31–40 of 81 posts
1. find a good text book in the field as narrowly construed as possible, and just browse the table of contents.
This will give you a quick map of the field, and a place to put all the info you gain.
2. Read the management discussion in the 10k of a public version of the company you work at and 2 leading customers, and the transcript from the earnings call.
Fastest way to get up to date on challenges.
I covered this in a recent issue of a career newsletter I write [1]. Some snippets from it that I think would help new joiners (not only those joining a new industry): 1. No-one’s going to go out of their way to guide you. Esp at smaller companies, the fact that you’ve been hired means you’re joining a time-poor company, and there likely won’t be a formal onboarding process. So...you’ve got to onboard yourself. 2. Ad…
Pluck some of the low-hanging fruit so they can get to know you and try not to be a burden on the core maintainers. And...have fun?
I have a very specific (and pretty easy) strategy for this when I join a new org. Technically you could do this at any time, but you generally have a "grace window" when you're new where people are happy to go out of their way to meet you and teach you. First, meet 1 on 1 with every member of your immediate team. This of course serves as a "get to know you" meet, but your real goal is to get them to explain their wor…
I have not done the 1 on 1 method before, it sounds interesting and will try it in the future, but I agree with utilizing the grace period to explore, ask and learn as much as possible about the organization and industry. My additional recommendation would be to try to identify limited-scope projects that contribute to your role and where you can start delivering some value. For me this helps set a clear goal and it…
Take my advice with a grain of salt, but: Get a ChatGPT4 subscription and ask away. It may hallucinate, but it lets you ask questions and immediately clarify points you don't understand. When you get the basic understanding, check it against a more reputable source (e.g. Investopedia?) Here's an example question (which I obviously made up): "Hi! I'm about to get a job in finance but I feel that I don't fully understa…
https://www.amazon.com/Dictionary-Finance-Investment-Busines...
And since the resale value is extremely high, so you can always resell if/when you don't need them anymore, possibly for a profit.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I have not done the 1 on 1 method before, it sounds interesting and will try it in the future, but I agree with utilizing the grace period to explore, ask and learn as much as possible about the organization and industry. My additional recommendation would be to try to identify limited-scope projects that contribute to your role and where you can start delivering some value. For me this helps set a clear goal and it…
It can work really well but you can sometimes find individuals who won't play along.
Unless they have very good reasons and offer an alternative ("I'm on deadline so can't talk now, but after this sprint I'll have time.") those individuals are actively sabotaging the team and should be dealt with accordingly.
I have a very specific (and pretty easy) strategy for this when I join a new org. Technically you could do this at any time, but you generally have a "grace window" when you're new where people are happy to go out of their way to meet you and teach you. First, meet 1 on 1 with every member of your immediate team. This of course serves as a "get to know you" meet, but your real goal is to get them to explain their wor…
Identify people they don’t work with, that you would naturally assume they would. Typically this means:
Your understanding of how processes flow in this industry has some gaps, or some thing you thought was crucial is a solved problem that people don’t think about; or
There is tension and some history here, tread lightly while you figure out the office politics; or
You’ve identified a legitimate opportunity! Be careful here though, you need to understand if some higher ups have misaligned incentives to keep the status quo before you suggest changes.
I think all the other comments saying "read a lot" and "talk to everyone" are correct first steps, but for me, consuming information has diminishing returns after a short while. After you've reached a point where your brain feels like it's exploding, you should switch your focus to outputting information.
If you're a "write things down" person, then write a synthesized document explaining everything you've learned, and then ask a few trusted coworkers to tear it apart.
If you're a "talk out loud" person, schedule time with coworkers to have a "teachback session" where you give a presentation about everything you've learned. Again, ask them to tear it apart.
It's crucial to build trust with a few coworkers who are willing to critique your output. Get them to rip everything you've created to shreds. Whenever you write or say something that's even slightly off compared to how someone in the industry would say it, make sure you learn about that, and learn how someone in the industry would say it.
This focus on getting the language right - especially the colloquial language of how people actually describe things day-to-day - is important for every role, but I assume it's especially important in marketing, where you need to be able to use the precise language that your customers use.
tl;dr: Read/talk to people at first, but switch to writing/presenting ASAP. Solicit and internalize as much critical feedback as you possibly can.
If you're not, you won't.
Nothing else to it.