It’s crucial, therefore, to make the right first impression as soon as possible, not least to ensure you pass the probationary period (!)

Overall, you should have three key aims:

• build good relationships  - with your peers, managers and key stakeholders such as the media and clients. How you integrate into a new company is as important as job performance, particularly in the early days.
• establish ‘brand you’: communicate your past experience, knowledge, skills, strengths, contacts and personality to the people who matter.
• perform well and meet (or even surpass) expectations.

Sounds easy in theory but as we all know, the first few weeks of starting a new job can rank alongside moving house and divorce in the stress stakes.  Here are our top five tips to help ensure your transition to a new job is a smooth one.

Take a break: If it is at all possible, take a break before starting a new job. Whilst new employers are often keen for candidates to start asap, both parties will benefit if your batteries are fully charged and you’re given a small breathing space between debriefing from a former role and anticipating a new one. Not only are the first 100 days extremely challenging and demanding it’s also highly unlikely that you’ll be able to take leave in the first three months of a new role.

Watch and learn: As tempting as it may be to stamp your mark as early as possible, particularly in the competitive world of PR, try and make your first few weeks a ‘watch and learn’ exercise. By observing and learning how this new organisation or agency works, what its culture, methods and standards are, you’ll increase your chances of making the right decisions in your new role – and decrease your chances of ruffling feathers.  Many in-house corporate organisations actually specify that the first three months will predominantly be a learning exercise, although agencies tend to be faster paced, expecting new recruits to hit the ground running. As a way of getting new employees up to speed as quickly as possible, many agencies have a ‘buddy/mentor’ programme, where new recruits are supported and trained by a senior colleague, introduced to key people and given advice on everything from managing tricky clients to understanding internal politics.

Manage expectations: Yours – and your employers’.  Firstly, yours. Nobody puts themselves under more pressure than a new employee. The steep learning curve of the first three months is exhausting, so pacing yourself is important, as is being realistic. Be kind to yourself; nobody, not even your new employer, expects you to perform as well as your colleagues until you know as much about the business as they do.  That said you should be able to understand your new role and what is expected of you in order to satisfy a new employer. We suggest having a minimum of one meeting a month with your boss during the first 100 days to ensure that you are ‘on target’. If not, then at least you’ll have an opportunity to remedy the situation before the probationary period ends.

Do your own PR: Being proactive, actively throwing yourself into getting to know how the organisation works and who the people that matter are (not just the ones with the biggest personality or loudest voice) is the best advice we can offer when it comes to speeding up the integration process. If you don’t have a mentor then help yourself and get known for the skills, knowledge and experience you have.

Trust us: You ARE the right person for the job. As challenging and stressful as a new job is remember that you have been employed after a rigorous recruitment process! We only recommend those candidates who have the right skills, experience and cultural fit for client interview and clients only employ successful candidates.  For four consecutive years we have experienced a 98% success rate of candidates who are still employed not only after the probationary period, but at least 12 months after commencing employment. We’re sure you’ll be one of them!

And return it has! Four months ago, counter offers were most likely to occur between legal communications teams but with more private sector agencies winning business, the phenomenon has now spread across the board to include corporate PR, particularly in the financial services sector.

We’re not just talking counter offers between a current employer (understandably wanting to retain talented staff they’ve trained and invested in) and another potential employer, but bidding wars between three or four employers all keen to secure the best hire.

Without doubt, the main driving force behind this round of counter offers is money. Talented individuals, frustrated by the recession-enforced career inertia of the past two years are now chancing their arm at interview(s) primarily to boost their salary.

Arguably, some of the candidates we’ve seen who have ‘won big’ at counter offer are those who were genuinely underpaid. One agency candidate even doubled their salary whilst eventually staying with the original employer. Doubling salaries may be exceptional, but it’s been our candidates’ recent experience that significant pay hikes are a factor again.

However, as flattering as a counter offer is employers and candidates should proceed with caution.

National surveys of employees consistently show that of those who accept counter offers, 50 to 80% voluntarily leave their employer within six months of accepting the deal largely because of un-kept promises and the reasons other than salary why they were looking to leave haven’t gone away.

To ensure you don’t become one of those statistics, it’s worth asking yourself the following questions: “Will your loyalty be in question by remaining in the job, especially if future redundancies are likely?” “Is the counter offer just a stalling tactic to avoid short-term inconvenience or a genuine desire to progress you career?” “Will this preclude next year’s bonus?” and “Do the proposed improvements eliminate the reason you went for a new job in the first place?”

But perhaps the most important factor when considering counter offers is the longer term professional consequences. PR careers and professional reputations aren’t made in a moment, whilst a counter offer may be. Just remember that making the wrong choice could leave a potential employer with a lasting negative impression of you long after the bidding war boxing gloves have been removed.

• Certain corporate and financial consultancies are finally coming back with replacement roles for the first time since last year’s meltdown.
• Increasing movement at junior to mid level.
• Increase in freelance assignments over the last two months.
• Retail, food & drink, technology and media sector in-house roles increasing.
• Fewer candidates registering recently have been out of work due to redundancy. In corporate and financial PR, for example, 41% were out of work due to redundancy in May/June ‘09 compared to 0% in June/July ‘09.

It’s not time to pop those champagne corks yet, however. There are still around half the amount of job opportunities available compared to this time last year, so be warned! Competition is fierce…