What is a 30-60-90-Day Plan?
A 30-60-90-day plan is a written outline of what you will do as an employee within the first 3 months of your new job. It’s broken up into sections: the first 30 days usually includes training and getting to know the company (customers/clients/products/services/procedures); the next 30 days are focused on getting out on your own and into the swing of things; and the last 30 days are often more about branching out, launching your own projects, or bringing in new business.
Creating an outline like this will set you apart from every other candidate for the job. Job seekers who bring a 30-60-90-day plan see amazing results.
Why does it make a difference?
Creating a 30/60/90-Day Plan shows several intangible but important qualities that they’ll never be able to learn from your resume or interview answers:
- Initiative. You are already doing something that’s not required, but that would be helpful to your success. It gives hiring managers a clear idea of what they can look forward to if they hire you—an outstanding, take-charge, thoughtful, focused employee.
- Preparation. The best-prepared candidate is usually the one who gets the offer. Thinking about the job at this level prepares you for the interview like nothing else in the world–it even improves your interview answers all the way through the interview.
- Written communication skills. This is important. It shows your communication skills, your Word Document skills, and your ability to put a presentation together. It shows that you know how to impress.
- Verbal communication skills. When you present this plan in the interview, it dramatically improves the quality of your conversation (which also builds rapport). If you are in sales, this will show that you can control a client-customer interaction or presentation, that you can effectively communicate the points you want to make, and that you can gather information because hopefully you’re asking questions as you present it.
- Your interest in this job. You took the time to get to know the company. When you can name specific things relating to the company in your document (types of clients, types or even names of competitors, top products, customer-relationship management systems, what their initiatives are or what their credo is) it presents you as a very desirable candidate who is interested in THIS job, not A job. This is a very attractive quality in a candidate.
- Your knowledge of the position. You know the job and you can hit the ground running. You require less of a learning curve (or if you don’t know, you’ve shown how you’ll find out). If you have never done this job before, this shows that you can still do it and be successful. If you have done this job before, this will show that you absolutely know what you’re doing.
- You learn quickly and follow up professionally. If you re-send the 30-60-90-day plan along with your thank you note after the interview is over with the changes that the manager has suggested during your presentation, it shows follow-up–along with focus, presentation, communication, and all those things that make a wonderful employee.
…and THAT’S how you get the job offer.