One of the quickest paths to burnout is feeling like you’re not effective in a company. You keep getting put on projects that you don’t care about and you can’t seem to convince anyone to let you do the other things that you’d be more excited about.

That’s why the first 6 months of a job is the most critical to determine where the next few years will take you.

When I first start a job, I’ll proudly admit, I’m a complete bulldog. I know that I have a limited amount of time to establish my identity at that company before it is arguably set in stone, so I am relentless in that objective.

I think we all instinctively believe that this is the case, but onboarding can be overwhelming at some places and completely underwhelming at others. We’re either drinking from the firehose, learning so much institutional knowledge, that we’re overwhelmed and frantic. Or we’re the new person that everyone just figures is swimming in to-do items that we get ignored and wonder what we’re supposed to be doing next.

So here are some very important questions to figure out as soon as you can when you onboard to a new job. Some are introspective and some will be discovery questions about your new role and company, but they will all lead you to a better understanding of how to more effectively navigate your new company or role:

1. What do you want your identity to look like?

When I was in high school, I was painfully shy. I didn’t want to be that shy anymore, so I decided that when I went to college, I would just take on the persona of someone who was no longer shy. I knew that I wouldn’t know anyone from my hometown there, so I got to completely redefine myself. Some parts of my original personality stuck, but a lot of new stuff was established and I discovered an outgoing side to myself that I didn’t know existed.

The same can apply professionally. Did you get pigeonholed into something that you were good at but not passionate about at your last job? How can you spin that experience into what you want your new career identity to be?

Which direction do you want to influence at your new company? What topic do you want people to associate you as the go-to person for?

2. What does success look like at the new place?

Figuring this out early on will help you to spot what not-success looks like before it takes hold. What are the company’s metrics for success? How does it align with your own? Where does it not align? How are you going to reconcile that?

Maybe your old company was the ‘move fast and break things’ sort, but your new company values consensus and careful estimation more. Or maybe you are always the first to help a colleague, but rewards go first to those who help customers. Or what if you have a passion for quality and testing, but that’s seen as a luxury?

Should you go against your instincts for the sake of appearing more valuable? No, but it’s important to know what’s valued. An instinct to move fast can be tapered by moving fast to gain consensus. An instinct to help colleagues can be rebranded to unblocking them for customer needs. You can recraft a passion for quality as a way to increase long term velocity and prevent technical debt.

While considering this question, also figure out what areas you have freedom to follow your own self-motivation for and even be rewarded for? I was at a startup consultancy once that was desperate for more documented processes. We were only 35 people at the time, though, so it was seen as a later problem. As I was onboarding, I documented everything that I did so that the next person didn’t have to onboard without a system in place like I did. My manager appreciated this so much, and I learned that this was something that was very valuable for others, as well. So I kept doing it for every undocumented process from then on!

3. Figure out the communication challenges at the new place

Hopefully during onboarding you’re getting a sense of the culture of a new place and how to most effectively communicate. Take note of what you’re seeing and experiencing.

Is it a quiet, spread out place that is hard to reach people?

Is it a place full of big personalities all vying for attention?

Is it a place where all the attention is paid to the clients, and the employees only talk when they need something?

Do you get the sense that other voices, like sales and product, are valued more highly than engineering?

Are there huge silos making some departments seem unreachable?

We don’t want to pass judgment on all these findings, but it’s certainly good data to have to be able to navigate most effectively. Being able to create an identity for yourself at this new place is only possible if you understand how to most effectively communicate your objectives and offer your expertise to those colleagues who could benefit from it.

A Path Forward

The goal isn’t to become someone you’re not for the sake of your new colleagues liking you. When I went to college, the outgoing person wasn’t all an act. I was still the same ambivert who needed a social-battery recharge every now and then, but the exercise in building my confidence was successful.

The goal is to position your strengths and objectives in such a way as to create an alignment that both you and your company can feel good about. It’s a shortcut to alignment that will lead you to be able to identify ways in which you can deliver value quickly.

Doing this exercise shifts your thinking from passive to active, giving you more agency in your future at this company.

And if you'd like help navigating this time in your career, you maybe benefit from out app! You can sign up for our 45-day free trial and use it to start tracking these questions.