As your career advances, it’s no longer just a matter of whether you have the ability to succeed in a role. Potential employers also want to know how hiring you, as a person in a leadership position, will advance their business.

So, give them what they want.

One way to show that you’re serious about the role and that you take initiative is to develop a solid 90-day management plan if you’re asked to present something in your final interview.

The purpose of your 90-day plan is to help you transition into a new role, whilst taking the opportunity to demonstrate to your potential new employer how you intend to solve the problems they’re hiring you to manage. 

A great way to do this is to break it down into 30-60-90 Day plans, and set measurable goals that you reasonably believe you can accomplish in these time frames.

So, where do you start, what goals should you be setting and what do these plans look like?

Starting point

Before you start crafting your 30-60-90 day plan, you need to understand what problems you’re being brought in to solve.

These are your priorities for the next 3 months – Don’t forget them!

Start your research with the job description to understand what the core responsibilities of this role are. Be sure to add in any additional knowledge you’ve gained from initial interviews to flesh out what you’re actually being brought in to do.

Start with their company website and socials, and work your way over to LinkedIn and Glassdoor to see what their employees are saying.

Analyse what you’ve been speaking about in interviews to narrow down what solutions their business needs and what approach would work best for their business, based on their values, culture and business goals.

The more you can learn about what the root cause of their problem may be, the better solution you’ll be able to present.

And be SMART about it.

Set goals that are Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Time-bound. All of your actions and goals outlined in your 30-60-90 day plans should tie back to your priorities.

How to organise your 30-60-90 day plan

Before you put pen to paper (or – in this modern era – fingers to keyboard), let’s break down the format.

Your 30-60-90 day plan should be no longer than 1-2 pages. Less daunting already, we know! 

You’ll want to split each 30 day period into two categories: Learning Goals and Performance Goals. 

The first 6 weeks will include more Learning Goals, and it will gradually switch over to including more Performance Goals as you become more comfortable in your knowledge of the company, industry, stakeholders, customers and team members.

Use headers and bullet points to keep each section succinct. 

Now that you have an idea of what the layout will look like, let’s get into what to include in your 30-60-90 day plan:

In the next 30 days, you will…

You can’t fix the problem if you don’t have the proper training.

For the first 30 days, your goal is to show your potential employer that you know how you will prepare and have a lot of motivation to learn the basics of your role, and how you will learn it quickly.

During your interview, be sure to inquire about your potential employer’s training program. Does it include systems training? Leadership models? Additional reading?

You’ll need to know this to make the most out of the training period and to get up to speed quickly.

In your 30 day plan, this could include reviewing and reading at home every night for the first week, coming in 30 minutes early to review what you learned the day before, or even having lunch with members of your team or fellow leadership members.

Some other key points to include during your first 30 days should be:

• How you will learn about the company’s products/services;

• How you will learn about the industry/market overall (if you are new to the industry); and

• How you will learn about the company’s systems and procedures.

In the next 31 - 60 days, you will…

Once you have training under your belt, the next 30 days should focus on how you’ll learn and improve by “doing.”

At this stage, you should be starting to work autonomously and you may be interacting with team members, customers, stakeholders, etc. 

While you are still learning aspects of the role, company, systems, and procedures, you need to show that you’re able to work hands-on and learn on the job.

This includes gathering feedback from your manager to make sure that you’re on the right path.

So, take the initiative and add to your presentation that you are proactively seeking feedback. It shows that you’re dedicated to improving and tailoring your skills and abilities to the role and that you’re not afraid to change course if you need to.

The final countdown

In the final 30 days of your 90-day plan, you want to show the interviewer that you’ll be ready to use everything you’ve learned to work independently.

At this stage, you’ll be completely autonomous, contributing to your team’s targets and goals, and should be able to go above and beyond your basic job duties.

This could include optimising and streamlining processes, finding new ways to acquire new customers, and helping create strategies to support business development.

While it’s still important to get feedback, your main focus should now be on taking on the issues you were hired to help resolve.

Showtime

Before bringing your 30-60-90 day management plan into your interview, double-check that your plan:

• Is no longer than 1-2 pages;

• Outlines your SMART Learning Goals and Performance Goals; and

• Is centered around the priority issues you’ve been brought in to solve.

The best time to bring up your 30-60-90 day plan is at the beginning of the interview, so the interviewer is prepared to either work your plan into the discussion or allow you to go run them through it right then and there.

It’s as simple as saying: “I was thinking about what we were speaking about in our last interview, and I’ve prepared an outline of what I would like to achieve in the first 90 days of employment. If you’d like, I can take you through it now or we can get to it in a bit?”

It shows that you’re already thinking about how you’d like to contribute to their company, that you understand their business needs and that you’ve taken the initiative to draft a strategy together to ensure that you can jump right in.

Now that you know how to put together a 30-60-90 day management plan, be sure to check out our recruitment consultants’ top tips on how to ace your job interview.

Good luck!