Your First Days and Weeks

Here are some guidelines for getting started in your new role.

Partner with your manager to identify your initial assignments, training you might need, and how you can begin making immediate contributions. As you settle into your new role and work routine, explore the ways you can connect with your team and the MIT community.

Complete key tasks

Connect with your manager

  • Prepare questions for your first several meetings with your manager
    • Review the functional area – its purpose, organizational structure, and goals
    • Review your job description, outline of duties, and expectations; ask how your job fits in the department, and how your job and department contribute to the unit/school and the Institute
    • Inquire about staff meetings and regularly scheduled activities, understand how your manager and team manage, coordinate, and share calendars
    • Ask what platforms (ex. Slack, Zoom, Webex, Outlook) your team is using to communicate and connect; clarify when employees must be online and available and which forms of communication require an immediate response and which are less urgent 
    • Discuss how meaningful feedback will be shared
    • Request time to go over the performance review and goal-setting process in your department
    • Schedule your three and six month performance check-in

Build relationships

  • Review your department organizational chart
  • In coordination with your manager, set up meetings with your team members and other key employees.
    • These meetings could be on-on-one or group calls; start with conversations about their background, career paths, personal/professional interests
    • Continue to build rapport with follow up invitations for more in depth conversations about the DLCI, partnerships, collaborations, projects, and initiatives
    • Plan to meet with co-workers, direct reports, and employees from other departments with whom you’ll work closely  

Training and development

  • Talk with your manager about role based training
    • Identify which colleagues and central departments are available to answer questions and provide support while you are training
    • Follow up with your manager with questions
  • Schedule training with your IT department/contact
    • Set-up can take a significant amount of time. Plan for up to two hours.
    • Become familiar with file-sharing applications and cloud backup software, computer security, password management, and data encryption tools to protect your devices
    • Let your manager/IT contact know as soon as possible if something is not working properly

Stay informed and connect with the MIT community

What's Next?

See a checklist for your first months.

Is your beneficiary designation up-to-date?

It is important to designate — and update, as needed — your beneficiaries.