How do you know when it’s time to leave your job?
- This topic has 40 replies, 7 voices, and was last updated 1 year, 2 months ago by
.
-
Posts
-
For some great interview tips and up to date info, check the archives at “Ask A Manager”, great advice and an interesting column to read daily too. Hope all goes great!
Thank you. I’m kinda freaked out because I’ve never managed people before, which this job would entail. Also has a lot more oversight and would be a bit of a shift from what I’ve been doing. I even re-read my submitted documents to ensure I wasn’t somehow misrepresenting myself — that’s how unlikely I thought a call back was.
And I LOVE AAM. Every time I think I’ve had a crazy situation or coworker at work, those off-the-wall AAM letters make me realize how nuts some people or environments are. Or I’ll read about a situation nearly identical to one I went through on there and feel reassured to not be the only one (just when I thought I was the only one who had a kinda hostile past supervisor who carried a baseball bat around with him, enter AAM). (Both happen on this site, too!)
Managing people is okay, especially at a large company that has policies and procedures. I have two guys, both of whom are pretty new, and one is awesome and exceeding expectations, the other I have to contact HR as an early heads-up, and probably put him on a growth plan which could lead to a PIP. It’s weird, he’s mid-career but doesn’t take ownership, meet deadlines, or do things he was specifically hired to do because of his background. I don’t get it.
I think it would be tougher to step in as a newbie and manage people who’ve been there, but you could figure it out. You know a good boss from a bad boss.
My baseball bat boss was also fired, but it took several years. I was long gone by the time it happened.
And yeah, I believe it was on AAM that I read that it can be pretty hard to be hired as a people manager from an outside org if you have no experience with it. I’d not say it’s, like, my dream to manage people, but it feels like that’s how you move up. I wish I could move into this kind of role from within an organization — learning how to do a new job and how to manage others at the same time seems like a lot!
That makes sense. I was hired 3.5 years ago as a contractor, converted to FT after 2 years, then promoted to ppl manager after another year. That gave me enough time to become pretty knowledgeable about how things work, and the business… at least as much as I could be in a totally wack environment. I was already coaching and developing new team members so it felt fine to move to managing a couple of them. Like you, I applied for a higher level job but I lacked industry experience and they offered me something else. That probably turned out for the best. But if they offer you the higher level job, you can fake it til you make it, read up on the topics you need to, watch people who are doing it well and reach out ti them for advice etc.
I think a lot of jobs are faking it until making it or learning as you go, especially first jobs. I think you could def do it @Copa! Good luck this morning.
At my company, as an OH employee, it’s hard to move up unless others leave and the way to move up is start managing people. I was ready. The previous marketing director wouldn’t promote me because I didn’t have “people manager” experience. How do you expect me to get that??? I was already basically sourcing the work coming to our office so I was doing a lot of what the managers do. The director didn’t know me and wasn’t great. She didn’t last long. Anyway, a few people stuck up for me and I was finally promoted. I’m thriving. In fact, one of the people who helped me out was in town this week helping me on a major pursuit. She’s the director now. The other woman who helped me out is now an EVP and our Growth Officer for the region.
Office politics are the worst.
Copa, I hope it went well for you and even if it’s not a good fit that it was a good experience.
I love (but am not surprised) that people here know and enjoy AAM. I can spend hours going back through those archives — Alison does UPDATES, with LINKS! Sigh, that’s the best.
Well, the job would effectively double my salary. I thought I was shooting for the stars when they asked for salary expectations but I was still $20K under the starting range. But I don’t think it’d be the right fit. The team the new person would be leading is currently understaffed and going through some transitions, so they had questions about strategic leadership in the context of transitions. Which I do not have. The role, though hybrid, also seems to have the expectation of going in at least four days per week due to the seniority of it and it’s on the south side of the city, which would be over an hour on public transit. I think I could deal with a less-than ideal commute a couple days/week, but not every day. Anyway, I did my best!
@ktfran The AAM post I read about needing people management experience for a people manager role was from someone who wrote in essentially asking if it always feels like a catch-22. Internally, the LW was not getting people management experience, but she’d come across that road block of outside employers dinging her for not having it.
I think even if you don’t have it, you can make a pretty strong case by playing up everything you’ve done to mentor, coach, develop, and oversee junior employees on projects. I had mostly worked in settings where I was an individual contributor and all the junior people reported to like an Operations Manager, but I had done a ton of coaching and project oversight. And the short period when I did previously have direct reports, I had to put someone on a PIP that was already in the works, so I could talk about managing in a challenging situation.
Oh, that’s a bummer, but definitely good to check out! I’m not sure I’d want to walk into that situation myself, even for the extra $$.
Yeah, it’s a total catch-22. I’m glad I had some good people looking out for me. A little patience helped too, which I normally have in spades. Relationship building is so important.
