New Job Remorse: When You’re Struggling With a New Position
Addressing the underlying uncertainty of your job choice
You open the brand new laptop, register for your new email address, and update your LinkedIn profile. You introduce yourself to coworkers and try to get acquainted with everyone. You’re navigating the maze that’s called “onboarding,” slowly figuring out your place in this new environment. Then anxiety creeps in, “Did I do the right thing in taking this new job? I feel like a fish out of water. What if this wasn’t the right move?”
Ooh, deep cleansing breath. While it will take a while to know whether the job lives up to your expectations, let’s address some of the issues that make a new working environment challenging.
Scenario 1: You joined a well-established team and feel out of place.
The best way to begin fitting in is to take on a learning mindset. Be curious, ask coworkers about their work, experience, successes, current and past challenges, hopes and ideas, and then listen. Hopefully, your manager has arranged for you to meet with people. If they haven’t, then be proactive and reach out directly. In-person meetings are best when in the early stages of building rapport and trust. It can take longer to get to know people if everyone is remote, but if that’s your only choice, choose it. A client shared recently that her boss was terrific in arranging back-to-back meetings with people across the company in her first two weeks. We love this, but also know it can feel like drinking from a fire hose. Way too much information is taken in, and our brains simply don’t have the ability to absorb and process all of it. This client feared looking incompetent when she had follow-up questions. Actually, the opposite is true. It’s very wise to ask for follow-up meetings, even a month later. It shows that you took the time to gather information from a number of sources, processed what you could, and returned for clarification and additional information.
Humans are interesting – we think asking questions will make us look incompetent, yet ask any leader, and they’ll say that they become suspect of employees who don’t ask questions. Become great at asking questions! This is a strong leadership tool to employ most days in most situations.
Scenario 2: You’re wondering how long you’ll walk around feeling lost.
Clarify with leadership (your manager, HR, etc.):
- What are your goals and your team’s goals? How do they roll up into the company’s overall mission?Are there quarterly, half-year and/or yearly goals? How are they measured?
- How will employees be expected to collaborate to attain goals? Where can you be most helpful?
- What resources might you need?
- How can you establish your personal growth goals and complete them in tandem with company goals?
Get into some nitty gritty:
- Ask co-workers which docs are most important to read to understand your role and what the company is doing.
- Ask which people are most important to meet, both inside and outside of the company.
- Deep dive with engineering, design, R&D, policy, ops, all other functions. This will raise your level of understanding while building rapport and trust with co-workers.
Go for early quick wins:
- Do some easy ‘starter projects’ to get used to how things work and to build trust.
- Document your ramping up journey, including what was most helpful and what could have been more helpful, and share with your manager.