New at Work: The Unwritten Rules

How to avoid the pitfalls, get on with colleagues and bosses – and what to say in your apprenticeship, at college and in your first job

Hardly anyone fails at the start because of the technical side. Where things go wrong is in the moments when you should say something and don't know how: the task you didn't understand. The criticism that makes you go red and silent. The mistake you'd rather quietly fix yourself. The break where everyone is talking about the boss.

This book collects the phrases that work in those moments: short, calm, without making yourself small and without attacking. And for every situation it shows you what is going on across the table: what the trainer is thinking, what the team leader sees, how the professor reads your email. It was written not by a consultant but by a team leader who has been bringing apprentices, students and first-jobbers into his team for years.

You will learn

• how to find the unwritten rules of your workplace within two weeks
• how to spot the 12 biggest pitfalls of the first year before you step in them
• how to ask questions without looking stupid and report mistakes without shrinking
• how to take criticism, set limits and get on with colleagues
• how to prepare the feedback meeting, the pay talk and the question of being taken on
• how to decide clearly when it really doesn't fit, and who can help

Also included: chapters on internships, student jobs, group projects and talking to lecturers, a 20-question self-check and 20 phrases for starting out. The examples come from Germany; the principles work anywhere. For apprentices, students and first-jobbers from 18, and for trainers and team leaders who want to know what is on newcomers' minds.

What do I say now? Now you know.

Read a sample: the foreword and the first two chapters

How to get the guide