How to Stand Out in the First 6 Months of Your New Dev Job
If you're about to start a new dev job, you're probably happy that the job search is over - but the hard work has just begun. While it's important to impress the HR manager and your colleagues in the interview (and you must have done that if you got the job!), it's arguably even more important to live up to expectations as well.
Here are some tips on how to stand out from the crowd in your first six months.
Make relationships your No. 1 priority
The first month on a job is an important time to get to know new colleagues both inside and outside of your team - and it's important to continue to foster those relationships in the months that follow.
Do this in a way that feels most natural to you. If you're a fan of formal feedback, schedule regular feedback chats with your manager and colleagues.
If you prefer a more casual approach, try having coffee with people. You don't have to be a manager to suggest team activities - and chances are your manager will appreciate the initiative.
Make sure these efforts aren't just focused on your supervisor or those above you. While it's important to be on your leader's radar, it's equally important that others you work with - or who work below you - receive proper attention as well. Spending all your efforts on people above you can be perceived as uncollegial.
Write down your goals and get feedback on them
The Head of Development or CTO may have well-defined goals for you, especially if you're in a line of work like sales, which usually has very measurable and predetermined goals. However, if this is not the case, it is important to give yourself your own goals to work towards.
If you don't set a goal, how can you measure if you've done a good job after six months? By putting concrete results on paper - even if they change - you can both stay on track and create evidence for your supervisor and colleagues. This is undoubtedly helpful for formal reviews, but can be just as useful as a reflection tool to make sure you're prioritizing the right things.
You can write your goals in collaboration with your manager and/or colleagues. However, if you develop them yourself, you should (at least) ask your manager for feedback.
Finally, remember that goals are not useful if you just write them down and forget about them. Schedule reminders to review your progress either alone or with others. This can give you the opportunity to make adjustments if things don't go as planned.
Be open and ask questions
Starting a new IT job can be daunting as there is a lot to learn. If you're new to the company, you also bring a fresh perspective - one that can be invaluable to the rest of the team. Since you're starting with no prior knowledge or bias, you may be able to identify areas for improvement that others have overlooked.
It is therefore important that you ask questions when you don't understand why certain things are being done a certain way, rather than accepting the current state. Just because a process, ongoing meeting, team structure, etc. exists a certain way doesn't mean it's right - and as a new employee, you are in a position to identify faulty processes.
