Jason landed his dream job with a major financial services company in New York City. He had spent five years building his experience to land this step up, a promotion to a senior manager, IT Governance, in what looked like a stellar department. Big-name company. A talented team. Challenging projects.
And then he went to his first meeting with his new boss and the external auditors. His boss let fly a flurry of criticisms, delivered in a style that would have been considered less than professional in the banking and consulting companies Jason had worked for previously. Red flag.
His team and the senior leader of the function gave his boss high praise generally for her work. “She’s so smart. She knows what she’s doing.” Jason decided to give the situation time. It was his dream job after all.
A new job presents us with so much newness: Environment, people, tasks, culture, the company way of doing of things. And, as we try to get settled in, we will likely be missing our former work friends and colleagues; possibly missing a comfortable routine; and in many cases missing the certainty of knowing what we are doing day to day. This is all part of the normal way we respond to this big change. That’s something to be aware of and take into account.
“Shift Shock”
There is another work phenomenon that was recently identified by Kathryn Minshe, the co-founder and CEO of the career advice website, The Muse. She calls it “Shift Shock,” and identifies it as that realization that your new role or employer is quite different than what you were expecting – or what you were led to believe. The Muse surveyed their website audience regarding shift shock in early 2022, and found that “out of more than 2,500 respondents, 72% said they have experienced Shift Shock.”
In my experience, as a recruiter and career coach, Shift Shock is also pretty normal, across all generations and levels of experience – perhaps a bit more prevalent in the early years of our careers simply because we typically are not as experienced with interviewing yet. As we get better at knowing what we are looking for in our work, and interviewing more skillfully for fit, we are less likely to be surprised once we start a new job.
That being said, even a job seeker skilled at interviewing can find that a job is not as advertised. I have seen this happen, too, and it happens for myriad reasons – a lousy job description, for instance, that was hastily thrown together without real thought about the actual job. With a lousy job description, the recruiting team is likely never clued into the essence of a job and what the hiring manager really needs done. So, confusion abounds, a less-than-accurate story about the job unfolds, and may not get cleared up in the interviews. In another scenario, there has been a change in need driving a change in the job – without clear communication around this – or a revision of the job description. All of this amounts to frustration for job candidates and new hires (hiring leaders please take note!).
While all this can engender Shift Shock, if the job is still interesting, the team is good, you like your boss, there are learning opportunities and opportunities for growth (I call these the Big 5 elements of a career role), my counsel is that this is not a red flag.
- Resource for you:
At this juncture, let me refer you back to last month’s career column where many wise voices from the ISACA Engage communities offered up their amazing advice for digital trust professionals starting new jobs. There is a lot to chew on there, and strategies that you can apply as you acclimate to a new job.
Here’s the link to that article:
https://www.isaca.org/resources/news-and-trends/newsletters/atisaca/2023/volume-32/new-job-heres-how-to-start-off-on-the-right-foot
Red Flags and Broken Jobs
The harder bit is often deciphering whether a job is “broken.” By this, I mean a situation where there is, in fact, no way you can fit in or fix the situation.
Here are some things that digital trust professionals have shared over the years as red flags that have caused them to leave or re-evaluate a new job:
Beyond red flags:
- A boss or a company asking one to do something unethical
- Workplace harassment: Mistreatment by a boss, company, or team member; verbal abuse, etc.
- An uncompromising and grueling work schedule that is ruining one’s health
- Retribution by a manager for having had to take time off for a critical family matter (e.g. illness, death in the family, medical emergency, etc.)
- A corporate culture that is antithetical to your core values
Red flags
- Micromanaging boss
- Poor leadership generally
- Managers who take credit for one’s work without acknowledgement
- Lack of alignment with the goals or vision of the function
- A team that does not share critical information
- Very damaged relationships with external stakeholders
- Not being treated like a professional (such as: excessive checking in and checking up; having to “clock in and out”; not being able to work from home when handling a family or house repair emergency, etc.)
