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How to Excel as a New Joiner

April 18th, 2024 (6 months ago) • 3 minutes

At work today, Albert (who is a new joiner) came and introduced himself to me. I was his onboarding buddy so I was helping him to get settled in.

Different from others, he stuck me as a curious person who is eager to learn and grow. Maybe it's because he's from a different background and he's new to the industry, but I thought that's a good trait to have that not a lot of people have.

One of the question he asked me was, "What are some tips you have for someone who is new to the job?"

And here's what I shared from my experience

  • Ask Questions: You don't always have to be the smartest person in the room (or want to be), and I am a strong believer that there's no such thing as a stupid question. If you don't know, ask. It's better to ask and learn than to pretend you know and make mistakes.

    Of course, spend a bit of time to try it out on your own first before asking.

  • Be Curious: Be curious about everything and anything. If you don't know something, dig deeper and find out more. It's definitely not enough to just understand something on the surface level, read and learn about the fundamentals.

    A personal example I could give is that I was curious about network routing and how a VPN system like Twingate works. It's definitely not a requirement for my job, but this knowledge had helped me to debug and troubleshoot issues when my team had troubles deploying infrastructures due to networking.

  • Be Interested: Move around and talk to different people in the company. Ask them what interesting thing they are doing and why they are doing it. You'll be surprised by how much you can learn from different people.

    Offer your expertise and help if you can. On a larger note, be ready to pick up new things rather than just sticking to what you had been assinged to do.

  • Network: This is a big one. Networking is not just about knowing people, but it's about building relationships with people. You'll never know when you need help from someone, and it's always good to have a good relationship with them.

    You don't want to only establish that relationship when you need help from them.