New Job but Very Unhappy3 1/2 months ago I started a new job with a great company which had me very excited. I left a senior role with my previous employer but was very burnt out and didn't have a very clear career progression path. I understood the new job would be a lateral move but the opportunity to work with a top notch company in a new industry (same field) really excited me. Besides the new company tends to create a number of internal opportunities for its staff which also excited me. The problem is that from the time I began talking to my new company until starting the role (about 3 months passed), they hired a temp and decided to offer that person the group's senior role which I believed was the role I had accepted. It wasn't until after relocating and starting my new job that this announcement was made which imagine my shock upon hearing this news. This has since forced me into a subordinate role which is completely different than the role I believed I was accepting, not to mention makes me feel deceived. So instead of a lateral move I have taken one to two steps backward. Now I'm unsure of the path to take. I have approached the person who hired me about my discontent and the fact that the role I'm in is not the one I accepted and no action has been taken. I agreed to be a team player and just do my job but more and more I get frustrated with my role. I feel without a change, remaining in this job could derail my career for at least 2-3 years not to mention make me an unhappy person. I have considered approaching my hiring manager again about getting permission to seek other opportunities internally (usually 1 year limit on internal transfers) but that could seriously impact our relationship. I could sit back and either hope they find a role for me that better suits my expectations (unlikely) or just suck it up and after a year passes I can move on either internally or externally without worrying about my relo benefit payback. If I seek external opportunities in the meantime paying back my relo could be a real deal breaker. So overall I feel stuck without a clear winning path...
I had a similiar situation happen with my first job out of college in which I was hired for an management position, and then 3 months into the job, was asked to take a lower level position due to restructuring and because I had no sales experience at the time. I stuck it out for 3 years and although I climbed the ladder fairly quickly to upper level management, I was never content working there. I regret not leaving sooner and getting on with a new job somewhere else. It's no surprise to me that the company is no longer in business. Realisitically, you've already taken the step back. If the title is the same but the duties have dropped, that probably won't show on a resume for the future so it may not be that big a deal. Since there was relocation involved, you're likely stuck with a big repayment if you leave before a year. At this point, it may be smartest to stick things out and see if you can advance after you've been there 12 months. If it makes you feel any better, these kinds of things happen. I doubt there was any grand conspiracy to screw you over. Stuff like this is often a right hand/left hand thing and even if you'd gone into the job you were expecting, someone could have come in over you the next week and pushed you down a step. If you're so unhappy that you can't make this work and the repayment is not an issue, then your only other course of action is to look outside the company for something else. Your reason for leaving would be to say that there was an unexpected change in organizational structure and the job you went into was not the level you'd been promised and is not making the best use of your skills and abilities. If you're going to do something like that anyway, then maybe it wouldn't hurt to approach your boss and see if they can make an exception to the internal transfer. Otherwise, hard as it is, buckling down and showing them that you're really destined for better things is going to be the best way to get them to support you in moving up one way or another. Even when they're in the wrong, companies don't advance complainers. If you set your mind to it, you could come out of this stronger than ever as a true team player and someone who will go above and beyond no matter what. Those are things that management notices. Tess | |
|
Career Tips
|