How to Crush Your First 30 Days In Your New Job As a Young Adult
Want to know how to impress your boss in your first month on-the-job? It’s simple, really.
The below is a loose framework I’ve followed in every new job I’ve ever had to ensure I hit it out of the park. It’s also a framework I’ve shared with countless teens, young adults, young professionals, and career professionals for succeeding.
It’s sort of like the popular “30–60–90 Day Framework.” But with a twist. Rather than waiting for someone else to come up with the plan for you, you take initiative yourself.
Problem-Solution Ideation
Before you even start your job, spend time documenting everything you know or anticipate about the role you’re hired to perform.
How will you spend your time? What tasks will you perform repeatedly? What metrics determine your success? What parts of the job will create regular, recurring pain? (Not just for you, but for anyone else doing the same role.)
You’ll lack context before starting. But you can ideate. Do the best you can to make a list of potential problems. Those problems are opportunities for you to deliver unexpected value — value above and beyond the expectations of the role.
For each problem, sketch out a simple hypothetical solution. For example, maybe your job involves a lot of communication that must be documented in a separate system with contingent follow up tasks. What are a few ways you could streamline that process? Jot the idea down.
Repeat this process until you run out of ideas. You want to make as many “Idea” deposits as possible before you start, so you can withdraw these later.
Ramping Up
Start your job like a reconnaissance mission.
Your goal is two-fold:
- Learn how to achieve baseline success in the role as quickly as possible
- Identify pain points (i.e. — opportunities disguised as recurring problems, time or labor intensive tasks, repetitive or mundane tasks)
Learn the role quickly. Take notes. But also document every problem you could potentially solve — start this immediately.
Add any problems that weren’t on your initial list and sketch potential solutions.
Then prioritize.
Urgent-Important Matrix
Also known as The Eisenhower Matrix, categorize problems on a matrix with one bar for urgency and the other for importance.
Which problems that you could potentially solve are both urgent and important? Which ones are unimportant and non-urgent?
Use this matrix to prioritize and value rank your opportunities. The stuff in the Urgent & Important is the most valuable.
Then, assess the cost of implementing your hypothetical solutions. How much time will it take? How much will it cost? Who will you need to involve?
Deprioritize stuff that requires a ton of hoops. Aim to identify opportunities that are urgent and important, as well as easy to implement.
Then set your goals.
30–60–90 Day Scorecard
With your newly prioritized list, pick a reasonable target for each time frame. Something that you can confidently achieve in the allotted time –
30 Days: Low-Hanging Fruit — this is the “easy-to-implement” stuff. Prioritize quick wins. Bonus points if it’s both urgent and important.
Within your first 30 days, you want to make it dead obvious that your boss made the right decision to hire you. Not to be a brown-noser. But because you prove you’re someone who is always looking for ways to deliver more value.
60 Days: Moderate Difficulty– over your second 30 days, try to find a slightly more challenging-to-implement yet still urgent and important solution you can implement. This should be a bigger win. Both in magnitude of the value, as well as in demonstrating you’re more than a one-hit wonder.
“Why yes, Mr. Boss, I’m proof lightning can strike twice,” you think to yourself as you twist your handlebar mustache.
But in all seriousness, you want to prove you are capable of repeatedly creating increasing value.
90 Days: The Big Win– what’s one urgent and important problem that you could reasonably solve but the effort required slightly terrifies you?
At this stage, you’ve graduated beyond the easy win stuff. You want to make a sizable impact. What would really move the needle?
That’s your target for your first 90 days. No matter how much extra blood, sweat, or tears it costs you. Set a stretch goal and deliver.
When the new guy hits a homerun in his first 30 days, people cheer. When you do it again in your second 60 days, people begin to scratch their heads — maybe it’s luck, maybe it’s skill.
When you do it a third time in your first 90 days, people will remember your name. They will recategorize you from “New Guy” to “Rising Star”. That’s the change in classification you want.
It’s not about winning brownie points. It’s about proving you can reliably and consistently deliver the goods.
That’s how you crush it in your first 30, 60, and 90 days. No matter what level of your career ladder you’re climbing.
If you enjoyed this piece, you may also find value from my other work. Check it out and let me know what you think!
Mitchell Earl is the Chief Operating Officer at Praxis, a career mentorship program that’s helped thousands of entrepreneurial young adults start successful careers without college. He writes regularly about how young adults can take agency over their lives, careers, and money. His work has been read by millions across the globe. He is the host of The Career Bound Podcast, and author of Don’t Do Stuff You Hate.