- Role confusion, lack of clear delineation over who is doing what
- Lack of communication around expectations and deadlines
- Unrealistic or unachievable goals
- Not getting support from one’s manager or team when requested, especially as a new-joiner
- Manager being unwilling to meet for 1:1 meetings to set or clarify performance expectations
- Lack of important tools and/or lack of budget to acquire tools and resources
- No budget for training; unwillingness to approve job essential training
This list is not comprehensive, but it serves to give you an idea of situations at work that are important and cautionary signals to consider. Sometimes there is a strategy that can be deployed to improve the situation, maybe achieving real change so that the problem is resolved. But there are situations and people that can’t be fixed. That’s what we need to assess and determine. It can be confusing.
How Jason Decided His Dream Job Was a Nightmare
Back to Jason and his new job in New York. As time went on, he got a better handle on how his new boss operated. She was manipulative. She played up to senior leaders while disrespecting her team. She took credit for Jason’s work without acknowledging him.
Jason thought he could find a way to work effectively with her. His first review three months into the job was stellar. But then the tide turned. His work was commanding praise from senior leaders. He got along famously with his team. But his boss started making negative comments about his work.
He spoke with mentors and tried different strategies to improve the relationship with her: Working harder to ensure he was aligning with her goals and stated objectives. Communicating to her his focus on supporting her success and the success of team. Earning the team kudos from important stakeholders. Nothing he tried seemed to help.
Jason started to doubt himself, despite the fact that he was exceeding his performance goals on his work deliverables. Then came the six month performance review. His boss gave him low marks across the board – a complete turnaround from the three month review. That was the last straw. Jason launched a job search and pulled in two offers. Jason then took his well-documented rebuttal to the bad review to HR, and submitted his resignation.
In Jason’s case, he decided to give the job and the boss some time to see if he could manage things to a more positive place. When it became clear that this quest was futile, he pulled the trigger on a job search. Time to go. Total time on the job, six months.
Sticking it out did come with a bit of a price in terms of stress, feeling demoralized, the self-doubt, and later the anger over the unreasonableness of his boss. But he did have absolute clarity on the need to leave.
How Quickly Do You Pull the Trigger on a Job Search?
People often stay in not-so-great jobs longer than they likely should. Why? Inertia. The pain and uncertainty of job search. The fear of jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire. The worry about appearing like a job hopper. And wondering about how to explain the short move.
Job Hopping?
In April 2022, Fortune Magazine reported on a survey by Lattice (a people management platform for building engaged teams) of 2,000 people based in the US that brought forward a big revelation: 52% of respondents who had been a new job for three months or less were ACTIVELY looking for a new employer. Additionally, 74% of respondents said that were “open to new opportunities in the next six months to a year.”
This was certainly newsworthy and the Fortune article and survey results found their way into a number of subsequent articles. Lots of fuel for the Great Resignation trend.
Since then, a lot has happened globally. In July 2023, the New York Times reported that the Great Resignation was waning. People were a bit more circumspect about leaving their jobs, and the job market gave indications of having changed, too.
“Ms. Richardson (Nela Richardson, ADP’s Chief Economist) compared the labor market to a game of musical chairs: When the economy began to recover from pandemic shutdowns, workers were able to move between jobs freely. But with recession warnings in the air, they are becoming nervous about getting caught without a job when fewer are available.” https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/06/business/economy/jobs-great-resignation.html
While job hopping is slowing now, there was so much movement that the perception of job hopping is changing. It’s been changing for a while – thank you, millennials! But the pandemic did a lot to drive more attitude change. The negative perception has by no means gone away, but companies and hiring leaders appear to have more empathy for why people were making moves as they evaluated what was important to them during the scariness and upheaval of the pandemic.
That’s a significant change from 2008, where as a recruiter, I routinely spoke with hiring leaders and HR folks who were not eager to hire digital trust professionals who had been laid off. It was disturbing that in light of the massive turmoil in the economy engendering numerous layoffs, old ideas around company loyalty, and the notion that “they must have not been very good if they got laid off” were still prevalent.
