Before you start
The People You Can Meet Before You Start
One conversation before you start is worth three days afterwards, and the person most worth talking to is somebody who joined a few months ago.
What the people on this page had to find out, and where from
Which repository is the real one
you asked1Four days of reading the wrong one first
The holiday booking process
written down1The one thing properly documented
That your manager prefers a written update on Mondays
told3Said in passing, in week three
three things you had to know · one of them somebody told you · the median arrived in week 1 · the other two you went and got
Three of the things this page is about. Two of the three were answerable in a message sent the week before you started.
A fair onboarding review can use employee attendance and activity insights to separate time spent learning from time spent blocked, keeping the discussion grounded in shared evidence.
For additional context beyond this collection, see the material published by Fiverr.
Everybody who was offered to you before your first day, and what came of it
Introduced, and never needed · 2
- Two colleagues on a welcome call — met in before you started
- The recruiter — met in before you started
Introduced, and needed · 3
- Your own manager — met in before you started; needed in week 1
- The person who would show you the system — met in before you started; needed in week 2
- Somebody from another team who had joined a month earlier — met in week 1; needed in week 4. You asked your manager whether there was a recent joiner
Needed, and never introduced · 1
- The person who runs the release — needed in week 2. Found by reading the channel history
six people · five you were introduced to · four you actually needed · one you had to find yourself
Four people were offered before the first day and a fifth was requested. The one that was requested turned out to be the most useful of the six, and it cost a single sentence to ask for. One person's own twelve weeks.
If anybody offers you a conversation before your first day, take it. If nobody does, ask for one.
Twenty minutes with your manager two weeks out is worth more than the first three days, and the reason has little to do with anything said: you arrive on day one having already spoken to somebody.
What to use it for
Not to impress and not to learn the job. Three practical things.
What the first week will actually look like. Having this in your head on Monday morning removes most of the first day's disorientation.
What they expect of you in the first month. The answer is almost always some version of "settle in and ask questions", and hearing it said out loud is worth a great deal when you are sitting at home on day four having produced nothing.
Who you should talk to, and in what order. This is the question that pays most and the one new joiners least often ask. A manager asked for three names will give three good ones.
The person nobody offers
Ask whether anybody has joined in the last few months, and whether you could have twenty minutes with them.
This is the most useful conversation available to a new joiner and almost nobody requests it. Somebody three months in remembers exactly what was confusing, still has their own list of things nobody told them, and has no stake in presenting the company well.
They will tell you which systems are a nuisance, which meetings matter, who actually answers questions, and what they wish they had done differently. None of that is available from anybody senior, who has long since forgotten.
The request costs one sentence:
Is there anybody who joined fairly recently I could have twenty minutes with? I always find that more useful than anything else.
Nobody refuses this and it marks you as somebody who has done this before.
What a welcome call is and is not
Many companies arrange a call with several people from the wider team before or during the first week.
These are hospitality. They are well meant, they are pleasant, and they are almost never where the people you will actually need turn up — as the panel above shows, the two people who mattered most in the first month were not introduced by anybody.
Go, be agreeable, do not try to memorise anybody, and do not conclude from it that you now know the team.
Writing down what you are told
After any of these conversations, five minutes, while it is fresh.
Who they said to talk to. What they said the first week would involve. Anything they mentioned that you did not understand. Names, with what each person does — you will not remember, and remembering is the thing that makes the second week feel different from the first.
This is the beginning of the list described in the section on who is who, and starting it before day one is the only time it costs nothing.
If nobody offers anything
Which is common, and means only that your manager is busy.
Ask. One line, two weeks out: "would it be useful to have a quick call before I start, or shall I just turn up on the 14th?" Both answers are fine, the question is not presumptuous, and it is the last cheap moment to ask for anything.
What to do if the call goes badly
Occasionally a pre-start conversation leaves you worse off: the manager is distracted, or vague about what you will be doing, or the call is cancelled twice.
It is worth not reading much into this. A distracted manager three weeks before your start date is a person with a job, and the quarter they are in the middle of has nothing to do with you.
What it does tell you is practical: expect to arrange your own first week, and expect to have to ask twice for things. Both of those are survivable and both are much easier if anticipated.
If the same pattern is still there in week six, that is different and the note on when it is not working covers it. In week minus three it is simply not evidence of anything.
The twenty minutes, used badly
The commonest waste of a pre-start call is spending it on the company rather than on the week.
You can read about the company. What you cannot read, and what only this person can tell you, is what Monday will consist of, what they expect of you by Christmas, and who to go to when they are not available.
If the conversation drifts towards a general introduction to the organisation — which it will, because that is what people prepare — one question brings it back:
That is helpful. Can I ask something very practical: what does my first week actually look like, and who will I be with?
Nobody minds the redirection and the answer is worth the whole call.