Today’s wisdom is from an HR director for a company that pivoted during the last internet bubble. She stuck wtih the company and grew into a role that she was able to define for herself. These are her thoughts on thinking before you leap:
“I would say keep your eyes open and be open to an opportunity. The job may not be perfect but if you can read between the lines and see what might happen in the future, maybe you can make it work in a different capacity. Whether it be in the role you’re in now or maybe in a different department where you can see yourself more long term.
Even if it looks like it’s a dead end job or it’s not exactly what you want to do today get good at it. Learn what you can from the people around you. Suck any information you can from them. Find someone that has more experience that you can talk to and find out what they have done and how they got to where they are. That’s one thing that helped me. I didn’t just sit and say this isn’t what I signed up to do. My job changed drastically but by talking to the people around me I understood what opportunities might present themselves and what I needed to do to prepare myself to take on those changes.
I guess what I‘m trying to say is don’t just jump ship just because it’s not exactly what you want to do today. When you are twenty, the “right now” is so important because you’re not planning your life next year. You’re living it today. But in truth the company is probably planning some things for next year. If you are so concerned about getting exactly what they want right now you might miss out on some bigger picture scenarios or opportunities that might present themselves. I think obviously the caveat to all of that is that it’s got to be a good company.”