Episode 18: 3 Questions To Ask If It’s Time To Quit Your Job
There is a lot of uncertainty and worry right now around if we are going into a recession or not, inflation, and mass layoffs. But the reality is, no matter how well the economy is doing and how strong your industry is, there is no such thing as job security. But there are some things you can do to make sure you are well-prepared for anything that could come your way.
In this week’s episode, you’ll learn:
-7 things you can do right now to recession-proof your career
-How to be prepared, not panic about the unknown
-Why you should not update your LinkedIn profile or resume first
-What leaders look for when deciding who stays and who goes
Full Transcript:
[00:01:05] Nicole Case: welcome back to the Upgraded Career podcast. I'm your host Nicole Case, and if it's just hasn't been your day, your week, your month, or maybe even your year, just know that I'm here for you. Do you like that friends reference? I hope you like that friends reference because I like the French reference.
[00:01:24] Anyway, let's face it. Work is hard and there are periods of time where. really sucks, right? Just lots of competing deadline deadlines. Your coworkers are annoying. You don't have the proper tools. There isn't enough clarity on what you should be doing. It's tough. Like I get, I get it, and I hear this from my client.
[00:01:44] every week, but how do you determine if it's just a ti a tough season or a cycle in the business, and when is it really just time to go? Right? And I know I personally can get very dramatic and tend to get bored really quickly in jobs and can be like, oh my God, I hate everything. This really sucks. I quit blah, blah, blah.
[00:02:02] So very early in my career, I came up with just three questions to ask myself to help me think through. , this just a hard season and it's gonna pass, or, and am I just being super dramatic and emotional and frustrated right now, which is okay? Um, you're allowed to feel that that's not, that's not a problem at all.
[00:02:23] Um, but is it that, or is it really time to move on, right? So is it, you know, how do you figure out if it's actually time to go or not? And so these are the three questions that, again, I've, I kind of figured out really early in my career. Thankfully, otherwise, I'd be quitting jobs every day. , right? Um, and also what I, what I share with my clients now is one, am I learning, two, am I making an impact?
[00:02:47] And 3:00 AM I having fun? So let's dive into each of these. So one, am I learning, you know, learning is. a really, really a lifelong journey. I think that continuing to learn is really central. It's a really central part to a fulfilling and satisfying career and the economy and our industries are just moving so fast that we just have to keep our skills up to date.
[00:03:15] Right? Like, holy cow chat, GTP is gonna make all of our jobs go away. Um, no, that's not actually true. Um, , who knows? Maybe we need to learn how to use AI and machine learning in in our work. You know, maybe that's a skill we need to keep up to date on or whatever, right? Whatever that looks like for you, but,
[00:03:34] I think that continuing to learn and to grow, no matter what your title is, no matter how long you've been in the workplace, no matter how many credentials you have and how many degrees you have, like I, I truly believe that continuing to learn and to grow in that way is really, really important to having that fulfilling and satisfying career.
[00:03:51] And so this could look like a couple of different things in your, in your job. So it could literally look like formal classroom learning and training. , right? Like you could, you have access to a learning and, and, and a learning and development sort of program, or you have access to, um, you know, again, different like skills-based training courses.
[00:04:15] you might have budget to go outside and get training somewhere else, whether, you know it's taking a class at a university or um, getting a certification or something like that. Or even, even, you know, budget to go to a conference or something like that. Right. So it could really look like that formal sort of learning that a lot of us think of whenever we say.
[00:04:35] Learning, right? And continuing to learn and grow. But it could also just having time in your day to learn, right? So it's great if you have budget to go to conferences or budget to like take these training courses, but if you don't actually have the time that to do it in your day. , then you might not feel like you're able to actually learn, right?
[00:04:55] Like, those are two different, those are two things that need to happen. You actually have to have access to the training and you have to have the time, right? So having time in your day to learn and being really encouraged to make sure that you are, um, continuing to grow and to, and to gain new skills is important.
