Corporate Survivor with Mei Phing : Career Growth In The Corporate World - Ep161: 7 tips for starting a new job.

Episode Date: January 13, 2023

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Welcome to the Corporate Survivor Podcast, where we talk about how to grow your career confidence, build your skills and value, increase your salary, and the many lessons we learn in the corporate world. For more career support, click on over to www.mayping.com. This is Mayping, your corporate leader turned career coach. I hope you enjoy, like and subscribe. Hey, welcome back to the Corporate Survivor Podcast. In this episode, I want to share with you the seven things that you need to do if you are starting a new job, whether it's a new role in the new company or a new industry.

These are the seven things that you need to do to make sure that you can adapt in your new role as soon as possible and avoid the mistakes as much as possible. So if you're starting a new role or struggling to adapt to your current role, let's dive in. Okay, the first thing that you need to do when starting with a new team is to find out the names of all your colleagues in your team and make sure that you remember them. Yes, a job is a job. I get it. But a job is also about people. A team is also about people. So the more effort that you make at the beginning of starting a new role to really try to get to know your colleagues, your team, your bosses, by at a

minimum remembering their name, that is something that will be much appreciated. Because let's be honest, we enjoy working with people that we get along with. So as early as possible, when you can build that working relationship, a positive working relationship, then you should really focus on that. So personally for me, when I first started in a new role, especially when I was a lot younger, I realized that I have this habit of just starting a new role, sitting at my desk and, you know, looking at all these paperwork. This is a pretty bad idea because I need support from my colleagues to do well, right? I need support from seniors or my supervisors. So, you know, it was a lesson that I gradually learned. And later on, when I started new roles, I always make sure that I focus at least the first 30 days to make sure that I 100% remember

every single person that is pretty much sitting next to me and the people who I will be working with. And if you're someone who find it very difficult to remember names, then make it a top priority because this is a benefit that will pay you a lot of dividends as you continue on in that role and in that particular company. Now, moving on to the second thing that you need to do in your new job in the first 30 days is to schedule a one-on-one catch-up session with your boss.

Okay, here's why it's so important. You have just got the job, just starting a new job. That's great, right? That's great for your career ambitions, your career goal and career growth. However, what's also very important is to make sure you understand

the expectations that your new boss has for you. Not what you think your new boss wants, but what your boss actually expects of you. Because one of the biggest problems I see in a lot of 9-5 corporate professionals in my community and new students who join my program, The Corporate Survivor, is that they tell me that they go in too positive, assuming that everything will be perfect. And then three to six months later, down the road, they realize that they are not delivering what their boss expects. And it's something very demotivating and it will maybe force you to feel very overwhelmed and frustrated. So make sure that you sit down with your boss to confirm exactly what is expected of you so that you can focus your energy, time, effort in this new role to give it your 100%

for success. And sharing a personal story, usually, or at least in the earlier days of my career, when I start a new role, I tend to focus on a lot of the paperwork. And, you know, even though there's a probation period that is maybe three months or six months, I would just wait until it gets closer to the probation period and then to wait for the updates from my boss or whether I'm doing a good job or not. But what I noticed,

and it's really not the most helpful thing, is as it gets closer to the probation, I feel very uncertain whether I'm doing the right thing or wrong thing. I think that kind of uncertainty is not the most helpful. And thankfully, I did do well. But I think what I could have done better is at the beginning, actually aligning expectations with my boss so that I feel a lot more confident in the new role, adapting to the new responsibilities and getting feedback along the way. And that's why I recommend you to do the same thing. Now on to the third thing that you need to do when

joining a new company within the first 30 days is to ask and get access to the key policies, procedures and guidelines that your team or your department uses as the standard. Now this is something that I think a lot of people miss out on because when I talk to my community and my new clients, you know, in my program, the Corporate Survivor, what they tend to do is immediately diving into the role, being very enthusiastic, starting to ask for more responsibility, starting to do something because they think that that's what they're supposed to do. Okay, so that's good, right? Learning on the job is good, but what's actually missing is you don't really know what is the quote-unquote standard. So what is expected? What exactly is the company step-by-step? You don't know that, right? Because you're just doing based on whatever that you think is right.

You're probably looking at a bunch of papers that you have no idea what it means. You're trying to do some checks, but you also don't know what it means as well. The reason is because you have not gone through the key policies and procedures. So this is something that I would highly recommend for you to do, which is to get access to the standards and make sure that you are familiarizing yourself so that you are also setting up yourself for success because you are focusing on the right thing, checking the right thing, assessing the right thing, and of course, communicating on the right thing because you are familiar with the policies and procedures and therefore it gives you a much deeper understanding of how the company actually works which will then help you do a much better job in this new company. Moving on to the fourth thing that you need to focus on in the first

30 days of your new job is to learn how to do your job the right way. And when I say the right way, I mean the right step by step in the right expectation that you have already gotten from your boss. Remember what I told you in the earlier point, aligning expectations. So step four is to make sure that you are learning exactly how to execute, implement and do a job well done. This is a very big mistake that I see in many corporate professionals, particularly fresher graduates or younger professionals. And why I say it's a problem is because when you are younger or maybe you have less experience in the working world, what you definitely have is enthusiasm. And enthusiasm is great, right? But

the moment you start the job, then what is really, really important is that you are delivering the work that you are hired to do. And that means that you need to learn how to be efficient, but also be very effective to make sure that you are delivering the performance goals, the key performance indicators, and exactly the task that is expected of you. So this is the perfect time for you to focus on how to do something correctly versus trying to give some brilliant ideas and so forth down. There is time for that but usually at the beginning, especially in the first 30 days, you need to learn exactly how to do a job well done

