Always Run to a Great Executive Career Opportunity, Not away from a Bad Career Fit

Right now, you might be desperate to get out of your job–so much that you are willing to evaluate all potential executive opportunities just to get out of the place you’re in. Perhaps you wouldn’t call yourself desperate, but you’re probably not thinking with as much clarity as you’d like.

To decide whether you’re in this situation, consider your answers to the following:

Questions about Your State of Mind

1. Do you cringe at the thought of spending one more day at your desk?
2. Do you regret ever having taken on your current role?
3. Did something change so radically at your company that your current role bears limited resemblance to the position for which you were hired?

Questions about Your Strategy

4. Have you agreed to sit for interviews knowing that the position, company, or industry was the wrong one, simply because you’ll take any reasonable job offer at this point?
5. Did you accept a position just to get away from one you hated?
6. If so, how many times have you done that?

In this thumbnail assessment of your current situation, give yourself one point for each “yes” and add your total from #6. There’s no scale for this quiz, but you’ll know if you’ve got too many “yeses” in your answers.

Fortunately, You Can Stop Trying to Run Away from Your Current Role

I’m not suggesting that you stop looking for a new role, but I am suggesting that you stop fighting your current situation and focus your thinking and strategy on the right way to exit your company–into a career that is the best fit for you.

The worst thing you can be doing right now is telegraphing that you are trying to leave. It’s bad for your company, bad for your relationships at work, and a terrible mindset for you to embrace. You also run these risks:

• Taking a job that you will dislike as much as the one you have now–just with another company.
• Taking a lower-level position simply to have a source of income.
• Taking a job that fulfills some short-term goal without contributing to your long-term career satisfaction.

Can you imagine yourself being truly happy in a job such as this? Likely, no.

Start Running toward the Best Career Fit for You–And Reap the Benefits of Amazing Career Satisfaction

Instead, start developing a strategic plan that turns your thinking outward to identify what’s next for you. By assessing what you do want in a career–perhaps simply the opposite of what you have now–you can create an initial set of fluid criteria that will guide your executive career search. You’ll position yourself to run toward the right role, so on that day when you finally separate from your current company, you can joyfully move forward into the best executive job you can achieve for yourself.

Imagine the satisfaction of that!