As time rolls on, often a job gets monotonous or perhaps you get typecast in certain role or with specific responsibilities and growth opportunities are not available. Whatever the tipping point may be, there inevitably comes a time for all of us when we’re ready to move on. Which leads me to the meat and potatoes of this post (fyi we’re going to skip over most of the job search/interview process as that deserves it’s own story) but once you’ve landed that new job, how do you deal with your expectations of the job versus the reality of the day-to-day?

A new job, as with everything else in life, should be taken with a grain of salt. For example: we all know that the food images in commercials are not exactly how the food is going to look when you get to the restaurant… the swimsuit the model is wearing is going to look different on you… the DIY project is probably going to look a little different than the finished project on HGTV. But you get the point – and starting a new job is no different. Hopefully though the chasm between what was advertised and what life is like in your new office isn’t worlds apart, but if it is, that’s what were to discuss and talk about how to cope.

JOB EXPECTATION

So you found a new job that seemed to be everything you were looking for, add to that you’re ridiculously qualified for it and you got through the interview process with flying colors. Now it’s time to do meet the team and do the work.

Integrating into a new office has its challenges to be sure, but as long as you stay open-minded and aware of your surroundings everything should be fine. Typically within 2-4 weeks the social piece starts to work itself out and even if you haven’t made an office “bestie” yet, at least by now people have started to recognize you.

Some companies also have a meet and greet process wherein your new boss will give you a list of people they’d like you to meet as it’s likely you’ll be dealing with these folks on the regular in your new role. Now don’t get me wrong, the premise of this idea is a good one, but let’s face it they’re basically asking you to go on a series of “blind dates”. Which is awkward. My recommendation (if you can swing it) is to put off these “dates” until you’ve been in the job a couple weeks, have been to a few meetings and have started to receive assignments from your boss. At that point you’ll actually have questions for these folks or at least have a better idea of what your job will be and how you might be interacting with them.

But let’s get the focus back on the expectation piece. Specifically what happens when the job was advertised a certain way, but once you’re actually doing it things are completely different? Taking into account a 10-20% margin of BS that might have been added to the job description by a hiring manager, what about the rest?

I like to give analogies to illustrate a point, so we’re going to use Jake (no, not from State Farm), who was just hired as an Email Marketing Manager for our example. Jake has been working in email for 5+ years and was running all the email campaigns at his previous company; he worked with the creative team to develop the assets, the clients to gather the content and the analytics team to add tagging to all emails for reporting. He’s done it all! But his previous employer had no plans to promote him from Email Coordinator to anything more, so when he saw an opportunity for advancement at another company he applied.

The job was advertised as a leadership role in Email for all of the new companies current clients and Jake was excited for the challenge. But as the weeks have rolled by and Jake is acclimating to his new role, things are not as expected. Jake isn’t being allowed to lead or give input on email campaigns, creative, analytics or reporting. He’s only been tasked with chasing down information and delivering it to other teams (who were already in place when he started) to bring to completion.

JOB REALITY

#1 You’re an expert in your trade, but no one wants to hear what you have to say.

Whether it’s email marketing, landscaping, health & wellness or real estate, I think we can all agree this is/would be frustrating. You’ve worked for many years to learn, grow and establish yourself in a certain area and would love to share that knowledge but it’s not being accepted. What to do?

Solution Recommendation: Talk to your new boss and with a professional approach state your case. Explain that you were under the impression you were hired for your background in “____” but it’s been difficult to get a seat at the table to share that knowledge. If it makes sense have an example to share, but be sure not to present it in a “throwing under the bus” way. You never want to position yourself as you vs. another person/team. (Even if that’s actually what’s happening.)

#2 You were told you’d be leading but all you’re doing is chasing.

Again this side effect could be applied to a job in any industry and the way to resolve it is universal.

Solution Recommendation: Talk to your new boss. Unless it’s your boss who’s sending you on 1 fool’s errand after another, then it might be time to go to HR. But no matter who you talk to, be sure to have documentation or examples to share professionally. Also it can’t hurt to practice what you’re going to say and create a list of talking points for yourself. (Remember this isn’t like venting to your friends at happy hour.) These people have other things to do and while they should be inclined to want to help resolve this, that doesn’t mean they want to listen to you vent.

Organize your thoughts, bring 1-2 examples and keep things succinct. Stay away from naming name’s when at all possible and put the unpleasantness your bringing up back on you. For example: “I want to understand the process” not “The current process doesn’t work”.

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Hopefully having these conversations will bring about a shift and your new work-life will improve for the better. If that’s not the case, carefully consider what your next steps might be.

If the job is tolerable, look into taking online classes in your free time to continue to build your skill set while you’re there. Just because you’re not learning anything new from this employer doesn’t mean you should allow your skill building to languish. Try to tough it out for at least 12-16 months, network as much as you can and then begin looking for something else.

If the job is not tolerable, it’s time to dust-off the resume and begin job-hunting again. One bright side though, now you have additional questions to ask on future interviews to be sure you don’t get into this same situation again.