Just like anything, you want to make a good impression when you start a new job. This impression can make a lasting impact on how people view you in the months and years to come.

Andrew Albert, Venture For America Community Director for New Orleans, shared the following wisdom and  recommendations that can prove to be useful during your first six weeks and even beyond.

Understand Expectations

Understand what is expected of you in your role. If you need to ask questions, do so. People will often cut you slack during your first 30-90 days as they understand you’re learning the company culture, how your role operates, and, overall, how to get oriented.

Understanding expectations can give you insight into your performance and what you should be doing on a daily basis. Expectations for the job role can also provide you a roadmap to success in your role. You’ll understand what tasks, projects, or skills you will be tackling during your tenure, and you can get a head start on learning what you need to do to succeed.

Separate Personal and Professional

You may be in love with your job and everything involved with it, but do understand the separation between your work life with coworkers and your personal life. Work friends may only be your friends at work. If you’re able to separate the two, it will enable you to grow as an individual.

Get to the Root of the Problem Before Proposing a Solution

Start documenting everything – all the problems that you see externally and internally. These are not meant to be immediately actionable for you. Instead, the process helps you gain a better understanding of the company and industry and allows you to frame your questions in a more meaningful way.

Ask Questions

It’s great to ask questions when you have them, especially when you are new to the job. It’s better to ask than to assume and make a mistake.

The flip side to this is – do your research first. If it isn’t an organizational question, then do a quick internet search on your question. It will either help refine your question or give you the answer you are looking for.

Strive for Inbox Zero

Another practice that may prove useful is to read all your emails, so that by the end of the day, you have zero unread emails. This can go for Slack or Team messages as well. This doesn’t mean you need to reply or complete the task in every email pertaining to you, but it’s good to know the contents, respond to some with at least a “I’ll get to work on it,” and know what your workload looks like with the contents the emails bring.

Build Your Personal B.O.D

While not something you would do during your first few weeks at a new job, building a personal Board of Directors (B.O.D.) should be something you start thinking about. Your personal Board of Directors are people who you can rely on to keep you grounded and give you advice.

Your personal Board of Directors can include family, friends, mentors, and others you trust to keep you being you.

There are many things to do and learn when you start a new job. And those early moments can play a key role in your success at the company. Oftentimes, it can be a struggle to find a rhythm , but you should be confident and realize that you’re right where we need to be. Because if the team wasn’t certain you could meet the mark – you wouldn’t have gotten the job. So just take a deep breath and lean on your knowledge and a can-do attitude.

Hey!

I’m Jad and I’m glad you’re here! 😄

I’m an information systems and global supply chain graduate from Wayne State University who grew up in the Detroit-Metro area (Shout out to Motown!). Let’s talk about life as a new Fellow!!

Match!

After witnessing the challenges the 2020 Class had while searching for roles during the pandemic, I, along with many of my fellow Fellows, was a little nervous about what opportunities were available and if I’d find a good match! 😬

I knew my number one priority going into Match was finding the best opportunity, regardless of industry or city. For me, that meant a company with less than 15 people and direct mentorship from a founder or senior leader. However, the mental strength to follow through with such a priority caught me off-guard. The courage to decline roles you’d do well in to look for jobs you’re about 40% confident in, can be a bit counter-intuitive. But hey, “There is no courage without risk.” 💪

After an extensive interview process, and a lot of awkward moments, I accepted an offer at an eight person, remote-first, Fellow-Founded, software company working directly under the CEO. Exactly what I was looking for! As with many startups, the crew at Gather tailor-made a role they believed I would be a good fit for and would best benefit the organization’s growth in the People Ops space.

Getting Situated!

Even though our company is remote-first, the founders wanted us to be a part of a similar Cleveland community they were a part of during their Fellowship. So we were asked to move to Cleveland. This honestly was the toughest part for me, as much as I tried to be city-agnostic. Have you heard about the Cleveland Balloonfest or the Cuyahoga River Fires? If not, I highly recommend looking into them. These historical events and the “beef” between Detroit and Cleveland was the only knowledge I had of the city. On top of it all, I had arguably the worst shawarma sandwich I’ve ever eaten in Cleveland. 🤮

However, upon arriving in Cleveland, we were welcomed by the fourth largest VFA community in the nation. The Cleveland Fellows organized welcome buddies for everyone, set up “CoffeeGos” for us to meet the older Fellows, and provided recommendations for places to eat, play, and learn. The community really did a great job at making us all feel welcome and has been present throughout our entire introduction to the city. Two Fellow Founders and VFA Alumni even hosted a networking event to introduce us to the Cleveland startup community during our Welcome Weekend. 😊

What’s Ahead!

Overall, Cleveland still doesn’t have as good of shawarmas as Detroit, it is what it is 🤷‍♂️, but it does have a lot to offer! Like a great Fellow community, a growing entrepreneurship ecosystem, one of the largest theatre districts in the U.S. and many opportunities to help the city develop. I’m super excited to learn directly from the Gather founders, work with an awesome team (Shout out to Ari ‘21, Emily ‘21, Alex ‘16, Brooks ‘16, and John ‘16!), and spend some more time with the amazing people that are part of the 2020 and 2021 VFA Classes.