[00:05:12] This could also look like just. being able to do new things on the job, right? So it's not just doing, um, doing courses or getting certifications or anything like that. It might just be like, I have exposure to new things, or I have the autonomy to, you know, do things differently or change things up. If I think that's, if I think that's the right thing.
[00:05:35] You're able just to learn, um, kind of on the job or maybe you get a mentor or a buddy that can actually, um, help train you in something different or just again, give you exposure to something different. This might look like getting a promotion, right? You might, um, be ready for that next level. Um, maybe it's getting into people leadership for the first time or maybe, um, like a lot of my clients stepping into that next level leader where, you know, you're getting into that director, senior director, VP level.
[00:06:03] where leading an organization or leading a function is very different than just being a first line manager and, and leading a bunch of, um, other individual contributors. Like again, stepping up to that next level leadership is, is a very different skillset set. Lots of different, um, things you need to consider and think about.
[00:06:23] So getting, getting a promotion might be the way that you continue to learn and, It could also be a job rotation or a job sharing situation, or just maybe moving to a new department inside of your, inside of your company if you have the ability, um, and access to be able to do that. That can be just a, again, another great way to continue learning on the job just by getting a job rotation or, or just having the ability to move to a new department.
[00:06:50] And it could also mean maybe filling in for your boss. Maybe you're, maybe you have grown into being your boss's right hand, um, maybe your team lead or again, you're, you're, um, just really grown to be that, um, really critical part. Of the team. And so anytime your boss is either traveling or on vacation or whatever, that you're starting to take some things off of their plate again, which is also a really great way to position yourself for a promotion if that's something that you're after.
[00:07:21] But filling in for your boss could also be a really great way to, um, learn and grow and be exposed to new things in your job. So that's learning. Are you continuing to learn and grow in the way that. , you want to learn and grow. The second question that I always ask myself and ask my clients is, am I making an impact?
[00:07:42] Right? Am I doing work that matters or am I doing work that's directly related to the company goals? Or do I feel like I'm just sitting here and just doing a bunch of busy work or just paper pushing? You know, am I, am I doing work that's truly impacting the bottom line? Now, it can be really, Um, when you are at a certain position in the company or you're in a certain function that is not very easily directly tied to the bottom line, so, For instance, being in HR like I was in my corporate career, um, I can tell you a whole host of metrics and a whole host of things that can, can certainly point to a healthy, um, a healthy functioning business that totally correlates to having, um, more revenue and more profit in your business.
[00:08:35] But it also can, can be kind of squishy and be kind of, kind of fuzzy. Sometimes it can be a little bit more challenging to, like, the specific work that I'm doing here is directly related to us getting more customers, right? It, it might be a little bit more challenging in your role to do that, but, um, but again, are you, are, are you able to make an impact even in a small way, um, to say like, yes, I.
[00:09:00] Created this process, or I did this, or, um, the project that I'm working on again, makes life easier for everyone else. Therefore, everyone, uh, you know, the people in sales have, um, have the ability to close more deals, um, um, a little bit more easily or a little bit faster. Whatever. Right. So, you know, are you doing work that matters to you personally?
[00:09:25] That like, yeah, I'm doing really great stuff in this world. Like I'm impacting big things in this world Now we all don't have to work for nonprofits or NGOs or we don't all have to again, be, um, school teachers or nurses or anything like that, that, you know, you can vary. easily, directly relate the work that you do back to, um, improving somebody's life at, on an individual basis.
[00:09:49] But, you know, are you doing work that you like and that's important to you, right? Or that you feel like, yeah, I'm, I'm overall making a difference in this world. Are you doing work that. would continue even if you weren't there. So this is something that I grappled with a lot in my career because I had big ideas, I had lots of programs and processes that I wanted to put into place, and a lot of times I had the autonomy to do that, which I thought was really great, that, you know, I had the ability to be like, yeah, Nicole, if that's, if that's what you wanna do, or if you think that's the right, the right way to approach this, go for it.
[00:10:29] But then it would make me wonder. , if I left, would that work continue without me? Um, and that's not to say that in the moment that the work wasn't super valuable and that it didn't impact the company in a really big way, and that it's just, there just wasn't someone that had that same passion or had that same idea or that same vision for how they were, how they wanted to impact the business, that that doesn't negate all of the important work that you did.
