Escape Is Not a Career Strategy

Why getting away from a bad situation is not the same as moving toward a better one

One of the first things I was taught when training to become a career coach was that people will make a change only when the pain of staying where they are becomes greater than the pain of doing something about it.

After 25 years of watching people navigate career decisions, I think there is a lot of truth in that observation. Unfortunately, pain is much better at getting our attention than it is at helping us decide what to do next.

Most professionals do not begin thinking about a career change because they have calmly concluded that it is time to explore their options. Something happens. A good manager leaves. Responsibilities increase without additional resources. A promotion does not materialize. The company reorganizes. The workload becomes unreasonable. Or they simply realize that a job they once enjoyed has gradually become something they dread.

Eventually the pain becomes great enough that they decide something has to change.

That is usually when the job search begins.

The Career Search Cycle

I have watched the same pattern play out for years. Someone becomes frustrated and attacks the published job market. They spend evenings searching job boards, applying for positions and trying to figure out what else they might do.

Then the immediate problem at work gets a little better. Or the search becomes exhausting. Or life simply gets in the way.

The urgency fades and so does the job search.

A few months later something happens at work and the pain returns. Out come the job boards. Applications begin again. For a few weeks, finding another job becomes almost a second full-time occupation.

Then things settle down and the search stops again.

This cycle can continue for years.

Eventually something happens that forces a decision. Sometimes it is a layoff. Sometimes a friend mentions an opportunity. Sometimes the situation simply becomes intolerable.

By then the objective has often changed from building a better career to getting out.

And almost anything can look attractive when the primary qualification is anywhere but here.

Relief and Direction Are Not the Same Thing

There is nothing wrong with wanting to leave a bad situation. Some workplaces are genuinely unhealthy, and there are times when getting out quickly is exactly the right decision.

The problem is assuming that because you know what you want to escape, you also know what you want next.

People leave difficult jobs and accept similar positions at different companies. They change industries when the industry was never really the problem. They walk away from work they actually enjoy because the environment in which they were doing it became miserable. Some leave traditional employment altogether and start consulting practices because working for themselves seems preferable to working for another bad employer.

Any of those choices might turn out to be exactly right.

But they are not strategies simply because they provide an escape.

Ironically, many of the skills required to build a successful consulting practice are the same skills required to find a job through the hidden job market. Both require understanding who needs what you offer, building relationships, and creating opportunities rather than waiting for them to appear.

You can't evaluate whether an opportunity is a good career move until you know how it stacks up against what you want from work and where your value fits in the job market.

When clients come to me considering a change, I don't start by asking what job title they want next. I start by asking what they need from their careers going forward.

What do they want to keep?

What are they ready to throw away?

How important are money, flexibility, location, company size, industry, management responsibility and the other conditions surrounding the work?

Most importantly, is the problem functional or environmental?

That distinction can change the entire direction of a career search.

You May Not Need as Much Change as You Think

A client recently came to me expecting to hire me to help with her résumé. Before we ever got that far, we began talking about what she wanted from the next stage of her career.

It quickly became apparent to her that she wasn't yet ready for a résumé.

She knew what she wanted to escape, but she hadn't defined what she wanted to pursue. More importantly, as we talked, she began to recognize that many of the things that had made her unhappy were environmental rather than functional. The work itself wasn't necessarily the problem.

That's an important distinction because changing too much can be every bit as shortsighted as changing too little.

Experienced professionals have spent years developing skills, knowledge, relationships and credibility. Career progression shouldn't automatically mean discarding those assets because the environment in which they are currently being used has become intolerable.

The goal is to understand which pieces still have value and where the market needs them.

Let the Pain Be a Trigger, Not a Strategy

In a perfect world, none of this would begin when a job becomes unbearable.

Professionals would periodically assess their careers and their value in the job market while things are going well. They would know which skills are becoming more important, where gaps are developing, what opportunities exist and whether they remain market ready.

Most people don't do that.

So the first sustained signs of career dissatisfaction can serve another useful purpose. Instead of treating them as a signal to launch a frantic job search, treat them as a signal to begin planning.

That requires consistency.

Spending three weekends applying to every remotely interesting position and then doing nothing for three months rarely produces clarity. Neither does waiting for a friend to call with an opportunity that happens to sound better than what you have today.

Take the time to determine what you want to preserve, what needs to change, what you have demonstrated that you can do well, and where the market needs what you have to offer.

Then you can evaluate opportunities against something more meaningful than whether they provide immediate relief.

There will always be circumstances that force career decisions before we are completely ready. Companies reorganize. Managers change. Jobs disappear. Life happens.

You cannot control all of that.

But becoming unhappy does not have to mean becoming desperate.

Ideally, you will be market ready long before you need to make a change. If you aren't, the moment you recognize that something is no longer working is a pretty good time to start.

A career decision should create more options, not simply provide temporary relief.

Just don't confuse getting out with moving forward.