Thoughts on starting a new job
After reflecting in my last post about the end of my long stint at Compassion in Dying, it’s been nice to get my head into the new role.
I’ve joined RNID as a content designer. In the past I’ve said I don’t like starting new jobs as I don’t like feeling like I know nothing. But I have to say I’ve enjoyed the first two weeks more than I expected.
I think this is partly about being really ready for something new, and I think also I’m feeling like I’ve picked the right role at the right organisation for my skills and experience.
Figuring out what a new job might look like
When I was thinking about what sort of work I wanted to do in a new role I struggled with a few different questions:
- As a digital generalist in a small organisation - did I want more of the same? Or did I want to focus on a specialism?
- Did I want to stay in the charity sector, or try and find something in the public sector? Or whisper it the private sector?!
- Was now the time to try something completely different for work?
The thing about being a digital generalist is that you can spin it both ways. Take a negative view and the mind can wander to lazy phrases like “jack of all trades, master of none”. My reality though, is that working in digital at a small charity I’ve become a digital generalist out of sheer necessity - so actually this label and skillset has been foisted upon me… whether I like it or not. I do like it.
But, the problem is - I have skills and experience built over 12 years, honed to fill gaps at a very specific type of organisation in a specific sector. Moving to something new - and finding the right fit was always going to be tricky.
One thing that helped me frame my thinking about my skillset was this cracking blog post equating digital generalists to conductors. It’s one of the best things I’ve read on this sort of topic for years. Super insightful… take a look at this:
When I talk about conductors, I mean people who know:
- enough about user-centred design
- enough about technology
- enough about how to shape a product roadmap
- enough about supplier and contract management and how to work in and around procurement rules
- enough about the flow of data
- enough about the cadence of a project
- enough about the world around them and where to look for applicable examples elsewhere
- enough about the combination of people and skills required to bring a project to fruition
- and have enough confidence to make difficult calls
They sculpt, they tease out nuances, they emphasise, they control, they re-imagine, they bring a digital programme to life.
Having an open mind to roles and titles helped, as did trying to view the job application and interview process as a two-way thing. Rather than a situation with a power imbalance of someone seeking job (no power) at an employer with a choice of candidates (lots of power).
I experimented applying at some of the public sector organisations and charities working at what I’d historically seen as the bleeding edge of digital work - sadly without much success.
I eventually settled on looking at product management, content design and user research roles - feeling pretty confident in my skillset in each of these disciplines.
I’m also not precious about job seniority either - I primarily look for good roles, and the conditions for good work to happen. I appreciate that I’m privileged in this respect.
Long story short (15 job applications later), I eventually ended up with two offers for content design roles. One at RNID and another at a local council.
There was merit in both roles, and the local council one certainly appealed in the sense of it having the Government Digital, Data and Technology structures and approach to UCD design. There was a clear path for progression.
In the end though, I had a good gut feeling after meeting the RNID team and had a really good open chat with the hiring manager about the team structure, remote working and decided this was the place.
It helped that I actually followed the work of the RNID digital team back in 2021-4 so was familiar with the setup and how they thought about problems. I took it as a sign!
In terms of answering point 3 above about whether this was the time to try something completely new…
I did in fact explore this question. I will write this up in a separate post because it’s fun to reflect on it - but TL;DR I explored becoming a chef and did a trial shift in a busy London restaurant. Good times!
Some early reflections
Still very early days, but generally I’ve had good vibes. Everyone I’ve met so far has been super friendly (hello charity sector) and I’m getting my head deeper into the possible future role and how it might look.
It’s been such a novel thing interacting with an actual HR team… dedicated HR!
I’ve also joined a digital team with 3 software engineers… 3!
And an interaction designer!
And a user researcher!
It’s not all rosy necessarily as I’m finding out about a few projects here and there which have either been canned or have been shelved (for now). This isn’t hugely surprising to me - as this is the sort of thing I chatted about with the hiring manager prior to accepting the offer.
Some other random thoughts I’ve had:
- RNID is a fully remote organisation - which I’m a little bit wary about. I need to figure out how that’s going to work for me.
- Linked to the above, RNID seem more deliberate about practices, processes and ways of working.
- What I’ve found in my first few weeks is that there are a wealth of artefacts for me to delve into… whether that’s Miro boards, Sharepoint docs, project write-ups, old blog posts.
- As someone who really craves context, and wants to get up to speed (feel less clueless) as quickly as possible - this has been great.
- Feel very much like I need to split my thinking into a ‘reactive’ start to the role, just start ‘doing’ and then at some point flex the ‘proactive’ part of my brain - what can I bring from my experience to the role.
- Had some interesting chats with a few people about potentially picking up some of the work which has been dropped or de-prioritised. Particularly around the need for some form of design system or component library.
Miro as a form of open working?
- Reflecting on the above point even more got me thinking a little bit about open working… which for me has historically taken the form of blogging.
- But, I wonder whether actually Miro boards, frameworks and the like serve the same purpose?
- What I think I mean by that is, if you take the premise of “a blog is your brain on the internet over time” as given… then when a new hire joins (me) the thing available to me is that brain. I can take a peek at the brain of RNID during 2023-6 to see how X, Y, Z designers and teams were thinking about product/s. This feels good to me. I imagine those X, Y, Z designers might feel better about that too? Rather than thinking about a project that perhaps didn’t progress as intended - thinking about it as an exercise of good thinking documented might be a more positive way of reflection?
- Priorities change, initiatives start and lose momentum, no team will ever work in the exact way they want… but what you can’t take away is the deep thinking about problems from a point in time. That is the gold dust I’m currently benefitting from.
Other things
I went to talk about AI triage which was interesting. But weirdly the thing that really stuck (because the timing was so perfect) was a comment from one of the speakers who also happened to have a new job:
Being new again, and what you can only see in the first few months
I just thought it so captured how I’m currently thinking about my new role. There is a finite period now (until who knows) when I’m seeing things for the first time, and having reflections from a position of newness and perspective which I’ll eventually lose.
More reason to be blogging and documenting my thinking…