Comment by thesumofall | Hacker News Reader

Comment by thesumofall | Hacker News Reader

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I couldn’t agree more. As a strategy consultant I do have to face new clients on a regular basis. Sometimes the industry / topic overlaps with the previous engagement - often not.

1.) Really, really, really ask those dumb questions in the first week. Everyone will tolerate it and even expect it

2.) Learn the basics of your new domain / industry top-down asap. Meaning: understand for what your company gets paid for, understand the basic process how it gets delivered, understand the strengths / weaknesses of your company. Know who the key customers are and what they really want. It’s often the new guys who are empowered to challenge those high-level topics while everyone else takes it for granted (and often have the wrong idea in mind)

3.) Always ask a question / say something during the first five minutes of a meeting. It just gets harder and harder afterwards. But as soon as you asked you’re in the game

4.) Bring in experience from the past but try to take the extra mile of translating it as much as possible to the new situation (“at my last gig we did... I understand that here we have... however I see further potential in...)

Two to add:

5.) Ask a colleague to give you a dedicated intro session. Not just a random “I show you some stuff on my PC” but a real one. Typically a nice way for the colleague to reflect on their learning as well and/or prepare a public talk :-)

6.) Be aware that almost no one really knows. They are all bluffing, they are all biased. There are exceptions but they are super rare. Even someone 2-4 years in a specific job will get his stuff done but still struggle with some concepts. On Management Level it gets worse as those guys tend to not have the time to digg into it

Can't stress (6) enough. Most people do stuff because that's what they heard first or it's a solution they found for a problem that existed years ago. Having a new perspective and questioning existing norms is healthy. You can add value there more than most of the existing "tribe".

When you do 5.) show them appreciation - buy them a nice meal as they explain things to you - it's a nice thing to do, a small price to pay, assuming it's appropriate

At our company when I was on boarded we had a process called boot camps. Which was basically a week set aside with meetings for each respective team/department to get a high level over view of what they do and how they fit together with the company as a whole. This gave me some good insight on how I fit in as well as open up new dumb questions to follow up with.

Definitely 5 - not only do you learn a lot, but you also learn about different people's learning/teaching styles too. You also pick up on the political landscape, as well as priorities.

Had the best intro in my previous job where the first 2 weeks were dedicated to learning and meeting people. Overwhelming, but good chance to really crack on with it.

These are great! An important caveat for 5) is to make sure you have done the ground work before asking! There is nothing worse than spending valuable 1-1 time with somebody who hasn't even done the React tutorial yet ...

1. Intelligent people ask questions. There is no reason to stop after the first week. Connect the dots in the open and people will understand that you're intelligent. "Why do you <technical detail> here?". "Because of X". "Ah, so it's basically the same as using <technical detail Y>." Just show that you are able to take in the new information.

4) Is excellent; so much of your first few weeks are about perception. You want to be curious, engaged and trying hard AND you want to show it.

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