During the past few days, my younger daughter and her significant other have been staying with my wife and me as they prepare for their next adventures. This coming Saturday, the two of them will embark on a cross-country drive to begin new jobs on the West Coast. Both of their jobs are in technology sales. Her boyfriend graduated from college in May and accepted a job with the Fortune 50 company that he interned with last summer. His job will be primarily in the office, with the option to work remotely on occasion, if he would like. On the other hand, my daughter recently left another Fortune 50 because she was not happy for a number of reasons. She is excited to start working for a smaller, but rapidly growing company. While her job is primarily remote, she is able to work in the office at times, since her company has an office in their new home city.
Since both have lived in Georgia for most of their lives, it’s quite a new adventure to move across the country. However, the stakes are also high. So, I was wondering how well they are prepared to start their new jobs and how much they have thought about what they should be doing as they begin those jobs to increase their chances of success. Since they are both very mature (you can assume that in my daughter’s case, that comes from my wife), I should have known that they had put much thought into what they planned to do, to ensure that their new adventure started with a great beginning. So, in this column, I would like to share with you what they told me that they each planned to do as they started their new positions. I would also like to share with you the advice I gave them based on my experience. While both are very early in their careers, I think their ideas and mine can help you whenever you begin a new job, no matter what stage of your career you are in.
- Proactively Discuss Goals and Expectations: The first thing my daughter’s boyfriend discussed with me when I asked what he was going to do early on in his new job to get off to a good start was that he wanted to meet with his supervisor to discuss his personal goals and his supervisor’s expectations to ensure that they were aligned. Since both he and my daughter will be in sales positions, their performance expectations will likely be clearer and more quantifiable than in many other business functions. However, even in sales, I think it is important for there to be clarity in not only how much he is expected to sell, but also in how to represent the company and develop future business. I thought it was very astute of him to very early on to consider the alignment of personal and organizational goals, as I think this is a necessary condition for future success.
- “Know the Players and Where They Play”: The first thing my daughter brought up was figuring out the organization. While she indicated that communicating with and satisfying your supervisor was critically important, it was also very important to understand the roles of others in the organization and their relationships with one another. She felt this was very important in understanding the dynamics of the organization and how best to network (see #3 below). So, she indicated one of the first things she was going to do when she started her job was to get into Workday to understand the organizational relationships of those in her company.
- Network, Network, Network: My daughter and her boyfriend both stressed the importance of building their internal company networks from day one on the job. As a new person in a company, whether you are relatively low in the chain of command or higher, it is important to develop a trusted network within the company. Your network can help provide you with important information on company culture, politics, and its products and processes. For the two of them in technical sales, it will be critical to have a strong network on the product development side of the house, so that they can learn more about the products they are trying to sell. However, building a network will help in so many ways beyond direct job performance. A strong network will allow you to better understand and adapt to the company culture and to have a strong support system as you adapt to a new geographic location.
- Ask Lots of (Good) Questions: Now, I am going to add a few of my tips that I gave to them. This first one is really important. By asking lots of good questions, you are demonstrating your engagement in the company and your interest in doing well. The caution is not to just ask questions to be noticed. This can annoy those around you and ultimately, sabotage your efforts.
- Be Willing to “Muck the Stalls”: Every job and every organization entails tasks that nobody wants to do. I analogize these tasks to “mucking stalls” or cleaning the waste from a horse’s stall. Early on at an organization and in a new job, demonstrate that no task is below you and you are vested in the organization’s success. Sometimes, this will mean having to muck some stalls, but it will set you up for future success.
- Listen; Solicit Feedback; and Be Humble: These are my final three tips, and they should be integrated together. When you are new to an organization and a job, it is a good idea to listen more than you speak. You are in learning mode, so listening will help much more than talking, except for asking questions! Don’t act like the expert, even if you are “killing it” early in. Be humble and ask for feedback that will help you do your job better. Don’t hesitate to give others credit for their help, such humility is not only the right thing to do, it will pay dividends in the long run.
I am very excited for my daughter and her boyfriend as they travel west for their new jobs. They seem to have prepared well to succeed in these new environments. I hope their preparation and the tips I provided can help you when you take on a new position.
