March 1, 2018 | Hiring Tips for Managers

8 Reasons to Create a 90-Day New Hire Success Plan

Mark Twain once said, “The secret to getting ahead is getting started.” Picture a horse race: there’s an all-out battle to the finish line, which ends mere minutes after the start of the race. Generally, competitors who leave the gate well also finish well.

A Plan for Success

Those who stumble out of the starting gate, however, have little hope of competing with the others. This holds true when it comes to the first 90 days of a new job. If the first 90 days go poorly, it is difficult to recover and achieve long-term success in the role. Here are 8 reasons to map out the first 90 days of a new job via a 90-Day New Hire Success Plan.

1. Recruiting top talent is difficult.

Undoubtedly, the best talent has the most opportunities. Give top candidates as much insight as possible into how success will be measured in the role. The more insight you can give a top candidate, the more likely they are to say “yes” to you and “no” to someone else. A 90-Day New Hire Success Plan allows you to determine the insight you can give candidates in this case.

2. Provide your new hire with direction.

Provide your new hire with goals they can work towards. Explain how to best go about achieving them. Additionally, tell your new hire how achievement of these goals will be identified and measured. A 90-Day New Hire Success Plan allows you to determine what these goals are and how they can be measured.

3. Align all the stakeholders.

Make the interview process consistent and effective. Ensure that everyone is in agreement about what the role is and what it involves. A 90-Day New Hire Success Plan allows you to clarify the expectations of the role.

4. Impart confidence in your new hire as they hit defined targets.

Giving the new hire clearly defined goals and the desired outcomes is important in the first 90 days. As they achieve these goals and hit milestones, they build confidence in their potential for continuing success. A 90-Day New Hire Success Plan provides a framework for the new hire to achieve these goals.

5. Give fellow teammates confidence in new team members.

ikewise, show the new hire’s teammates that their new coworker fits the role and organizational culture. Foster strong and productive working relationships among the team. The goals established by a 90-Day New Hire Success Plan allow new hires a strong start.

6. Remove obstacles that could cause struggle in the first 90 days.

Identify how success will be measured in the first 90 days. Then, determine the major challenges for the roles. Pause and determine how these challenges can be removed, or how the candidate can be equipped to be successful in the role.

7. Identify if you have made a good hire.

When you make a bad hire, you strongly suspect it within the first 90 days. For the sake of everyone involved, don’t let a bad decision linger. If you have clearly-defined success in the first 90 days, you won’t feel suspicion. Otherwise, you will have the evidence you need to make a change.

8. Help develop an Ideal Candidate Profile.

Developing a 90-Day New Hire Success Plan lays the foundation for an ideal candidate profile. We call our ideal candidate profile an Ideal Candidate Blueprint™. The blueprint clearly identifies the ideal candidate far more effectively than a typical job description. Defining early success helps clarify what the candidate will need to bring to the party in order to be successful. Together, these two tools greatly increase your odds of making your next hire a great one.

Final Thoughts

The 90-day success plan doesn’t have to be fancy. We call ours The 90-Day Success Ramp™. It merely needs to identify the key outcomes in the first 90 days of the role and the clearest ways to measure each of these outcomes. These can be tied to living out company values, gaining and maintaining a solid understanding of products, fostering relationships with co-workers or key stakeholders, or a certain amount of specific activities.

Check out our Thought Leadership articles to learn more, or contact us to discuss your hiring and recruiting challenges.

Posted by Mark Whitman

Mark Whitman is the founder of TeamBuilder Search. Mark’s mission is to help clients recruit the top five percent of digital marketing executives, taking great satisfaction in helping clients out-recruit their competition. In the process of fulfilling his mission, he takes great care to help digital marketing leaders elevate their careers. People say Mark owns a recruiting and staffing company. He says he owns a life improvement company. To learn more about Mark visit our Leadership page.
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