Welcome to “Dear Dana”, our weekly column to give you career and workplace advice/coaching. Please write in and tell me about a career challenge or frustration you’re facing at the office! – Dana Theus
Dear Dana, I used to love my job; recently my colleague caught me complaining about it. I guess I’ve started complaining more than I realized. It kind of woke me up and then I heard you talking about staying too long at a job. I’m wondering if I’m just bored? How long should you stay at a job? Should I look for a new job? – Wondering in Wisconsin
Dear Wondering,
I’m glad that your colleague and I could “wake you up” to this question: how long should you stay at a job? Of course, the answer is personal to each of us in the context of a particular job, career and life, but I think the main insight you picked up on is that no matter how well matched you are at first, every employer and every person reach a point where it’s time to reconsider or renegotiate in order to support your continued growth.
There are two main ideas here we should all consider:
You and your job have a relationship, and like all healthy relationships you need to regularly review and renegotiate your agreement, keeping in mind that you can always agree to part.
Jobs have a natural progression, illustrated in the graphic below, where we go through the process of learning how to succeed, and then accomplishing successes, and then building on your success to position you for your next big accomplishment. And if you don’t move on to your next thing within the job you have, you probably have stayed too long.
The key is for you to realize that in order to keep growing in your career, you have to notice the point at which you’ve accomplished a lot of what your current job offers you and then leverage your personal growth to accomplish new things. Sometimes your current job can adapt to allow you to grow into new capabilities and sometimes it can’t. This point may take a year or two or it may take decades, depending on you and your job. For many these days, it’s a shorter period of time (about 4 years in the private sector), which is why I encourage people to think about their career as fluid, and to focus on career health in addition to job satisfaction.
Yes, you can stay at your job too long. – Click To Tweet
It’s not your employer’s job to manage your personal growth
The problem for many of us is that we have unconsciously given the responsibility for our personal growth to our employers. We get a job and expect it (and our boss) to keep feeding our interests. It’s possible that this is what’s going on for you. You’re unconsciously bitter at your employer for not keeping your job interesting, when in fact it’s you that has grown to the point where you’re ready to learn new things.
What can you do to keep growing in your career if this job has gotten bored? Even though it’s obvious that you can look for another job, it’s not necessarily what I recommend as step one. Step one, is really for you to sit down and take stock of where you are in your life and career. Based on this, you can work on developing your ideas about your dream jobat this point in your life. Do this regularly because it will keep changing! We should all do this every year or two at least.
Armed with this information, you can take a fresh look at your current job and examine whether it has the potential to become your dream job if you make some tweaks here and there. Even if you believe your current job can’t become your dream job, it may be a good idea to talk to your boss. For all you know, she has ideas on how your job could change, or whether there are other opportunities at the company that might be well suited to your development path. But don’t give your boss an ultimatum unless you’re ready to leave your job if she can’t make you a better offer.
So how long should you stay at a job? That’s up to you and your job, but that’s the question you should be asking yourself on a very regular basis, and listen to the answer! We have lots of resources here in our Coaching Community to help you in this process. Use them!
There was recently a wonderful article at HBR.com about competence vs. confidence and how people respond to both. How does this relate to imposter syndrome? As defined by an article in the New York Times:
Two American psychologists, Pauline Clance and Suzanne Imes, gave it a name in 1978: the impostor syndrome. They described it as a feeling of “phoniness in people who believe that they are not intelligent, capable or creative despite evidence of high achievement.” While these people “are highly motivated to achieve,” they also “live in fear of being ‘found out’ or exposed as frauds.”
—Carl Richards, Learning to Deal With the Impostor Syndrome, New York Times
Imposter syndrome is that little voice in your head that tells you that you are a fraud, that you’ll be found out, that you aren’t good enough. If you hear it enough, it can impact your confidence. And that impacts how people perceive you.
What’s challenging about the fluid career is that you aren’t only making changes to your career or job on paper; you are also making changes that change you and your perception of yourself. You are changing how you define yourself too. If you are switching jobs every 3.7 years, you need to always be ready to make a move – networking and flowing. How does imposter syndrome stop that from happening?