[00:10:59] So it makes me think back to. . Um, when I was at a really large tech company, I created, um, uh, a new employee assimilation program, a year long program for new hire for new college grad engineers. So we were seeing a lot of attrition, really high attrition rates with our. , um, engineers that we are hiring right outta college and, um, and on, on, on, on some level.
[00:11:23] That's normal, right? Like you're, you're, you're gonna have to allot for that because somebody coming outta college, it's normal for them to kind of, you know, come into a company and bounce after a year or two or decide, you know, I'm gonna move to a different city. Or, you know, they decide that that's not the work that they wanna do, and you just don't know that until you get into it.
[00:11:43] Right? So that's, so some of that's normal. But the feedback that I was hearing was that, you know, people didn't feel connected, people didn't know, you know, the company was really big. People didn't know, um, who other people were, the other departments were. They weren't getting FaceTime with some of the leaders to like really feel connected, um, to this broader organization.
[00:12:02] So I came up with this year long, um, assimilation program for them where we had, um, , uh, we had events once a month. We brought in speakers. There was projects that they worked on it, and it was really cool and I, and I developed this program over the course of three years and grew it across the US and started, um, and started, um, started, uh, started it over in India as well, where we had another really large engineering population.
[00:12:30] and, um, I don't, after I left the company, I don't think they kept up with it . Like I don't think they kept it going. Um, and that's okay. And that's not to say that like it wasn't important at the time, and I'm sure there's something else that they're doing today. But, um, at the moment, at that time, I felt like I was doing really, really important work that matters.
[00:12:48] I was directly impacting the company goals in the bottom line because I was reducing, um, reducing attrition. , um, of, of that particular population. And as we all know, it's very expensive to continue to rehire people. So, um, so the small budget that I had to support that program I think really went a long way.
[00:13:08] Um, but I'm not gonna lie, it did, it does feel like a little bit of a bummer that, um, that program didn't continue after, after I had left that organization. Um, but again, it's really important to think, you know, hey, is the work that I'm doing here if I just stopped doing it, , um, would anyone notice? You know, that might be an, an indicator that maybe you're spinning your wheels on some work.
[00:13:30] That's just not super important, especially if it's not important to you. If you're like, eh, I really don't like doing this thing. Um, and I know that if I left they wouldn't continue doing it, or they would replace me with a tool or something like that, then that's something to be thinking about and something to look into.
[00:13:47] Are you getting. Positive feedback from your coworkers, your boss and your customers. You know, what are people saying about the work that you're doing? Are they telling you flat out that you're making an impact? Right. Um, you know, sometimes again, we can get so deep down into our own work and in our own heads that we.
[00:14:04] um, we kinda lose sight of the bigger picture and that Yeah. The, the work that we are doing is making a really big difference. So, um, so just really take a look around and, and, and, and think through that. Like, are you getting that positive feedback from your coworkers and or your customers? Um, This is now, this is something that I'm also, also ends up being a real sticking point with my clients because a lot of my clients come to me again looking for that promotion, looking for that next level.
[00:14:33] And they often feel so underutilized. So again, like if, are you making an impact at work? Are people, are people utilizing your strengths, utilizing the skills that you have? Um, you know, are you able to lean into your strengths every day and be able to do work that. Good to you, not draining to you again, and, and I believe that if you are able to utilize your strengths at work on a daily basis, you are gonna be making a bigger impact.
[00:15:01] You are gonna be able to show up and perform even better because you're doing stuff that you know that matters and feels really good for you to do. Right. Otherwise it's gonna be incredibly draining. And again, so many of my clients come to me and they are like, you know, I've been ready for that promotion.
[00:15:18] I've been ready for that next step. I'm just, they are just not utilizing my skills or just utilizing me to my fullest potential. Now the question that I would also ask here is, , have you had a conversation with your leadership team or with your boss about the skills that you have or the types of, of the type of work that you wanna be doing?
