#62. Exit interview
I miiiight have made a career mistake last summer. But I would probably do it again, even knowing what I know now
Hey! This essay is essentially a follow-up to my most popular issue from last year, “I (didn’t) quit my job.” For better context, start there if you haven’t read it yet.
2023 brought a lot of change to workers around the country, myself included. Employees were given more job responsibilities, teams were restructured, and budgets were cut. Though people are still stressed out at work in record high levels, employees are starting to feel more engaged at work after a post-pandemic slump, but they feel less connected to their organization’s mission and purpose than ever.
Managers especially are in a tough spot. The overall perception that employers care about their wellbeing is declining, and many are burned out and/or job hunting. Which is bad, because how people are managed has 4x more influence over whether a person is happy and engaged at work than their work location (i.e. in-office, remote, or hybrid).
“Managers now have more work to do on a tighter budget with new teams. And from a relationship standpoint, they often find themselves caught between aligning with new directives from leaders and meeting the changing expectations of their employees.”
I’ve been a people manager for six years. Until recently, I was managing four really spectacular people–the most direct reports I’ve ever had at one time–and this quote from Gallup really hits me in all the ways. If you’re a manager who has been feeling like you’re burned out and caught between employees’ and business leaders’ expectations, you’re not alone.
But if there was one quote to really sum up my work experience in 2023, it would be this one from Harvard Business Review, published a year ago about 2023 workplace trends:
“Employers will “quiet hire” in-demand talent.
The concept of “quiet quitting” — the idea of employees refusing to go “above and beyond” and doing the minimum required in their jobs — dominated work-related headlines in the second half of 2022. When employees “quiet quit,” organizations keep people but lose skills and capabilities.
In 2023, savvy organizations will turn this practice on its head and embrace “quiet hiring” as a way to acquire new skills and capabilities without adding new full-time employees. This will manifest as leveraging alternate methods, such as alumni networks and gig workers, to bring in workers with specific skills for high-priority tasks when new headcount is not an option.”
I had never heard the term “quiet hire” until recently, but this pretty accurately describes what I did last summer. I was a part-time quiet hire brought in to a small business that had never had a Director of Marketing before, which was only made possible by taking a sizable (some might say ill-advised) risk and going part-time at my job, where I had been for five years. For what it’s worth, I think some of the other workers who were quiet-hired may have taken on new roles as more of a consulting gig without having to quit their full-time jobs, but because of my love for this newsletter, that didn’t feel like an option for me. I also felt really ready to take a risk and try something totally new, so I jumped into fractional work head first.
What this article doesn’t go into detail about is what happens to these quiet hires when their presence makes leadership teams change their minds about adding full-time employees with specialized skills, sometimes very quickly.
Are they hired full-time by the companies they had contracts with? And if not–whether because they don’t want to or because the job isn’t offered to them–are they cast back into the murky waters of LinkedIn to yet again look for another company in need of a temporary(ish) quiet hire if an opportunity doesn’t come immediately through their network?
For those of us who became fractional workers and need to find new contracts when one comes to an end, how long does it take to find another company that is a good fit for our skills and personalities? And the million dollar question: Are we asked to help find our full-time replacement before we go? (Spoiler alert: I tried).
I’ve been writing (and re-writing) this issue for almost two months–the one you’re reading now is a heavily edited version of my third draft, and I left about four pages on the cutting room floor. It still isn’t quite right, but it’s time to publish it as-is. I need to move on with my life, lol. Perfection doesn’t exist here.
My work life is in a very weird place at the moment. I’m fine–everything is fine!–but the work crisis I was having a year ago hasn’t really gone anywhere, even after several months of seeing a career therapist last year and (half) quitting my job to become a self-employed fractional worker, and the Director of Marketing at two different companies simultaneously.
And friends–I am tired! I know I’m not the only one. My work toast is burnt, but I’ve recently come around to finding it all kind of… funny. Not funny as in hysterical laughter, but funny in the way that I’m just kind of chuckling to myself about it all. Life is weird.
For years, I was always the person with the clear, upward career trajectory and the dumpster fire of a personal life. I moved apartments and went through yet another breakup roughly once every year or two for a decade as I watched the majority of my friends happily pair off, but my career was always there to make me a cup of coffee in the morning and give me a sense of purpose and direction. It makes a hilarious kind of sense that now–13 years into my career and the happiest and most fulfilled I’ve ever been personally–I’m kind of lost professionally. Now my husband brings me coffee in bed while I listen to “What Was I Made For?” over and over and over. (JK but also not really.)
The short version of this story–the work changes I’ve been mentioning for a while–is that last Thursday, I had my exit interview at the company I started working for last summer. Surprise!! If you have an excellent memory, you’ll remember that my contract was supposed to be for a full year. It didn’t quite work out that way.
It’s funny reading this issue back again, which I wrote a month after making my big career change. I was so excited, and all the puzzle pieces felt like they were falling into place. As I said last year, I feel the most comfortable sharing just the headlines with everyone, and all the details with paid subscribers for the sake of keeping my career a little closer to my chest. Thank you for understanding. Here’s what happened between last summer and now.