Facing the End of the Honeymoon | No BS Job Search Advice Radio

Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter discusses that time after you join a company where you wake up and realize that the honeymoon is over.

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I want to talk with you today about the end of the honeymoon.  Those of us who are or have been married understand that there is a glow period after you get married.  Everything about this person is perfect. They are wonderful.  It isn’t like you fall out of love. But things change.  So it is with your new job.

You join an organization and everything is going to be perfect.  Everything is going to be wonderful.  Nothing could ever go wrong.  There are things that you have been promised that are absolutely terrific.  You have a bright future.  Then one day things start to change.

A decision is made that you don’t agree with.  A coworker says something that seems a little snippy.  Whatever it is, things start to change as the relationship with you, your work, your manager, your organization starts to shift as well.

It doesn’t mean the job is bad.  It doesn’t mean that you should immediately go out and change jobs.  By any stretch of the imagination. That is the wrong approach to take.  It is just that the relationship is changed.  The environment is becoming more apparent to you.  Maybe it will become time to change. But, initially, all it is is a change.

It’s like in a marriage, things ripen. Sometimes they break.  Sometimes they ripen beautifully. Sometimes they sell.  Marriages end in divorce.  Jobs in the divorce.

Your goal is to try to make it work.  Your goal is to see whether it is just a change or something pivotal.

I don’t presume to know what those pivotal things should be for you.  I’d could list a few. But I don’t want to sour your thinking in any way.  You’ll know what it is time to go because you have the case that brought you to this firm. One day you woke up, realize this wasn’t the right place for you and decided it was time to move on.

If you or someone who’s been one organization for a long period of time. There is a pattern that I want to bring to your attention as well.. For those of you who have been with the firm for a long time. The next job tends to be of much shorter duration.  Often, under a year.  That’s because you have unrealistic expectations of what the firm will do for you.  What this firm will do for you will be different than what your previous firm did for you.

That’s not their fault.  That’s you and having unrealistic expectations.  Be patient.  Be patient with them and be patient with yourself.

Rome was not built in a day. Positive change and synthesis and marriages are not built in a day.

Again, one day you’ll wake up in your new job and will feel the same as it did when you 1st started there.  You will feel concerned about that.  Yet, most of the time, there was nothing to be concerned about.  It is just that the relationship has changed.

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The skills needed to find a job are different yet complement the skills needed to do a job.

Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter has been a career coach and recruiter for what seems like one hundred years.

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