We recently hired a new Business Analyst to work on the SAP project with us. I met her on Wednesday at 4pm. On Thursday, she spent the day reading through a bunch of the documentation and was not overly conversant. So far I've been able to glean that she has dogs, does not have children, has an hour commute, and just got off an assignment in London.So Thursday evening, the HR Director that hired her asked me this: "What do you think of her?"
My response: "She seems amiable enough."
I just don't know enough about her yet to know if she's a good addition to the team. I won't know that until she starts working on project tasks and getting stuff done. I'm not sure if the HR Director was looking for validation, conversation, or valid feedback regarding this person he just hired. You can probably tell by my response, he didn't get much of anything.
I've been in situations like this from a different perspective as well. Before the holidays, somebody asked me of my impression of a person he'd just met. I've known this person for a few years. My opinion wasn't that favorable, but I didn't say much. He seemed to think highly of this person, based on his first impression. I figured, "Why ruin an impression, he'll figure it out himself." So I nodded and smiled my way through the conversation.
So before I go rambling on with more examples, I guess I'll get to the point: Spend the time to form the correct opinion of a person. First impressions - though powerful - are often misleading. More importantly, form your own impression of a person, don't borrow other people's opinions.
Ever have a first impression blown away after you got to know a person? Let's hear it!
2 comments:
How about from the other perspective? What should they new employee have done to create a better impression? Sure, maybe she has to trudge through boring manuals but take a break and strike up a conversation. Try to go to lunch with people perhaps. Create opportunities to promote yourself and learn about others.
@Chuck - Thanks for the comment, Chuck. I can appreciate that sentiment. The truth is, I actually liked the fact that she was digging into the boring manuals. It showed to me that she wanted to get up to speed as quickly as possible, without distracting us too much from our work. Perhaps, I didn't realize this when I wrote the blog, but now I understand that perhaps she made a better impression on me than I though. :D
You're right, though. It is a two way street. She could have engaged more with the team and I, on the other hand, could have engaged more with her instead of burying my nose in the creation of volumes of boring technical documentation.
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