because if you cannot deliver a job well done, then doesn't matter what brilliant ideas that you have. Usually, you will not gain the trust to be given new opportunities in the future. So make sure that you are someone who is actually focused on wanting to do the right thing and wanting to focus on quality and wanting to deliver high quality work. And this is a really, really good way to develop trust with your new team members in your new role and your new company. The fifth thing that you should do in every new job is to ask questions and preferably as many questions as possible in the first 30 days. Why this is so so helpful is that when you are new, people tend to be more

patient with you, they tend to want to offer you more guidance and they tend to want to give you more support because you are new, right? So it is the team's responsibility and your new boss's responsibility to help you adapt. So therefore, there are no stupid questions, particularly if you're starting a new role. If you're not sure, please do ask. And this, you know, from a personal story as well, I am a very shy person. I'm a very introverted person. So in the earlier part of my career, when I joined a new company, I'm a very introverted person. So in the earlier part of my career, when I joined a new company, I usually feel very shy to ask questions. But I find that, you know, after the first month

or second month, when you ask, you know, quote unquote, basic questions after the probation period, you know, so to speak, then usually you don't really get as much support or as much response because you have been with the company for some time, which I have, right? So that's why nowadays I would recommend to you and to all students in my career across the corporate survivor is to make sure that you utilize this magic period, this golden hour or rather golden 30 days to ask the questions to help you better understand your role as well as your team's expectation as well as your company's expectation. However, just a particular warning point is please be resourceful before asking. Yes, there are no stupid questions, correct, but you will be judged by the quality of questions that you ask, meaning that if you ask a poor quality

question, then you might be judged for that in terms of like attitude and resourcefulness. And if you ask a more well-researched questions based on the readings that you have done and your understanding of the company and your ability to absorb information then usually that is much more appreciated by your team and therefore they will be more keen to help you so please don't be an ask-hole and if you're still here with me in this podcast at this point, then I wanted to let you know that the first five tips I told you are very strategic and very tactical. These are very specific things that I would recommend that you do in the first 30 days of your new job. However,

I will also say, sometimes it's not just what exactly that you need to do. What is also very important is to make sure that you have the right mindset going in into the new role. So now I want to share point six and seven, which are more mindset related. So lesson number six is a reminder to not be too hard on yourself because guess what? You've just landed a new job. Congratulations. It's something that you should really be part of. You did really well. You pursued the opportunity.

You convinced the hiring manager to hire you. Perfect. But here's a reminder to stay calm and to not want to rush success. Stay calm, right? Now is the perfect time for you to focus on the key responsibilities that you have just gotten, right? It's a new role, it's a new company. focus on the key responsibilities so that you can do a job well done. So instead of thinking of your salary and your job title and all those things, okay, that's done already because when you sign the job offer, you have already gotten all of those things. So instead of focusing on those things, what I want you to do is to focus on the here and now. And what that means is focus on exactly what your new role requires of you, what are your new performance goals,

and really building relationships internally and enhancing your soft skills to be able to deliver a job well done. So now you need to focus on exactly what you're hired to do because once you nail that, then growth opportunities will come. This is exactly what I told one of my students in this month's group mentoring session. So if you're enrolled in the Corporate Survivor, which is my career training and mentoring course for corporate professionals just like you, you will get six months free access to live group mentoring sessions. And as a student in my course, you will have the opportunity to submit a question

for an upcoming group mentoring call where I can go deep dive into more personalized guidance and advice that can really support all the students in the program. So this was a struggle that one of my students encountered because she had just started her new job the first seven days and she told me this exact same thing. So what I told her is really look into the mindset that you are taking on and I also recommended her to look into one of the bonus lessons that I have, which is the mindset shift that you need to take at every career level from a fresh graduate all the way to C-suite CEO. So this is something that you want to continuously work on, which is to focus on the right thing that is right in accordance to your career level so that you can continue to climb the career ladder with confidence. And on to lesson seven, which is again a reminder that

be patient. Success takes time because at every career level, it requires a new version of you, both mindset as well as skill set. And the problem that I see in the era of social media nowadays with TikTok, Instagram and so many other things is younger professionals want instant results, want instant gratification, want immediate success. But the reality is that it takes time to build foundation, technical skills, industry knowledge, soft skills, transferable skills, people skills. All these are things that takes time to build. It's not something that you can perfect immediately. So I want you to see every new job opportunity, every new career opportunity as a chance for you to continue enhancing those really important skills that you can increase your overall value of what you can bring to any new role, any new company, any new industry.

Because this is really the thing that will allow you to increase your income and give you more opportunities in the future. So my reminder for you here is to make sure that you focus on the right thing and not necessarily on wanting to do everything really fast. So these are the top seven things that I want you to focus on in the first 30 days of your new job. And just to let you know, this is part of the 30, 60 and 90 day plan when starting a new role that I teach in module one, Corporate Culture and Structure, as part of my career program, The Corporate Survivor. So if you want to learn more and go

in-depth with me, then check out The Corporate Survivor. It is my career training and mentoring program for corporate professionals just like you to grow your career confidence and competence so that you can be successful at any job, in any role, in any industry. You can find the information in the description section below. And if you have listened to this point of today's podcast that I want to hear from you, what is your favorite lesson? Drop a comment or drop me a DM on LinkedIn and Instagram and let me know. And if you have enjoyed the Corporate Survivors podcast, don't forget to follow and subscribe. And I have multiple playlists to help you grow your career in the corporate world. Till then, I'll see you in the next episode. Bye!