Welcome to the first edition of Connect Career Essentials. We hope you'll find the ideas and comments in this newsletter useful and informative.
Top Ten Tips
Connect Career Essentials will include some regular features. We are busy gathering practical tips that we hope you may find useful. In this edition we will look at that scary moment - the start of a new job.
Arriving at that new job
You know the feeling. A mixture of excitement and dread, as you sit at home on Sunday evening knowing that tomorrow morning is the first day of the job you worked so hard to get. How will you cope, how will you get to grips with new people, a new culture and particularly a new boss? Try our…
Top Ten Tips on First 90 Days in a New Company
1. Prepare mentally for emotions and feelings last experienced on your first day at school!
2. Start as you intend to carry on. This means behaviour, style, demeanour. It's very difficult to change after you have been there for 6 months, easy if you start out that way
3. Find notice boards, loo, coffee machine, evacuation procedures (if no induction training).
4. Observe local culture, behaviour and business style. Note down those that are not what you would expect - positive and negative.
5. Meet with boss - agree details of job, broad deliverables + objectives, and who to meet.
6. Meet internal customers and understand their expectations. Agree broad deliverables and objectives. This is essential as these are the people who will volunteer feedback to your boss, so you will need to manage their expectations, on an equal basis to those of your boss and your external customers. If expectations are in conflict, identify and resolve quickly - otherwise you are being judged on incorrect parameters.
7. Meet external customers and understand their expectations, ideally at a handover meeting with previous account owner (if there was one). Agree broad deliverables and objectives.
8. If it is necessary to make immediate changes, list them, show how they fit into an overall draft plan and agree in principle with boss before implementation. Keep a log of actions - it may come in useful at your first appraisal
9. Use routine administration tasks passing your desk to learn all you can about the company and contacts - who is important, context of requests, impact. Deal promptly with all admin tasks. Continually add to your knowledge of products and services researched prior to your interview.
10. At all times remember first impressions count - people's impressions of you (they will be watching) and your impressions of the company. Your fresh eyes are invaluable but have a shelf life. Record these impressions as they occur - before you become institutionalised.
Who's Who at Connect?
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Let's start with the Boss. Richard Tadman is Connect's Managing Director. His background is in engineering, starting in purchasing and building a very successful career culminating in a main board role in the David Brown Group. Connect of course is a bit of a contrast, but Richard seems to cope - we appreciate his dry northern humour, and of course plenty of practical, no-nonsense advice. Ask him about golf (he's better than he will admit), Manchester United and parrots. |
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Nicola Ashton is a Director of Connect, the brains behind all our web and IT work. Nicola runs a web and video production company with her husband Tim - the intriguingly named Mole Productions (www.moleproductions.com). In the few hours in the week when she's not filming or building websites, Nicola runs long distances and plays violin ... but not at the same time. |
What's new at Connect?
Connect has had a busy summer, working on some new and quite different projects.
We were asked by the Learning & Skills Council to provide support for employees facing uncertainty and change during the LSC's organisation re-shaping programme known as Theme 7. This was a project with a difference - people wanted career advice, help with understanding the approaching change and guidance on interviews, presentations and assessment.
We spent many happy hours with the people at the LSC office near Oxford, almost becoming part of the furniture. At the end of the project we received some very positive comments; among our favourites is:
"I have found the Connect team's support invaluable. Found the team very approachable & their advice / guidance extremely useful in preparing a CV, for interviews and in evaluating my future career aspirations. A huge thank you!!"
Have a great autumn!
The Connect Team
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