Your first 90 days in a new job

The reputation you get in week two is hard to change in year two

People form a working impression of a new colleague very quickly, and that impression is durable. It is built almost entirely from small things: whether you turned up prepared, whether you asked good questions, whether you did what you said you would by the day you said it.

None of this requires you to deliver a major result in month one. It requires you to be legible and reliable while you learn.

Days 1–30: learn the system, change nothing

• Meet everyone your work touches, one to one, for twenty-five minutes. Ask what they need from your role, and what has frustrated them about it previously.
• Write down every question you cannot answer. Answering your own list is your curriculum.
• Find the actual process, not the documented one. They differ everywhere, and the gap is usually where the useful work is.
• Confirm what success looks like with your manager, in writing, in the first fortnight. "What does good look like at 90 days?" is the highest-value question you will ask all quarter.
• Resist the urge to announce how it was done at your last employer. This is the single fastest way to lose goodwill.

Days 31–60: deliver something small and visible

By the second month you should be looking for a piece of work that is genuinely useful, finishable within a few weeks, and visible to people beyond your immediate team. It does not need to be strategic. Fixing a report everyone complains about earns more credibility than a well-argued proposal for something bigger.

The purpose is to convert the goodwill of arrival into a track record. Once you have shipped one thing, your opinions on larger things carry weight.

Days 61–90: propose, then agree the next quarter

1. Write a short document: what you have learned, what you have delivered, and the two or three things you believe are worth changing.
2. Share it with your manager before anyone else. Being surprised in public is the thing managers like least.
3. Agree a concrete plan for the next quarter with dates attached.
4. Ask directly for feedback on how you are landing with the team. Ask twice — the second answer is usually the honest one.

If it is going badly

Sometimes the job is not what was described, or the manager is not what the interview suggested. Raising it early, factually and without ultimatum is far more effective than enduring it silently until you resign.

Describe the gap between what was agreed and what is happening, ask what can change, and set yourself a date to reassess. If nothing has moved by that date, start looking — quietly, and without burning the reference.