In this economy, a job is like a bar of gold. A bar of gold encrusted with diamonds and pearls, with the cure for cancer etched into it.
Forbes magazine says 25% of new employees don’t last a year, and 50% are gone by 18 months. So if you land a new job, it’s quite important to keep that job. There are plenty of other people who want it.
Some advice for the newly employed:
Make sure you and your boss have the same understanding of your job description. Maybe you applied for Assistant Regional Manager, but your boss hired you for Assistant to the Regional Manager. Or perhaps you and your supervisor agree on the title, but not on what the job responsibilities are. Employers have a tendency to make positions more attractive than they are, just as job applicants exaggerate their own qualifications.
If there seem to be any differences between what you and your boss expected, bring the issue up at once. You might be doing a great job at what you thought your position was, while your boss might think you’re screwing up. Clear the air, make sure you’re on the same page, and don’t overuse tired cliches like “clear the air” and “on the same page.”
Don’t march in on day one and try to change everything. Some particularly egotistical people (especially in management) think they need to establish themselves on the first day as the new gun in town. As soon as they hit the ground, they are running –right into other employees, who may not appreciate the new person marking his or her territory.
Don’t try to remake your office, department or company as soon as you arrive. First, there may be perfectly valid reasons why your new company does things the way they do them. And second, your bosses and co-workers don’t know you or trust you yet. No one wants a stranger to show up and tell them everything they’re doing is wrong.
Spend at least a few weeks meeting your co-workers and discussing why they do what they do the way they do it. Then, once you’ve established yourself, start making suggestions to co-workers, and instituting your way of doing things with subordinates.
Promote yourself. You may be doing great work, but when the layoffs come six months from now, the newest hires will be the first to go. And if none of the managers can remember who you are or what you do, they will have no compunctions about letting you go.
Meet as many people as you can at your new job. Stay in communication with your supervisor, and keep him or her apprised of what you’re working on. Go to work parties and after-work drinks. Get noticed — it’s much harder to lay off a friend or acquaintance than a total stranger. And networking will promote your career in other ways as well.
Be honest if you don’t know what you’re doing. New hires are often terrified to admit they’re not sure how to complete a task, or are unclear on their job requirements. If you don’t know how to deal with something, there are two choices — face the embarrassment of admitting this to your boss, or never get the task done and turn what may be a small problem into a big disaster.
I’ve had to go to a new supervisor and say “I don’t know how to do this,” and face the boss’ confusion and anger. But your resume said you could [job skill]! What kind of a [insert job title here] doesn’t know how to do this? The problem may stem from you and your boss have differing ideas about your job description; or maybe the person you replaced had a different skill set than you do.
But keeping your problem a secret will only make it worse. Learn what you need to learn, and the problem is solved.
Don’t be tardy; dress appropriately; stay late; work hard. I shouldn’t have to add these, but apparently not everyone knows that the first 90 days of your job are like a trial period. Do your absolute best.
Got any further advice for new employees? Let us know in the comments.
Computers are now a vital component of almost every job out there. It doesn’t matter how good you are at sales, or medicine, or the law, or accounting, or administrating — if you can’t navigate an operating system or use email, you are not qualified to be a salesperson, doctor, lawyer, accountant or administrator.
But using a computer at work means that at some point, you will need help from the IT Department. Many workers dread dealing with IT for a number of reasons. Computer experts tend to have their own language and their own strict views about how computers should be used. They sometimes look down upon people who are not as tech savvy. And IT as a career tends to attract a small but troublesome group of hostile men with a spectrum disorder, who take joy in abusing computer users.
Fortunately, the stereotypical computer geek is rare, and most IT professionals are normal people like you and me who happen to know C++ and can tell you how to tweak your Blood Elf Warlock’s talent tree for maximum efficiency.
I used to work in IT support, despite being almost entirely unqualified to do so. During that time, I saw things from both sides, user and IT pro. Here’s some advice for dealing with IT — but first, a video look at life from an IT person’s point of view.
Before you call IT, check for wetware errors. Most of the time, your computer issues will stem from some small mistake you made, and can easily fix yourself. Your computer is the hardware, its programs are the software, and your brain is the wetware. Is the computer plugged in? (Users hate this question, because it seems to insult their intelligence. Yet I assure you from personal experience, people forget to turn on their machine, or accidentally yank the plug out of the wall, all the time.) Did you try turning it off and on again? This solves many issues, especially memory problems. If your program “disappeared,” did you simply minimize the window? These are the questions any IT person will start by asking.
This leads directly into:
Don’t be afraid to try to diagnose the problem yourself. People who are afraid of computers will call IT the second anything they don’t understand happens. They think that if they tinker with the machine, they’ll somehow destroy it. But long gone are the days when one might enter “C:/ del” and accidentally erase their entire hard drive.
