We have worked with 1000’s of leaders to help them start their new roles across all kinds of industries and functions. Your Valiant team is here to help you accelerate and win.
Starting a new job can be exciting but often very stressful, and it is even more unnerving if you are starting a new job at a new company. A well-run interview and hiring process will help set expectations. But it is still impossible for the hiring process to reveal all the details and the reality of what the work will feel like daily.
New vocabulary, people, processes, and required results can create significant problems if not planned well. Studies done by organizational health companies show that the first year will unfold with surprises, and if these surprises prove to be negative, they can derail your career.
It is not unusual for the hiring leader to change their opinion of the new hire if the first 30-60 days go poorly. It is also not uncommon for the new hire to devolve into stress-induced behaviors that don’t showcase their best abilities.
Once you have completed the hiring process and are accepting a new role, your Career Consultant and Market Agent will work with your designated personal Growth Coach to help you build your personal acceleration plan in the new role. Your Growth Coach is here to guide and inspire your plan to succeed in the new role and throughout your development. You will have a Growth Coaching session that will cover the best practices for leaders to perform and continue to develop in this critical moment.
There are three things you and your Growth Coach will focus on to ensure success.
First, build trust and relationships with key stakeholders.
Your leadership, the customers you serve, and your peers immensely impact your success. No matter who you meet with, prepare well. Ask great questions about what success looks like. Listen much more than you speak. Be able to tell your professional story succinctly. But make sure to include your values, purpose, and why your purpose led you to this role. Immediately open the relationship as a channel of continuous feedback and improvement.
Collaborate with those leading you to set clear expectations along milestone stages of your first year – 30, 90, 180, and 365-day windows. Open this channel and set your expectations humbly and focus on specific results.
Be ready to start any engagement with your customers humbly to serve their needs and listen for ideas to improve results.
Peers are part of your success, whether you work together for the same department or cross-functionally. Your peers will allow you to see new perspectives. A great goal is to find a trusted ally who can help you see the invisible “clotheslines” that often hang people up at the company.
Secondly, secure early wins based on your direct leader expectations.
Focus on delivering early successes related to the reason they hired you. Meaningful early wins are hard to come by and may require extra effort to ensure you understand the company’s vocabulary, processes, systems, and methods. In the first year of dealing with serious change and stress, humility and a positive mindset are critical.
From your interview, in pre-hire discussions with your direct leader, and through the first few days of orientation, you should ask questions to perceive your highest impact early wins. Focus on why you were hired – What are the strengths that made them hire you and what was the business need to solve?
In humility, determine the areas of development you need to improve and grow in new ways. What are the technical areas you need to improve to perform well in this new environment? What areas of leadership do you need to develop or adjust to meet the team and culture? Declare these early and work with your Growth Coach and Direct Leader to support your development.
Seek out opportunities specific to your team or customers. Ask great questions about what is going well and what isn’t going well. Listen to the team and serve them better and more thoroughly than they expect. Collaborating with others is vital, so you do not appear rogue or self-seeking. Focus on outcomes that matter for the greater good.
Then, consider what success looks like a year or more from your start.
When starting a challenging journey, it is important to have a picture of success in mind. Start with a year from now, what does success look like for you? You can update this in CareerTruth and work with your Growth Coach to guide you.
After establishing the proper relationships and succeeding with highly collaborative wins, you should understand the culture and how the company you work for impacts its industry and markets. This will give you a broader vision for your career trajectory.
What does success look like for your team a year from now?
Look for key stakeholders beyond your immediate department or boss to network with about company strategy, the competition in the market, the risks or threats to the company, and long-term opportunities. Prepare by thoroughly researching the person you are meeting and the company topics you want to discuss.
What does success look like for the company a year from now?
Ask your direct leader and potentially their leader to provide feedback and areas of development you should improve to maximize your career in a 180-365 review. Add these elements to your career plan and follow up proactively – show your willingness to take feedback and grow intentionally to meet your career purpose you developed in CareerTruth with Valiant.
Throughout your first year of a new job, there are signals about how you are progressing. If you are not getting specific results, look for the following habits:
- You are talking or explaining yourself more than listening.
- You are spending more time in conflict than seeing the real culture.
For your best outcomes in a new situation, we recommend you maintain a relationship with a Growth Coach who has your best career development interests in mind. However, you are likely doing quite well if you are building trusting relationships, feeling an expansion of responsibilities, or the results are coming faster than expected.
Stay self aware as things change. You values, purpose and vision of success need to stay in alignment as you make decisions and sort through struggles. You need to continue to collect your STAR experiences and update your Leadership Tree as you have more impact. Most importantly, you need to hold yourself accountable to continuously develop in a world that never stops changing or requiring change.