You may decide that you need to have 100% of the qualifications rather than most before making the switch (read The Economist article for more information for how women have this challenge more than men). Or that you could never do the new job because you believe that you can barely do your current job. Or that work comes too easy for you versus other people.
We’ll be discussing:
Imposter syndrome and how it impacts you – especially with a fluid career
How a fluid career could magnify imposter syndrome
How to view your accomplishments in the world of fluid careers
Confidence vs. competence, imposter syndrome and fluid career
What’s a fluid career?
Dana Theus has been observing a new career trend – fluid careers. The average tenure of a job for professionals is 3.5 years. This means that someone could have up to 10-12 jobs in a lifetime and possibly 2-3+ careers. It is freeing, in that it gives people more control to design more work-life balance in their career over time, and anxiety-producing as it can feel less stable if one defines success as “a job that lasts at least 10 years.” This fluid employment trend takes into account the growth in both entrepreneurship and the Gig Economy, reductions in employee tenure, increases in employee dissatisfaction and increases in employee turnover.
About Vreneli Stadelmaier
Holding an MBA, registered coach, source of inspiration, speaker, entrepreneur, author, blogger and publisher. She owns the company SheConsult, which addresses imposter syndrome in women. You can get a copy of her book, Sure She Can to better understand her approach to overcome imposter syndrome. In 2015, winner of the prestigious Joke Smit Award for gender equality, awarded by the Dutch government. Divorced, married again (with another man), mother of three children and two bonus children.
She is working on a new book now, Yes She’s Smart. She wrote the book especially for new women graduates. They do well while at university, but after graduation lose their ambitions due to low self-confidence, not understanding what it means to be in a masculine organization, worries about combining a career and family, and other influences in their career choices.
FREE PDF Guide to Women in Leadership
Executive Coach Dana Theus shares her tried and true strategies to help women excel in higher levels of leadership and achieve their executive potential.
Welcome to “Dear Dana”, our weekly column to give you career and workplace advice/coaching. Please write in and tell me about a career challenge or frustration you’re facing at the office! – Dana Theus
Dear Dana, Thanks for the opportunity to seek your guidance and expertise for personal balance. At the present time I choose to work from home. Most of this is working very well and has even lead to some growth in clients, also allowing me to expand my offerings. As exciting as this is, I find myself lacking motivation. It’s like I want all the wealth and fame, but can’t seem to get up and get going to do it. I know what I should do, but I’m dragging my feet. What suggestions do you have for people working from home offices out of secluded locations? Relocation is not an option at this point. -Dragging my feet in Des Moines
Dear Dragging,
Thanks so much for your question. I really feel this one, as I also work at home and have gone through periods where I had just this challenge. Some of the advice I’m going to give you is stuff I’m still working on myself! (more…)
Welcome to “Dear Dana”, our weekly column to give you career and workplace advice/coaching. Please write in and tell me about a career challenge or frustration you’re facing at the office! – Dana Theus
Currently, I am working for a software company that makes software for the public sector. I have my bachelors degree in business administration with a concentration in management. I have been at this company for 3 and a half years, with 1 promotion since I’ve been here. I am currently thinking that it might be time to take the next step with my career, but not sure where to go. I like the technical aspect of my job, but being on the phone with clients all day, doing some of the same things over and over, is getting to be stressful. Would like to look for a more analytical role. The department I am in has little if any room for growth, and there are no openings in other departments. Have taken a test at the state with my names on a few lists, but no luck so far. Any insight into the next career move would be greatly appreciated. – Itchy in Ithaca
Hi Itchy!
It sounds to me like your current experience has been a good one and positions you well for your next step. The fact that you’re fairly clear on what it is about your current position that you like and don’t like is really good because it will help you focus on taking your next step. It’s also good that you’re not miserable and ready to “take anything that comes along.” This gives you time to plot out a move to your “perfect job,” which increases the likelihood you’ll really enjoy your next position. Getting clear on WHY you want to move on and WHAT you’re looking for will really help smooth the process.
