ARCHIVE: IT CAREER EXPERT
New kid on the block
John Smiley
01.18.2001
Rating: -4.62- (out of 5)
New kid on the block
I've written extensively about pursuing and obtaining your first
programming job. Now let's assume that you've gotten it -- what should
you do in your first day or days on the job?
I recently received an email from someone who tries to take newly hired
programmers under her wing. She mentioned several important points that
new programmers should bear in mind in their first days, weeks and
months on the job.
First, come to grips with the fact that even if you're the world's
greatest programmer, you just started with the company, and there's a
lot about the company's business to learn. For instance, if you've just
started with an insurance company, take the time to learn as much as
possible about insurance. Just getting up to speed on your company's
business rules could take you a year or more. Your first day on the job
is the time to start learning. The same applies to nearly every
industry for which you will work. Remember, you don't program Visual
Basic, or C or Java -- you program applications, and those applications
have a business behind them.
Second, try to stretch your horizons, and be willing to take
challenges. You may have been hired as a programmer, but in many
companies, you're expected to be much more. For instance, if a user
calls or visits about a problem logging into the company's network,
roll up your sleeves and try to resolve the problem. It's OK to ask
someone else for advice, but passing the user off because it's a
"Systems problem" makes you look bad in the eyes of the user. Even
worse, it could make you look bad in the eyes of those you're working
with.
Third, obtain a knowledge of the IT environment in which you are
working as soon as possible. This will avoid problems down the road.
For example, let's say you can't understand why it's taking hours to
build a Recordset from the company's Oracle Database down the hall.
Instead of complaining that the tech school from which you graduated
had T1 connections, take some time to understand why the network is
slow, and see if you can program around it. It could turn out that the
problem is because there are a limited number of licenses, or that your
program is running while the database is being backed up or maintenance
is running.
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