[00:15:37] Make sure that you are having those conversations. But um, but on kind of on the surface though, you know, think about are you being utilized to your fullest for your fullest potential here in this role? And again, are you doing cool work that matters? Like, just like blanketly? Are you doing cool work that you're like, yeah, this is fun.
[00:15:54] I enjoy this. Um, and. . I truly believe that if we have people that are doing work that that they believe matters and that's cool and that they enjoy doing. . You know, if we are gonna be at work for a third of our lives or a third of our time, right? Let's make that meaningful aside from just our paychecks, right?
[00:16:14] We also wanna be paid like really, really well, but we also just wanna make sure that what we're doing makes a difference, right? If we're gonna spend some time, if we're gonna spend so much time in our, in our jobs, at our work, away from our families, and away from other work that might also be really meaningful or other volunteer opportunities, or be in our communities.
[00:16:32] let's make it meaningful and let's make it worth it again, aside from our paychecks, cuz that's also important. And finally, the last question to ask yourself, if you're just kind of like, I'm not really sure, you know, is this just a, you know, a, a rough period of time? Or is it just truly time to move on? Is am I having fun?
[00:16:52] dare we have fun at work, right? Like, do you literally enjoy what you're doing? Is like if you, and not to say like, I don't want to go so far as to say like, oh, you know, if you weren't, if you weren't being paid, would you still do this work? Like, , if that is true, that you would still do this work even if you weren't being paid.
[00:17:10] That's awesome. You know, that's amazing. That's a really great place to be. But I don't always believe that it has to be that. I think sometimes we put so much pressure on our jobs to be the end all, be all of fulfillment in our lives, that it ends up being really unrealistic or we end up getting, um, really disappointed whenever our job isn't that.
[00:17:33] but I still think that it's important that you like what you do , right? Like it's still important that you like what you do, and it's important to think about. Do you like your colleagues? Do you like your boss? Do you like the customers that you serve? I think this is something that not everybody thinks about, particularly if you are.
[00:17:49] Um, if you're customer facing and you're a customer facing role, do you like that population of individuals? Do you like the type of customers and the type of people that you are interacting with on a day-to-day basis? Right? So again, do you like what you're doing? Do you like your colleagues? Do you like your boss?
[00:18:05] Do you like your customers? Because if you do, then that can sometimes make a really challenging period of time in the business, or, you know, even just work that might feel like a slog sometimes. , you can still, you can still feel like you are. You are having fun. You're having a good time. I have. I do, uh, corporate training, corporate leadership training.
[00:18:28] And um, one of the cool things about that is that I get to go into industries that I don't typically have, um, experience in my corporate HR background is in, um, the tech and the biotech and pharma space. And so when I do these trainings, I'm often going into manufacturing organizations or nonprofits or municipalities, and I've just been.
[00:18:52] So pleasantly surprised to see people who are literally processing fish, raw fish for a food company, and they're in there having a great time. They're having so much fun. Like, are people like passionate about fish? Probably not. Are people like super passionate about creating, you know, , you know, smoked salmon for people's brunches.
[00:19:19] Maybe not. Like, I don't know if anybody like wakes up and be like, oh yeah, like, I'm super passionate about, um, about building faucets. Right. Like, like again, like your work doesn't always have to be fulfilling in that way or, or always like, Feel super passionate about your work, but if you have colleagues, if you have a boss, if you have customers, if you have pe, the people that you interact with on a day-to-day basis, if that's fun, that makes the job so much easier and so much more enjoyable.
[00:19:50] Right? But the thing is, , is there time for fun at work? I mean, again, I think having fun at work is a huge part of, um, a huge part of, again, having a fulfilling and satisfying career. But if you don't have time for it, if you don't have time to like, you know, go out to lunch every once in a while, or if you don't have time to do some team building activities, you know, that might be an indicator that.
[00:20:19] You know, if we're not actually carving out the time, even though we know we're all busy, we've all got a mi a million different priorities. Like we do have to, not only do we have to take time off, we need to, um, make sure that we're giving ourselves the, the space and the ability to take time off. We also need to carve out that time to have a little bit of fun with each other as well.
