Ask HN: Start a new job tomorrow – what's important?

7 points·westonplatter0··8 comments

I start a new position (contract-to-hire) tomorrow.

What is important to you as your start a new position?

Fresh hygiene, business casual wardrobe (including shoes), and most important a friendly smile.

Go around introduce myself to my new colleagues, have lunch with them and try to establish a social network as soon as possible.

Again go through your work duties with your supervisor, make sure you have all tools and accesses needed to complete them.

Confirm with HR on company rules, work hours, reporting lines (time sheets, sick-leave report) and if they have any onboarding process.

Quickly look through your work, collect as many questions and uncertainities as possible and ask your colleagues/supervisor.

This is it. I find that establishing a social network is one of the most important things to do in the first few weeks. It makes your work more enjoyable.

Assert dominance as soon as possible /s

Always take notes on every meeting, even if it is only a 2 person meeting.

Also helps to share the notes. Very often two people leave a meeting hearing different things.

Look and smell good, smile, let them talk, provide a sentence or two to show you understand what they are explaining. good luck!

Just for an interesting spin: anybody have recommendations for first day of a FULLY REMOTE job?

Try to get enough 1 on 1 video calls with the Senior developers on hand who understand the source code, ask them for it via direct chat on slack if such things are not offered as a necessary onboarding requirement.

Also try to understand every bit of the source code, and make sure to not rock the boat too much on ur first few days always write code that blend in really well with the other pre written codes. You can battle for code changes later on.

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