How’s the new job going?
Our main office is called the Unicorn Centre, you jelly? 🦄
It’s been a month since I decided to make the switch over to Casumo. Since then, I’ve been asked by peers and friends the inevitable “What’s it like?” and “How’s it going?” along with the blunt “You guys hiring?” (Yes we are) . To answer some of those questions I thought I’d sit down and share my experiences.
My backstory isn’t too exciting, I graduated in business information systems, had a penchant for design and broke stuff in a code editor. There’s no radioactive spiders or anything like that, just a product-hungry kid who listened to way too many podcasts.
Before Casumo, I was a product of the infamous agency life. Needless to say, I wasn’t the biggest fan. There were some parts which I loved, others which frustrated me. Nevertheless, here we are. Where’s the juicy content you ask? Coming right up! But first, a quick peek at our sweet new space for town hall meetings and other important announcements.
Pretty dope right? Anyways, we’re getting a bit off track. Back to the new job. You might think by how this piece is reading so far, that this is going to be a happy-go-lucky story where I tell you that everything is amazing, and there’s a bunch of takeaways in the form of a listicle that I’d like to share. Well, sorta. Don’t get me wrong, I love it at Casumo and I’m glad I made the switch. In saying that, you’re not human if you aren’t overwhelmed or scared on your first few days.
Not having the answers
I remember on my first day I had arrived two hours earlier than I was supposed to. During those two hours I just waited in the parking lot, thinking about what discussions I should contribute to and my opinions in regards to how the product needed to go forward. I wanted to have all the answers. It felt inauthentic, as if I was quietly mouthing the lines for a broadway show I was about to appear in.
Naturally, none of those things happened. No, I wasn’t lacking in confidence if that’s what you’re thinking. I just felt that this was the best time to take everything in. In every project, designers always seem to preemptively already have a solution in mind, even before fully understanding the problem. This was like that. I needed to hold off my opinion and just go on a listening tour. It needed to be a healthy blend of interrogation and empathy.
There’s this scene from Abstract: The Art of Design (the Netflix show) where Tinker Hatfield, legendary shoe designer over at Nike, is presenting a concept shoe to Michael Jordan. The first thing he said when talking about what he’d done was “Remember when you told me …”, it wasn’t “We believe that …”. He was recalling his conversations with Michael. He went on that listening tour, and got as much as he could out of it.
In other places I’ve worked at thus far I was thrown into the deep end from day one. While that’s not a bad thing at all, it doesn’t let you really get the bigger picture. I’d argue that from my first month, which is how long I’ve been at the Casumo castle at the time of writing, the first day was probably the most important day.
It wasn’t just about getting familiar, it was a chance for rare and rigorous observation. The one thing I learnt that day was that I had two eyes (observe), two ears (listen) and one mouth (speak), and if I was planning on using them it should be in that order.
Aim, aptitude and attitude
When a company is looking for a candidate, they usually put out a listing detailing the skills they’d like to see and perhaps slap on a couple years of experience. What they’re looking for though, is for someone who has those three things in the title, these being aim, aptitude and attitude.
How does this all relate to the new role? Slow down there Barry Allen! (Flash reference for all the comic-book aficionados out there) There’s another three things that I’d like to talk about. Don’t worry this will all make sense as we go along, I hope.
Transparency
If you’d like to know what true transparency looks like, please do spend some time talking to people who work at Casumo. Ask them what it felt like during their first week. I can recall a moment on my first few days where Derek, my onboarding buddy, had shown me literally every comment about my candidacy from day one of the hiring process.
All the debates for and against my appointment, just lying there in a single thread, viewable for everyone else in the company.
Every single one. I actually went home that day and bookmarked that thread, naming it ‘Why you were hired’. That thread gave me a weird mix of gumption and intimidation at the same time. One thing was for certain, if I was ever going through an episode of paralyzing self-doubt or as we in the industry call it, Impostor Syndrome, I now knew where to look.
Information Overload
One of the most common things you’ll hear from new hires over at Casumo is this: “There is so much information which is easily accessible, that it’s easy to get information overload.” Even though Casumo is always trying to make the onboarding experience better (shout out to the people ops crew), I felt that the exposure to the goings on within the company, from higher level decisions to what our new bathroom signs will look like, gave me a sense of true scale. It also allowed me to be considerate of what decisions I made day in day out.
Trying to consume everything all at once was a surefire way to become mentally drained. If you find yourself in a similar situation, I’d recommend you limit yourself to what you’re exposed to and narrow it down to the stuff that will touch your domain. Once you do that, have actual raw conversations with people to uncover your existing biases. This will help you set a goal and understand the ripple effect it can cause.
Intimidation
I was surrounded by people who knew what they’re doing, have been doing it for years on end and had a degree (or two) to prove it. So naturally, with everything else that comes with being the new kid on the team, intimidation was just right around the corner.
Turns out, I needed to have it around because it’s the harsh reality. It gave me gumption and lit the fire in my belly to come in everyday and have that confidence in action. Being intimidated helped me reaffirm the belief that I should never be willing to accept that the work I’m doing is ever done.
What’s this got to do with everything else?
I’m sure you’re wondering, how does transparency, information overload and intimidation overlap with any of the things you mentioned in the starting paragraph? Let’s break it down. To work on the right problems you need to develop an aim, ideally one which your coworkers also share.
Having a transparent environment helps you subject yourself to multiple aims, but it almost inevitably will lead to cognitive overload, which is where aptitude comes in. The willingness to break down silos and take the time to understand all the pieces of the puzzle is a determining factor of your natural ability.
Let’s not forget you need to keep a cool head whilst you’re doing all this (proficiently, if I might add). It’s the attitude you choose to adopt, that’s going to determine whether you overcome that unnerving feeling of intimidation that you’re beginning to foster in those early days.
Stay new, stay curious
I’ve found that one of the key things that has helped me a lot in taking in all the extra baggage that comes with a new job, was asking profusely about just about everything I laid my eyes on. Questions that start with ‘Why’ and ‘What’ generally seemed to do the trick. The aim (there’s that word again) here was to build on the team’s knowledge, know what the key results looked like and most importantly, learning what problems we were currently tackling and why they became problems in the first place.
I let my naivety and curiosity get the better of me in those first few days because I needed to have that injection of immersion, into the problem space. Something that’ll plunge me into a state of background processing, where the problems I’m trying to solve become omnipresent, allowing my team and I to make unexpectedly thoughtful connections.
Casumo gave me the platform to do all this, as well as the time to think inwards to see what I needed to do what I do best. As such, I’m proud to call myself a Casumo product designer. All new job chatter aside, having my ass handed to me in FIFA, which was part of my induction, turned out to be quite humbling. I thought they’d go soft on the new guy, turns out that was never going to happen.
That’s it from myself! I hope you’ve enjoyed reading this piece. If you have any other questions do feel free to ping me on Twitter @justinmfarrugia or just leave your response below and I’ll try to answer as soon as possible.
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