All your worry and effort paid off. That stellar resume and that perfect interview performance landed you the perfect job offer. But the pride and elation you initially felt has quickly morphed into nervousness and expectation. After a few minutes of celebration, you realize: there’s still more work to do.
Getting ready for your first day can represent as intense an experience as applying for the job and preparing for the interview. People can make judgments quickly, and you want your new bosses and coworkers to see you as the go-to employee you know you should be.
You don’t want to spend your first few days fumbling through training, looking confused and out of place. It just slows down the process of office dominance you have mapped out in your head.
With that in mind, here are five steps you can take to ensure that your first day runs as smoothly as possible:
Tie Up Loose Ends
Before starting your first day at a new company, close out any unfinished business you have with your old one. Also, wind down any family or personal obligations you accepted during the interim between jobs.
You want to head into the start of your new job unencumbered. As such, tie up all the loose ends you can, so that you have the ability to focus exclusively on work during the early going.
Stay Connected with Your New Employer
When you talk to your HR contact, don’t just get a start date and an address at which to show up. Make communications more meaningful, so that you can get the most out of your first days.
While you wait for your official start date to come, stay in touch with your new employer. Ask questions. Exchange banter. Get information. This will help make sure you have everything you need to maximize your initial tenure at the company.
Learn Everything You Can
Now that you’ve resolved to stay in touch with your new employer, use that connection to gather as much info as possible. Find out everything you can about the position, your bosses, your teammates, and the company.
Supplement this information with further outside research. Once you know the names of the people you’ll be working with, google them to see what you can gather about them from the Internet. Check out their social media feeds. Learn what you can about the company and the industry. Any head start can help speed up your training process and shorten the learning curve once you’ve started.
Touch Base With Your Network
Whether or not your network is aware that you were even looking for a new role, you should update them now that you’ve landed a quality job. Even if no one specifically assisted you this time around, it gives you a chance to touch base and stay current with them.
Finish As Much Paperwork As You Can
The beginning of any new position involves filling out a lot of forms. Tax stuff, paperwork for benefits, signatures on policy advisories… stacks of boilerplate getting-hired documents.
When you start your new job, you want to jump into the real work as soon as possible. If you can fill in your paperwork ahead of time, it will allow you to focus on the actual job on your first day.
Getting fired up for your first day gets much easier when you love the position you’re moving into. Working with a high-performing recruiting firm, like Qualified Staffing, ensures you’re constantly finding those career-defining positions.
Contact Qualified Staffing today to find out how they can make your next exciting first day possible.