Starting a new job is one of the most important times in a person’s professional life. As someone who has hired over 50 people and been responsible for as many as 600 at a time, I have come to identify truly great hires. I also know this: as an employee, when you ask your boss how well you’re doing after your first 6 months (or even your first 6 weeks), the last thing you want to hear is, “I’m not impressed.”
Success Comes in Mindset and Habits
As early as Day 1 in a new role, an employee should have a plan for how they can impress the boss, prove that they should have faith in you, and instill confidence that they made a great hire. Often, it takes a while to be successful in a job, but it doesn’t take long to show a success mentality and success habits.
7 Ways to Avoid Hearing, “I’m Not Impressed.”
- Remember who hired you and why they did. They hired you because they believed you would be successful. They believed in you; believe in yourself, aim to work hard, learn, and grow.
- Remember that they are paying you money. In a privately held company, it’s an individual or group of individuals’ personal money. So, when it’s pay day, that means they’ve deposited money from their own account into a payroll account from which you receive your paycheck. You are implemented into the company’s budget, so be sure you’re making it worth their dollars.
- Give weekly feedback on your progress. That’s right, I said weekly! Answer the crucial question, “What have you been doing to demonstrate that you are one week closer to success?” Each week should build on the one before, and the progress should be easy for you and your leader to see, even if it is a baby step. Staying in open dialogue about your progress keeps a steady flow of confidence and faith in you.
- Find others at the company who have achieved success. And learn from them. Developing relationships with other employees who know what it takes to be successful there is how you’ll progress. Don’t just learn from them; build a valuable business relationship with them. Eventually, you’ll lean on them, partner with them, and be someone they would endorse. It’s likely that word will spread to the boss about how valuable you are to the team.
- Have a success plan by Week 4. Once you’ve gathered ideas, organized your thoughts, and made a solid plan depending on your position and purpose, share it with your leader for humble feedback. Then, edit it weekly, adding new insights and ideas that keep the plan refreshed and possible.
- Show success early. This is different for each job, but if you are in sales, find out what really successful sales people do – and do that. If you can’t demonstrate that you have relationships in the works that you’re leveraging as early as 3 weeks in, then your boss will be concerned. If you can’t get meetings or any business, then it’s likely that your relationships aren’t what you think they are, your product knowledge is insufficient, or your sales skills may not be as sharp as they need to be to sell this product or service. Whatever the barrier to your early success is, identify it quickly, and seek help from your new boss so you can learn how to be successful.
- Over-communicate. You only build confidence and faith in your likelihood of success when you actively, proactively, and intentionally over-communicate what your methods to success are. The activity should demonstrate that you are developing the specific business acumen needed as well as the exertion of your extreme effort. Be excited. Employers want to see that their employees crave to succeed in their business, and nothing proves that more than long hours and willingness to grow.
Is it easy to impress the boss? It can be if you want it bad enough. If you follow these 7 strategies, you can not only impress the boss, but set yourself apart from other employees.
Now, that’s what I call “job security.”