How to impress your boss and colleagues during your probation

Here are our top 7 Tips for impress your boss and colleagues during your probation:

Stay organised
If you’re organised you’ll be on the right track for staying on top of your work, or at least successfully manage to complete the more pressing tasks. It will enable you to be more productive show your boss that you’ve mastered this necessary skill. It will also reduce the chances of making careless mistakes.

Quick tips to be organised:

Write a to-do list and keep it up to date

Planning what tasks, you will complete and when

Note important dates down either on a physical diary or calendar or online

Ask questions
It is often the biggest worry that if you ask questions or admit you may have made a mistake that you’ll look incapable of doing your job. It is actually perceived as the opposite and shows you are invested in succeeding in your role and want to learn more about it.

Employers are going to care more about how you deal with a mistake than the mistake itself. You should always own up to them and make an effort to rectify the situation. Remember that nobody is perfect, and your managers will expect you to make mistakes during your probation.  

Be proactive
There is always a chance that your probationary period can actually be very unexciting. Your managers and colleges might not handover or delegate tasks until they feel you’re sufficiently ready. They want to discover your strengths and weaknesses.

Give your managers and colleges every opportunity to assess these by looking for ways to keep yourself busy. Offer to help colleagues or see if your managers have any other work you can do.

Be punctual
Being on time is vital to showing you are committed to being in this role; it is better to be early during this period. Make the extra effort to be prompt: get an earlier train, take breakfast with you and double check what time you need to be at places, the journey time and any traffic delays. Equally, at the end of the day, try not to shoot off too early.  You want to look like you’re keen to work.