Welcome to “Dear Dana”, our weekly column to give you career and workplace advice/coaching. Please write in and tell me about a career challenge or frustration you’re facing at the office! – Dana Theus
Dear Dana, I have found that all three websites I’ve used to apply for jobs have a requirement for applicants to provide their salary requirement/expectation. I found that surprising. I’m interested in knowing how common that is, and whether employers expect that there will still be negotiations or not. Also, if my salary is lower than the job, does that help me in the application process? Thanks, Curious in Columbus
Dear Curious,
I’m afraid it’s very common on web sites to ask for information on your previous/current salary. It’s less common in face-to-face interactions until they’re ready to offer you the job. Unless they ask, you’re under no obligation to give them salary information in the application or screening interviews, and I recommend that you don’t (with one exception, see below). The fact is that once they know your current salary, you’re at a disadvantage in potential salary negotiations, but this doesn’t mean you’ll lose. The goal is to put off the issue of salary as late into the interview process as possible so that by the time it comes up both of you know if you’re a good candidate for the job and they know why they want you so they are incentivized to give you a higher salary than what you’re currently making.
Having a well-placed, successful mentor can be the difference between success and failure on the leadership track – but it is definitely more an art than a science for the mentor and the mentee.
I recently started hosting a radio show interviewing CEOs of small-to-mid-sized companies. One question that male leaders love to answer is “tell us about your mentors?” It turns out that very few men make it to the top without mentors. For women, this experience is less consistent. I believe it’s because the “old girls club” works more like a sewing circle than a smoke-filled room and for better or worse, some women just don’t feel comfortable bringing up the next generation in a deliberately helpful manner. This is changing, of course, as more women succeed, but I find that women benefit more from “learning how” to mentor and be a mentee. It makes a difference for leadership mentors for women, although it’s not as culturally obvious to us how mentorship works and how we can use it to our advantage.
In her book, Lean In, Sheryl Sandberg devotes a whole chapter to the subject of mentorship and she calls it “Are You My Mentor?” because she observes that too many women go around looking for a mentor like they’re looking for a golden slipper. I love that chapter and if you haven’t read the book yet, do so and make sure you read this chapter.
Here is some of the wisdom about mentors combined from Sheryl and me. (more…)
Welcome to “Dear Dana”, our weekly column to give you career and workplace advice/coaching. Please write in and tell me about a career challenge or frustration you’re facing at the office! – Dana Theus
Dear Dana,
What am I missing in salary negotiations? I think I left more than a little bit on the table here. But how do you know what you should be getting paid versus what you are offered and if it is a good deal?
I was working in a consulting firm. At the time (about 10 years ago), I was making $80K/year + benefits + unlimited expense account. I had a Master’s degree and a good amount of work experience. I thought I was getting a decent deal at the time, especially since I negotiated up $20K from my previous position.
I was in a management role on the project, identifying staff we needed for better delivery, assisting with requirements as needed (we had teams to do that, but I was reviewing for gaps), managing deliverable timelines, writing proposals, helping communication between members occur – all of that.
A colleague who had an MBA was making 3x what I was – and her role was to lead a team for requirements gathering. That was it! She didn’t have more to manage or deliver. Needless to say, I was shocked and annoyed at the difference in our pay – and work expectations.
But what do you do in a situation like that? How do you ask for additional compensation? Do you wait for the next review cycle? How does that work? – Underpaid in Memphis
Dear Underpaid:
As I was reading your note, I was thinking, “Yeah, $80,000 is too low…” and then you hit me with the whopper of your colleague’s salary. She had an MBA, which will often put a bump into anyone’s package, but 3x is not all due to her degree!
Here’s the thing about salary: your employer has incentive to pay you as little as they can. Even when they want to be “fair,” they will more than likely look for the lowest “win-win” number they can when you’re negotiating. There are a lot of reasons for this, and this truth is not likely to change, so you have to do the changing and get into a smart salary negotiation mindset.
There’s a lot of confusion and anxiety running around the Internet these days, and it feels relentless, like we’re drowning in the next big thing every time a text alert comes in. When I started writing this, I was thinking of the Women’s March on Washington (and every other city center) that turned out 3 million marchers worldwide to stand up for women’s rights, but by the time I edited it a week later, pussy hats had fallen below the fold and Trump’s Immigration Ban was sucking the air out of the Internet. For the first time in my adult life I’ve found myself googling puppy videos just to find something non-alarmist to look at when I take a work break. (Think I’m kidding? Here’s a favorite my mom discovered.)
