After a 6 month stint as an independent contractor doing recruiting/sourcing work, my neighbor and good friend, landed what seemed to be the best job ever. Work from home 75% of time, flexible working hours, good salary and benefits, established and small dynamic recruiting firm, expansion plans aligned with industries she wanted to learn. All in all, pretty darned perfect.
Without going into the sordid details they parted ways at the end of last year, after 6 months.
Chatting with her the other day about it all, it seemed obvious that the signs to “RUN AWAY – FAR FAR AWAY” had been there even before she started.
So how come she didn’t see the signs at the time, or was it something else?
It turns out it was a lot of somethings.
What was interesting was the “I knew that!” realizations she was having while we were chatting. These were things she knew about herself, but didn’t know she knew. Or at least hadn’t acknowledged them about herself.
The good news is that during all this time, she had still managed to keep in contact with some key contacts, and after only two weeks had another position lined up.
I’m sure there are many lessons she’ll take away from this, though the two that were immediately obvious were:
Don’t stop networking, a little is better than none at all.
If she had taken some time out to really think about what makes her tick, what she really likes doing and in what environment / situation, she could have saved herself a lot of time and anguish.
Most of all she wishes she’d taken a cold hard look at herself and the new job, and not the glitter.
