Onboarding

 
I’m counting down the days until Christmas while checking out some interesting blog fodder across the Web.
With the holidays just around the corner, I find it appropriate to get into some of the techniques and challenges of on-boarding perhaps the most important members of the workforce this time of year: the temporary kind.
But before we get into that, there’s something a co-worker passed along that caught my eye.
Twitter, as we all know, is taking the world by storm. It seems as if nothing trendy can be said nowadays unless you can do it in 140 characters or less and use some brand of unusual Twitter jargon — like the “hashtag.”

 
On one of my recent coaching hour conference calls with Azzarello Group members, someone asked me, “What things do you when you start a job so you make sure to get off on the best possible footing?”
I gave an answer along the lines of my DO Better, LOOK Better, Connect Better model about building credibility and getting an action plan in place, but the person said, “No, I meant, what do YOU do? Is there something you did the same way each time you started a new executive job?”
So I thought about it and in fact there was one thing that was part of my playbook pretty much every time I started a new job. And it worked really well.
After we discussed it, someone on the call said, “you should write a blog about this.” So here you have it.

 
My good friend, let’s call him “Herb,” started a brand new job yesterday. Herb was very excited because it’s an opportunity with a particular financial institution that he had been coveting for some time. Rewinding two weeks … the submission and recruitment process went fantastic as Herb actually located the position online, submitted his resume, and was contacted immediately.
His initial interview was via phone on a Friday, and he did so well that he was invited in for second-round interviews that very next Monday. On Monday, Herb once again wowed the hiring managers and the very next day (Tuesday) he received an offer of employment which he readily accepted with great enthusiasm. Herb kept me up to date through his interview process with this financial institution, and even I was amazed how quick this large giant seemed to move. He told me how everything was great, the people were awesome, and how he was looking forward to day one to get going on his new role.