Even though the topic du jour seems to shift pretty quickly, one theme of my hyperventilating news feeds has been consistent for months, and that is the constant drumbeat of fear. All sides say they’re afraid — of outsiders, insiders and each other. One can argue that fear is never far from the headlines, but something else has been new lately, and that is a conversation about women’s issues and the things that come with it, discrimination, equal pay, misogyny, reproductive rights and the role men play in helping us or hurting us. One man in particular has caught the public eye for his treatment of women; our newest president, Donald Trump. And no one seems to understand how and why women react to him with such a wide variety of feelings, from fear to attraction. As I’ve puzzled on this, I keep circling around the question of Trump and women – should we be afraid of him?
After the election, I was having dinner with some friends and one of the men said, “What’s with Trump and women voters? Why did so many women vote for him?” He was referring to the fact that although only 42% of all women voted for Trump, 53% of white women did so, despite the pussy-grabbing video that saturated the news in the weeks before the election.
Welcome to “Dear Dana”, our weekly column to give you career and workplace advice/coaching. Please write in and tell me about a career challenge or frustration you’re facing at the office! – Dana Theus
Dear Dana,
For a number of years I had my own business. However, I decided to return to being an employee to expand my experience. I came onto the team as an individual contributor, and was told I would become a manager in a year or two. Colleagues already in line for a promotion made it to the next level, but I wasn’t stressed because I knew I was new.
Then there was a reorg. I was placed in a new team. I was also told that I wouldn’t be promoted for another 3-5 years. Also, I learned by accident from a peer who did get promoted that she was making +$50K/year more than I was. Sure, she had 15 years more on me in the company, but still. +$50K?
What should I have done differently when I went to work for that company?
— Shoulda-coulda been a Manager in Milwaukee
Dear Shoulda-coulda,
Hindsight is tricky. There are certainly lessons for you there, but it’s also too easy to beat yourself up unnecessarily. The key is to realize that all your previous experience—good and bad—has made you who you are today, and that you’re still learning and growing. Comparing yourself to others is never going to give you the insights you need to find the way to your highest potential as well as comparing yourself to your own highest aspirations for yourself.
That said, you did get some big lessons you can learn from going forward….
Can leaders be both self-interested and others-oriented? At first glance, it may seem that these attributes are at opposing ends of the same continuum. Research from global business graduate school INSEAD posits a different viewpoint, and one that has implications for HR and Organizational Development professionals who design leadership development programs.
The research team of Laura Guillén and Elizabeth Florent-Treacy studied two categories of leadership behaviors to determine to what extent emotional intelligence (“EI”) had a bearing on these specific behaviors. Drawing on the previous work of Hogan & Shelton, and Hogan & Holland, the study authors used the terms “getting ahead” (defined as behaviors at work designed to gain power of control and resources) and “getting along behaviors” (defined as attempts to feel supported and liked) as the basis to frame two important sets of leadership behaviors. They then used the shorthand phrases of “getting ahead” in a leadership context to mean visioning, energizing, designing and rewarding (which is a much more positive take on the original terminology). They defined “getting along” leadership behaviors as teamwork and empowerment of others. Guillén and Florent-Treacy wanted to understand the role that emotional intelligence played on behaviors that could be considered “self-interested” (getting ahead) and “others-interested” (getting along.) Using a 360-degree survey process with over 900 leaders and their superiors, direct reports, and peers, they studied the behaviors independently and also looked for correlation between the behaviors. (more…)
The key is for you to realize that in order to keep growing in your career, you have to notice the point at which you’ve accomplished a lot of what your current job offers you and then leverage your personal growth to accomplish new things. Sometimes your current job can adapt to allow you to grow into new capabilities and sometimes it can’t. This point may take a year or two or it may take decades, depending on you and your job. For many these days, it’s a shorter period of time (about 4 years in the private sector), which is why I encourage people to think about their career as fluid, and to focus on career health in addition to job satisfaction.