[00:20:40] Um, are you able to, Again, cut loose a little bit and not take yourself so seriously. Once again, if you, unless you are working in the medical field, that you are literally saving people's lives, you know, you are on the front lines of, again, you know, first responder, sort of a, sort of a situation. You know, the, the stakes of the work that you're doing are probably just a little bit lower, right?
[00:21:10] Not to say again, this is not too, um, , you know, say that people's work isn't important or, you know, that they, you could connect the dots to saving some people's lives, right? Again, like I worked in, worked in the clinical research field for a lo for, for a while and, um, you know, we're lit. We're literally creating drugs, life-saving drugs for people, right?
[00:21:34] We are doing research on how to cure cancer and curing, um, you. really, really rare disease, right? Like that's important work. And again, we're talking about people's lives here. Um, so again, that's important work. , if you're a project manager, you are not physically the person saving the physically the person saving people's lives, which means you can dial that back just a little bit, that that intensity, you can dial it back just a little bit and you're able just to maybe not take yourself so seriously that like your nervous system is always operating like way up here.
[00:22:08] Right. So are you able to, again, carve out that time to have fun? Are you able. , you know, not take yourself so seriously all the time. Maybe, maybe you, maybe most of the time you need to take yourself seriously, but are there times where you can, you know, relax a little bit and, and again, just kind of bring the nervous system down just a little bit in your team.
[00:22:30] And again, this can be just a, a great stress reliever cuz. You know, again, I don't care what, what industry that you're in, it can be, you know, producing rainbows and roses, you know, for puppies, right? But it's still gonna be stressful. Our jobs are tough, you know, things are stressful. Just society right now is stressful.
[00:22:51] Everything's stressful, right? So if we can have a little bit of fun in our day-to-day work, then this can be also a really great stress. So those are the three questions to ask yourself to determine if it's time to move on or not. Again, things aren't always going to be perfect, so there are gonna be times where you are able to check the box in one or two of these areas, but.
[00:23:16] Not often are all three of those boxes checked at the same time. And that's okay and that's normal. And so like you might be bored and not growing or learning, but that might be okay for your season of life, right? Like believe me, I wish I had a boring job when I was trying to launch this business, and I talked to some other business owners about this, about like, how do you get going?
[00:23:38] you know when you have a full-time job and it's like, you know what? If you have a boring job, that's actually great, or maybe you are in the thick of caregiving or something like that, and just, you know what? It's okay that I'm not growing or learning right now because I need to reserve that brain space and that brain power for some other things that are going on going on in my life, and that is totally okay.
[00:23:59] you might be feeling like you're doing just busy work or maintenance or automation in your job and you're not, you're not feeling like you're making that big of an impact with the specific things that you're working on right now. And again, that's okay and needed too. Like we need to take time to optimize current processes or things on our role.
[00:24:15] And those projects don't always feel super impactful to the bigger picture, but they really. long term. I actually actually had a client who used to say that year one in a job is just learning the thing. Year two is just doing the actual thing and year three is optimizing the thing. So again, you may feel like, okay, I'm not doing really important work.
[00:24:37] Or maybe you're, um, really early in your career and you're just like, I am just pushing paper here. I'm doing really boring stuff. Um, and that's okay. Sometimes we just kind of have to, um, we kind of have to put. Put that time in, um, and use the rest of our brain power to be really observing what's going on around us.
[00:24:57] So like, we're able to co connect the dots throughout the entirety of the organization. So, um, and when we do that, oftentimes we're, we are able to kind of pull out some of the impactful things, some of the impactful things that we're doing. And also, let's face it, work is. always fun. It's often not fun, right.
[00:25:16] But there is a difference between, um, we don't have enough team outings or we don't, um, we don't have time to like, Sit and shoot the shit before meetings or whatever. Um, or I don't want to, because I don't like these people that I work with. Like there's, there's a difference between, you know what, uh, we're not getting enough team, team building opportunities, or we're not having enough pizza parties or happy hours or whatever.