We have moved way beyond that now. That’s not to say that one won’t encounter a hiring leader that thinks that way, or companies still mired in that old mindset, but it is much less likely.
If the job, company, boss, team, are not soooo awful, and you think you might be able to extract some good out of the role, staying a full year or even two is something to consider. It is common that as people gain a deeper understanding of everything surrounding their new role (company culture, management style, workflow, impact, and lots more), that dissatisfaction may mellow. Value may even be found. And a year more of experience can sometimes make all the difference when looking for the next job, especially for younger professionals.
The Benefit of Being in the 3-4 Month Time Window
Now if you do find yourself seeing lots of red flags and coming to the clear realization that you simply need to get a new role, a benefit of having started your job between 3-4 months ago can be to your advantage because you can quit and still fold that time into your job search period. That is, say you were laid off four months ago. It is conceivable that you have been in job search this entire time.
There is no rule that says you have to mention a short stint at a company that you didn’t like. In general, if you held a job 3-6 months, you don’t have to put it on your resume. (That being said, if it was an amazing job or a job with a big-name company, and then something happened that is easy to explain, you might want to include this experience.)
Here’s a caveat: in a moderately robust job market, most professionals with solid experience who launch a job search will be off the market within 3-4 months. So, at this moment in time, you won’t really want to push the envelope by saying you were out there beating the bushes for six months because that will likely raise a red flag for an employer. Obviously, each case is different – there can be extenuating circumstances. But this is something to be aware of.
How Do You Explain This in Interviews?
If you are leaving early on in that 3-5 month timeframe, the job is likely not on your resume. But if you are leaving beyond 6 months, the job will most likely be on your resume, and you are going to be asked about why you left in an interview. That may seem uncomfortable. It’s common knowledge that one doesn’t “bash” a past employer. Those who do typically get ruled out as viable candidates in a search. How do you frame the issue with the job professionally?
I asked Jason about how he handled this. He did have his role on his resume when he started his job search, which was about month five. Jason said that he was professionally candid in interviews. When asked about his departure, he said that he and his supervisor had not aligned on work expectations and that while he had excelled on his projects, he didn’t see a positive path forward (internal roles were not available at that time). Jason also said that he had a solid portfolio of finished projects from the recent job, a strong resume overall and a recommendation from the boss at the company who had originally hired him (but had left in the interim).
The key takeaways from Jason’s explanation are 1) the diplomacy of the delivery; 2) the framing of the decision in business terms (it wasn’t personal, simply a misalignment); and 3) the strength of his overall career performance supported by his resume, a reference, and his actual accomplishments while on the job.
In effect, you want to be able to build a strong business case for the logic and wisdom of your decision and be able to back it up with supporting evidence.
Should You Quit Without a Job in Hand?
The short answer is no – or no, unless the situation is dire. As a recruiter I made it a practice to tell candidates on the brink of quitting to step back for a moment and reconsider because as a candidate, you are always MORE VALUABLE when you have a job. It’s like driving a new car off the car lot. Once you do that, the vehicle has depreciated a bunch. That is what happens when you quit and are now an unemployed job seeker, particularly to your bargaining power, but also to some extent to your shiny competitiveness when stacked up against other candidates.
Another piece of this is the temperature of your local job market. If your market supports a number of companies with jobs in your discipline, and has openings now, your risk goes down. If you are in a small market, or a slow market, or your skills are OK but not hot, then you might want to take a hard look at the situation.
Do Your Own Risk Assessment
Many of you are bona fide risk professionals, and virtually all of you are familiar with the concept of risk assessment. Job moves are all about risk assessment. What is the risk? The upside and the worst-case scenario. What can you do or will you do to mitigate that? My guidance is to plan your strategy and make your moves AFTER assessing the risk. Turn that handy paradigm back on your own situation and see where you land.