It’s very hard for you to do anything that will genuinely screw up your system. Try to figure out the problem on your own. Then, if you’re still stumped after 5 or ten minutes, call IT.
Don’t take out your anger on the computer tech. Yes, it can be frustrating to have computer issues. And on a few occasions, the problem may actually be the IT department’s fault. But most of the time, users freak out because (a) they don’t understand what went wrong, (b) they’re very busy with work and need their computer, and (c) they feel stupid that they can’t solve the problem themselves.
Your IT tech is trying to help you. So don’t abuse him or her. The fastest way to get your computer back is to work with, and not against, IT.
Describe the problem precisely, in detail. Every IT support person on the planet has suffered through this conversation:
User: My computer is broken. IT Guy: Well, what seems to be wrong with it? User: I don’t know! It’s broken! It Guy: What is on the screen right now? User: Nothing! IT Guy: So the screen is blank? User: NO! There’s stuff but I don’t know what it is!
This is not only entirely unhelpful, it will antagonize the IT Guy, and all his friends in the IT Department. It is actually not the IT tech’s job to drop everything and come running the second you get frustrated with your computer. There are lots of other things an IT person does all day, and babysitting you may not be the best use of their time.
Tell the support person exactly what’s wrong. If you don’t know what something is called, carefully describe it. Do you want an IT person to actually come help you? Then sell your problem as a real problem.
Practice infinite patience. Some IT people will be hostile jerks. By being aggressively and consistently nice, you may win some of these people to your side. Others will never stop hating you, because they hate all human beings and they hate life — that’s why they went into IT. But you need these people, and being calm, patient and polite is the best way to deal with any difficult person, not just IT people.
Just about everyone has had to deal with a bad boss — a supervisor who is mean, incompetent, manipulative, inappropriate, unprofessional, or all of the above. It’s like they say: those who can, do; those who can’t, teach; and those who can’t teach, manage.
But how do you deal with a difficult boss, when you job relies on keeping this insane person happy?
The best advice is: find a new employer. You shouldn’t have to put up with an unprofessional supervisor, and a clean break is the best cure.
Unfortunately, for a lot of people, this is not an immediate option, not in this economy.
Be unfailing professional. In the face of whatever bad boss behavior is driving you crazy, be calm, businesslike and mature. Of course, any employee or employer should behave this way anyway. But by being aggressively professional despite your boss’ antics, you will (1) impress other people at the company, including someone who might be in the position to get you out from under this bad boss, and (2) you might — might– actually influence your boss to behave better.
Some people call this “managing up,” a term I hate because it implies it’s your job to fix your boss. It’s not — but any positive steps you can take will just make your life easier.
Don’t sweat the small stuff. If your boss ignores your emails, gives contradictory instructions, or plans meetings during lunch without providing food, you’re just going to have to live with it until you get out of there.
Report the big stuff. If your boss is sexually harassing you, or physically or emotionally abusing you, you do not have to put up with this, nor should you. Go straight to your HR manager, if the firm has one. If you work at a small firm, consider speaking to a lawyer or a government agency. But this kind of thing is not okay.
Don’t badmouth your boss to other people at the firm. Everyone probably already knows your boss is insane, and will show you sympathy and may even be able to help you deal with him or her. But if you go around criticizing your boss to everyone, this will be noticed by management, who may come to see you as more of a problem than your supervisor. If you have to vent, vent at home. And don’t write criticism of your boss in IM or on email at work –your company can read that stuff!
Have any more advice about dealing with bad bosses? Let us know in the comments!
You Found Employment Crossroads — Now do something with it.
In the miracle that is cyberspace, you've no doubt read a zillion blogs and websites about how to improve your employment picture. It's kind of sick and ironic that employment among employment "experts" seems to be doing just fine. Dubious at best.
Well, we do things a little differently here, and it boils down to basically two options:
A) Keep going to employment sites that only feature ads paid for by employers; or
B) Try something that works.
This blog is published by EmploymentCrossing.com. We feature the most comprehensive websites on the PLANET that don't charge employers to post their jobs with us. Think about that...And as we say during our elevator pitches to people who don't quite get why that's important:
Forbes magazine says 25% of new employees don’t last a year, and 50% are gone by 18 months. So if you land a new job, it’s quite important to keep that job. There are plenty of other people who want it.
But using a computer at work means that at some point, you will need help from the IT Department. Many workers dread dealing with IT for a number of reasons. Computer experts tend to have their own language and their own strict views about how computers should be used. They sometimes look down upon people who are not as tech savvy. And IT as a career tends to attract a small but troublesome group of hostile men with a spectrum disorder, who take joy in abusing computer users.
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