[00:25:38] And a toxic work environment. Like those are like two different things, right? , um, that's a little bit different. So, um, actually if you want, listen back to the last two episodes that we just did, um, episode 16 and episode 17 on, um, burnout and toxic work environments for kind of that information. Because, you know, there's a difference between like, you know what, we're just in a busy season right now, or we're just really, really heads down right now.
[00:26:01] There's not a lot of time for fun, and that's just a quick period of time. And again, a, a long-term toxic work environment, that's a little bit. . So again, this kind of three footed stool can be a little off balance for a while, but it really can't long term. So that's when you know that it's time to go. So I would hear from my clients that they love their job, but it's just not fun anymore or it's.
[00:26:26] Boring or not, they're not doing the work that really lights them up and they're really upset by this, which is normal. There is a level of grief that comes with knowing that it's time to move on because maybe you love your customers but you don't like the company that you work for or you love your team, but you are bored out of the, outta your mind.
[00:26:44] You're ready to pull your eyeballs out. Um, and you just know that there's just no more room to grow. So if you get to the end of this exercise and you think that, yeah, it might be time to move on, I would offer you one more. Before making the decision to kinda launch into a full on job search, I would ask you if you've had this conversation with your boss or any or anyone that you work with about kind of how you're feeling, because they might be able to help you.
[00:27:10] They might not realize how you're feeling. So often I would hear from employees on their way out the door that they were just so miserable, but they didn't say anything because they didn't think that anything could have changed when in reality, it, it could have, we could have done a job rotation, we could have maybe, um, changed a process or something like that, or switched up a client group or something like that.
[00:27:32] Um, but we have to, we have to ask first, of course. You need to feel comfortable and feel safe in asking those questions and having those conversations and having, um, an open and trusting, um, Uh, relationship with your, with your boss and your colleagues, um, obviously helps make that, make that conversation a little bit easier.
[00:27:50] Um, but that would just be one thing that I would, I would offer to you to, to kind of think through is, you know, have you explored all avenues here to kind of, um, fix some of these things? You know, again, if you're not feeling like you're learning. , is it time for a promotion? Is it time to um, see a different side of the business?
[00:28:06] Whatever. Maybe you have that conversation. Um, if you feel like you're not making an impact, and again, talk to your boss about that. Cuz Ibel, I promise you that your boss wants you to be making an impact. Your boss wants you to be doing, doing good work. Your boss does not want you. Spinning your wheels or wasting time at work like they want you to be doing stuff, right?
[00:28:22] So, you know, maybe you have that conversation to say, you know what? I don't think this process or this project, this is really, um, important. Or, you know, or maybe you just need more context or more information around it to, to truly understand. So again, maybe you have that conversation. Um, . And I would also say if you are a leader, you need to make sure you're asking these questions of your team.
[00:28:43] So making sure that you're checking in with them and making sure that you know how they, how they're feeling, so that either, again, you can help them make the changes that are needed or explain that there's a light at the end of this tunnel. Right? So, um, , you know, or maybe even help them again, find a different role internally if that's the right thing to do.
[00:29:02] Otherwise, you are going to be blindsided by attrition or you're not gonna see, or you're gonna see the productivity in your and performance go down in, in your team. So, um, so again, um, you should be asking these three questions of yourself, but as a leader, you should also be proactively asking these questions of your team.
[00:29:21] Again, are they learning? Are they, do they feel like they're making an impact and do they feel like they're having. At work. Those are the three simple questions for you to be asking yourself and asking your team, especially if you are not sure if this is just a tough season in in your work, in your job, or is it truly time to go.
[00:29:42] So that's everything that I had for you today. Again, go on over to my website@nicolekspeaks.com slash newsletter and sign up to get on my weekly newsletter where I share more content just like this. And you'll be the first to know when that new podcast episode drops where you can hear me speak, um, speak at next, and all kinds of other really important, um, information for you to be super satisfied and successful in your.
[00:30:10] So, um, thank you all for tuning in today, and until next time, remember, your career deserves an upgrade.
