First Days at a New Job

Your first day of work usually sees you welcomed by your manager, who takes you around the company and introduces you to your new colleagues and other employees and managers you’ll be working with. Your manager or someone from the company’s HR department will familiarize you with your onboarding schedule and explain how your training will proceed. Some companies also assign someone as your so-called “guarantee of adaptation”. The person is a colleague who helps a new employee during his introduction to the company and also in performing his new responsibilities. During this training period, your manager will likely spend more time with you than he usually does with his other reports.

For some positions, companies also organize a so-called “circuit”, when a new employee spends time in all departments within the company. Time spent in each department allows the employee to get known the company as well as some of the people in each department. By making the circuit, he will create important connections useful in carrying out his day-to-day responsibilities.

If your new employer has not implemented an onboarding process, your first days at a new job can be very difficult.

In this case, your first day on the job would typically see you taken to your office without receiving any preliminary information or instruction. Without any introduction to your new colleagues, you would be expected to begin work immediately and perform your job in line with standard expectations. This kind of approach obviously leaves a new employee confused and disappointed and can often result in the termination of his contract within the probationary period.

After starting a new job you might receive a cold or reserved welcome from your new colleagues. This, of course, is a natural reaction and has nothing to do with you or your personality. It might because you have replaced a well liked colleague or because your co-workers still don’t know what to expect from you. If you are hired into a new position, another possible reason for a lukewarm reception may be that your new colleagues have some doubt as to the necessity of the job you are doing. Even without any tangible reason, some initial reserve is a common physiological attitude towards a newcomer. After some time, this reserve will disappear naturally.

When starting a new job you should be proactive, but at the same time unassuming. Sometimes it is difficult to find a balance between being too proactive and easing your way into the company by using your new colleagues as guides to how the organization operates. Manage your own expectations carefully at the outset as it always is better to be pleasantly surprised with a new job than bitterly disappointed. Moreover, if you give your co-workers the impression that you are over-confident or an unmatched expert in your field, you might find yourself alienating those around you.