up at work becomes less nerve-wracking.
Be ready to volunteer
Show up being ready to volunteer. So I’ve met many professionals who show up on their first day and don’t even know who their manager is because they haven’t been assigned one, or their coworkers are so busy that they don’t even know that this is a new hire’s first day. And some people will sit there and wait around and assume that someone else will pick them up at the bus stop. Others will proactively go up to their coworkers and say, “Hi, I’m so and so. I’m new here. Nice to meet you. I’d love to pitch in at some point. Looking forward to staying in touch.” There’ll also be some people who will go above and beyond and say, “Oh, I have an extra pair of hands right now. I haven’t yet taken on any formal projects. Is there any way that I can help?”
And this speaks to showing up like a high performer where, when in doubt, ask one, how can I help? Two, is there anything I can do to help? Or three, I noticed this. Would it be helpful if I did X? Saying one or more of these three statements can make a big difference for how others see you when you’re new.
Ask follow up questions
In the workplace, the question that you’ll get for the rest of your career is the question of, do you have any questions? You’ll encounter it in the interview process. At the end of every interview, you can be sure, a hundred percent, that someone will ask, do you have a question? To which the right answer is: Yes. When you’re new to a team, what’s going through your coworker’s minds is you don’t know very much or you shouldn’t know very much.
So your hidden expectation is that you will follow along in meetings, take notes and pulling me aside after the meeting to ask me anything that you may find unclear. If you don’t, people will start wondering, “Were you staying awake in that meeting? Or do you care enough about this to want to learn more? Because I know you shouldn’t know very much about this. Why are you not asking any questions right now?” So, asking questions is important because it shows that you’re engaged. It shows that you’re paying attention. It shows that you want to learn and that you want to help.