In a perfect world, your new job would be challenging but not overwhelming and you would move forward with no obstacles during the first 6 months to a year. Unfortunately you probably don’t live in a perfect world. At least no one I know does!
Challenges undoubtedly will occur on your new job, and some of them might be daunting, to say the least–especially if they’re situations you had no way to anticipate and prepare for. However, although you can’t plan for every possible eventuality, you can avoid at least a few, major new job mistakes by taking some smart preventive action.
3 New Job Mistakes People Often Make
One of these mistakes actually precedes the start of your new job. The others relate more to things you might do (or not do) once you’ve officially begun your new position.
- Forget–or don’t bother–to perform due diligence regarding the company and position you’re about to interview for. You don’t need to (and probably can’t) find out absolutely everything, but smart job seekers make the effort to gather good intelligence beforehand.
- Arrive for day one of your new job without doing as thorough preparation as you could and should have. In other words, show up without a sound plan of action for the start of the job.
- Lead off at a fast pace to make changes and pursue ambitious goals without scoping out the situation first. Rarely is rapid-fire emergency action really required, and it can all too easily backfire.
Mistake Prevention Steps
Here are just a few steps you can take to prevent the new job mistakes mentioned above; feel free to explore further and add your own to these:
- Consult reliable sources–both online and offline–that can give you some useful information about the company’s current situation, future prospects, etc. Online sources would include LinkedIn and Google searches for information both about the company and about its management. Offline should include anyone you know or can connect with who has current or fairly recent knowledge about the company.
- Put together a 30-60-90-day plan (if you didn’t do this earlier) before you show up for work the first day. Include in that plan items such as the people who will report to you, the person you report to and anyone else within the company who might be essential to carrying out your charter. Refresh your memory regarding information shared with you during your interviews and at other times that indicates expectations for your performance and might suggest potential roadblocks you will need to take into account.
- Review any crises or potential crisis situations you know you will need to deal with and balance that with useful, related information and knowledge about the people you will need to interact with in order to move forward. Determine which actions do need to occur quickly and how best to execute them for maximum effectiveness; mark the others for less expeditious action.
No one can guarantee that everything will work out in your new job; but by taking care to avoid the new job mistakes mentioned above, you will increase the odds of your success.
