There are obvious signs that you should quit: You’ve got a toxic boss or coworker. You’re blatantly disrespected and undermined at work by someone in a position of power. Your mental or physical health is suffering due to stress at work. You’re constantly complaining about work when you’re not at work. You live for weekends, dreading the endless grind of the workweek.
But what about the less obvious signs? Perhaps when you started in your current role, you loved your job, but now it’s not-so-great. You’re struggling with motivation, you feel like you’re on autopilot, and you can’t wait until the end of the day.
You’re not best buddies with your manager or coworkers, but the work environment is acceptable, you think you’re getting paid reasonably, and your work-life balance (excepting deadlines) isn’t terrible.
Yet, you occasionally check out job postings, and you have a nagging sense of dissatisfaction.
There’s no obvious warning sign you should go, but you’re wondering:
How do you know that it’s time to move on to a new job, or if you should stick it out where you are?
Unobvious warning signs it’s time for a change
#1 You know what you want and have asked for it at work, but you’ve been put off or ignored
Patterns generally don’t lie, and if you’re having the same conversations over and over about a promotion you want, a raise that’s been long overdue, or a skill you want to grow, it’s time to move on.
Don’t let yourself get strung along with promises that don’t result in action.
A few examples include:
Being strung along for a long-overdue promotion or raise
Your explicit boundaries at work are ignored, minimized, or grumbled about, especially by someone with power over you (like your manager). Example: I am leaving work at x time), yet your boss consistently continues to drop last-minute projects at (or after that time)
You’ve negotiated something (s) with your manager, who keeps coming back and telling you the “higher-ups” disagreed, and there is nothing your manager can do
You’ve reported a situation to HR, and no action is taken
It’s not unusual for technical professionals to stick it out in roles that don’t work for them, much longer than is prudent. I see this mindset in my career coaching practice often. When I dig beyond the obvious financial implications, we often uncover false beliefs that are artificially limiting your options.
The most common are below:
You’re determined to make things work and not be a quitter
You’re not confident there’s something better for you out there, so you stay with the “devil you know.”
You struggle with fitting in work - often there’s no one in leadership of your gender and/or race in your organization - so you undervalue your worth
What are the patterns telling you? Trust that data, or choose to disrupt that pattern.
#2 You’re not growing in a meaningful way
There are four indicators that you’re not growing in a meaningful way for you:
1. There is no opportunity for promotion in your organization. You can only move up if someone else retires or leaves, and that doesn’t seem possible anytime soon.
2. Your work is not challenging. You may feel you’re on autopilot.
3. The work itself is not fulfilling to you (which can be the case even if it is challenging). I personally have no interest in spending my days taking apart a car engine. That doesn’t mean it wouldn’t be challenging or that I don’t appreciate those who do. It does mean that career path would not be a good fit for me.
4. Your unique skillsets are being undervalued or not tapped at all.
Although careers ebb and flow, STEM technical professionals are generally intrinsically motivated by learning and growth. It’s demoralizing and confidence-draining to work in an environment that does not enable your professional development, especially if you’ve tried to stretch yourself and been shut down or encouraged to “stay in your lane.”
#3 The company has a stagnant – or uncertain – future.
The uncertain future
Mergers and acquisitions (M&A) are on the rise as baby boomers retire and find that it’s often easier (and more financially viable) to sell a firm than create an internal succession plan. For example, the Deloitte Engineering and Construction Industry Outlook Report found that even in 2020, the number of M&A deals announced remained the same as 2019, even given the turbulence of 2020.
Engineers are not immune to layoffs, a sudden change from a great to a bad manager, or significant changes in work functions when their employers are acquired. If a firm is being downsized or restructures, it’s intuitive that you should look for a possible new job. The less apparent situations are department and office-localized leadership shakeups, which can also directly affect your career trajectory.
What should you do if you see those shakeups and are not sure what they mean? Talk to your manager about where they think the company is going. If the response is “I don’t know,” “you don’t need to worry about that,” or it’s clear that your manager is withholding information or hedging on the question, it’s time to consider moving on.
Sometimes M&A deals occur to acquire a specific technology or a local foothold in a new geographic region. It is not unusual for entire offices or departments to be closed as the acquiring firm brings in new leadership. It is much better to get ahead of it and start that job hunt now before mass downsizing begins.
Is low or no growth ingrained in your employers’ business model?
A small and/or seemingly stable firm can also create a slow growth and stagnant environment. Sometimes this is tied to industry maturity. A company like 3M, for example, is expected to have slower growth (but more stability) than a tech start-up.
For those working in a small firm or department, it is essential to understand that sometimes those in power prefer to keep their organizations or departments small, maintaining similar workloads for years with the same number of people. For young and mid-career professionals working small consulting companies, as is often the case in civil and structural engineering, for example, this is a common experience.
Low or no growth environments often have patterns of minimal or no raises. Specifically, you might get a 2-3% cost-of-living adjustment, and it’s both rare to get a larger raise and more difficult to negotiate, regardless of how good you are at your work.
Those environments often have long promotional paths (10 years+ to get to the next level) and low turnover in management and leadership positions. They may have a “hollowed out” staff, with people in leadership and young professionals with minimal experience, but not much in between. This hollowing out should be a red flag that mid-career professionals are not being retained and there are difficulties bringing in new people at that level due to lack of growth opportunities.
Low growth environments can have benefits too. They are often very stable, as a result can potentially offer substantial (but never guaranteed) career security. The tradeoff you must be willing to accept is that if you are a growth-oriented individual, you’ll eventually need to go outside of work – say with a new hobby, in a volunteer capacity, or by starting a side hustle – to meet your internal needs for growth.
If you’re not OK with that, consider a low or no-growth environment warning sign it’s time to consider other options.
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Should you start a job hunt immediately if you see these warning signs?
It’s always better to start a job hunt ASAP when the warning signs become apparent. These warning signs are often early indicators that a particular role is either not a good fit or is no longer a good fit (i.e., you’ve outgrown it) and shouldn’t be ignored.
Still, often in the spirit of exhausting all options in our current role, you may be thinking:
“Maybe I’ll stick it out a bit longer and see if things improve.”
One effective strategy for that approach is to give yourself a short-term deadline. Deadline examples include your next work anniversary, performance review, three months from now, and January 1. During that time, you commit to “giving your all” to improve your situation by speaking up, asking – professionally and explicitly - for what you want, setting firm boundaries, and strategically building relationships with coworkers as a method of pattern disruption.
Then, review the intel and data compiled from your activities. Have things improved? Or are the old patterns still there, despite significant energy on your part?
Choosing not to make a decision means the stress hangs over you
If the last year has taught us nothing, it’s that indecision is stressful.
It hangs over you, and it lingers in the back of your mind, adding unseen stress to your daily activities. A solid 85% of employees are not happy at work (according to a poll by Gallop). That means many are spending their careers with one foot out the door in each role because their jobs aren’t a good fit. That lack of engagement shows and is a significant contributor to work misery.
This is also where an insightful mentor or career coach can be of most benefit: to help you make the right decision for you, and to hold you accountable for moving forward with whatever decision you choose.
The choice is yours. You can decide to stay and go “all in” in your current role. You can decide to move on. Which will you choose?
In the comments, let me know which of these warning signs you think is most important to you and why?
