What to do on your first day, week, month at work

Instead of repeating this advice over to successive generations of interns, I thought I would take the time to pen some of this down. I think for those who are starting out work, this is a useful to do list.... or should I say, these are the things which you aren't told to do, but you should do...


1) Go around and make friends
This is the most important and critical advice, so I am putting this up front. Work (unlike you school) is a team sport not an individual sport. Your success is dependent on the efforts of the people around you, and so is their success dependent on your efforts. Hence, it is important not only to go around to make friends, it is important to be generous and helpful to not just your bosses but the people around you.

2) Take notes
If this is any job that is worth your salt, you will be deluged by knowledge, information, data, insights, observations. If you aren't, it probably means you aren't getting out and attending enough meetings, chatting up with enough people or volunteering for enough work, or reading enough.

What are good notes? Use the "as if you there" rule. For someone that didn't attend the meeting, reading a set of good notes, would be as good as if one were attending the meeting and listening to everything. For someone who hasn't read a book, article, lecture, reading a good set of notes would be as good as reading the original, except that the person would save time going through the process itself.

Keeping notes is also one way to make sure you are trying your best to understand and digest all that you are taking in.

Or yes, no matter how senior you are... remember whenever you are the best junior person in a meeting, your responsibility is to take notes. There is no need for your superior to designate and assign you for this...

3) Write up your cheat sheet
To do your job well, you need to have certain numbers, facts, figures at your finger tips. In the event that your bosses require such information, you should place yourself as a turn-to person when people need such numbers. Very often, ball park numbers are required... However, it is important to be familiar with the numbers and memorise some of the critical numbers, so that you can give good ball park estimates when called for.

Nothing is more irritating when in the course of a discussion, a decision point hinges on a lack of information/data point that is readily available on ought to be at an officer's fingertips. Hence start first with asking what kind of numbers you need to know for your job... in the financial sector, it might be that you need to know what the STI level is, every morning... if your job is in the area of productivity, you better know what are productivity growth rates are like.

If your memory ain't that great, like mine, do up cheat sheet... write down the numbers that you frequently are called upon to use, and if necessary mug up these numbers from time to time.

4) Start populating your data book
What I also do is to collect various data, spreadsheets in a "data book" folder. This is where I go to for all the facts, numbers I need to substantiate the arguments I am going to make. I also try to anticipate what kinds of facts and figures of need proactively, instead of only responding when senior management asks for info.

This helps you look professional and prepared. Always ready...

5) Do up a powerpoint template
I don't believe that form trumps substance... however, if you have good substance, please do sufficient justice to your good substance by having good form. So one of the first things you do is to come up with a useable powerpoint template.

What I usually do is to take from the corporate template that is available, and make the necessary changes to the fonts, sizes, for my use. This saves precious time when making up snazzy presentations.

6) Find out what people are reading
If you want to learn from others, find out what they are reading. Be Kay Poh enough to sneak around their tables, or ask them about what they are reading, and do, from time to time, borrow books off their shelves.

7) Come up with your reading list
I cannot reiterate this more... You want to do well, you must read more than you are required. That means, that in college, you must be prepared to read beyond your reading list when taking your courses. In your work, it means that you must read beyond what is required on your job.

From time to time too, do read something totally way left field (i.e. totally unrelated to what you doing)... you never what insights you might be able to obtain...

One of colleagues had one good practice. Every pay day, he would make it a point to go to the book store and buy a book... this was in addition to the books he borrowed and read... but I was really inspired by the point behind this... which is the willingness to invest $$$, time in your reading and development.