I stayed at my last company (financial services) for 18 years and ended up in the C-suite. The process was marked by only moderate levels of ambition, but my last move (to a kind of backwater group, but a more senior role) was followed by my company reorganizing from seven operating units to two (over 7 of those years), and so I floated up like some flotsam on the rising tide.
To answer your other questions, it was a great place to work and I was always interested in what I was doing. My job was fairly technical, and being in senior management did reduce my hands-on work, but I was still involved.
I interviewed a few times at other places to see what was there, but never got the sense there was something better.
It helps a lot to be lucky, but also to really be interested in what you’re doing. And I don’t just mean liking it, I mean find your brain thinking about it at other times or getting excited about a discussion.
These are two very different things, though maybe she’s done some of each? But that gets me back to the OP - at a non-consulting company, project management is (to me) a hugely helpful function, but it’s not a path to promotion at all. The set of skills required to be a good project manager are really about being able to organize things, manage roadblocks, and create public accountability, all without having actual project accountability yourself (usually).
Partnership at a consultancy requires a whole different set of skills, which I might (unfairly?) boil down to making customers like/feel comfortable with you & want to engage with you. I’d be curious to know what project managers the OP has seen rise to partnership, and what their behaviors were.
I was hired in 1996 by a college-affiliated research institute. I eventually became a “group leader” there, but (for better or worse) didn’t spend much time doing management stuff; I preferred doing hand’s on stuff in the lab. I quit last year due to my management becoming overly political and corrupt. So 28 years at one company. I now have a job with no leadership or management duties, which is nice.
I have been with my current company for the past 15 years (just had an anniversary). I am basically doing the same job, but get paid more to do it. It feels like the longer I am there, the more they pay me, and the less I actually do.
Sure, I am good at it and people I work with like what I do for them, but I don’t have any secret sauce. At this point it’s really just a job - I do my best and try to be helpful, but I am rounding third base in my working life and I just want the paycheck, the pension (yeah, it has one of those!), and the health benefits - that’s all I am there for. I let others get involved with all the corporate rah-rah stuff.
It’s not been very satisfying. Do I wish I stuck with my first career out of college? - sure! But this has provided stability for me and my family over the years, and now I can afford to travel a bit, and use my accruing-at-the-highest-level vacation time to my liking. If I left now what would I get - who would hire an expensive, older white guy to do this same thing?
You have to weigh the costs versus the benefits - for me the benefits of stability, pay, health benefits, etc. outweigh the cost of being a faceless corporate drone doing the same stuff over and over for years. Careers are over-rated anyway.
I once had the same job title at the same company for 8 years. And I almost hit the ten year mark on my last job before I got promoted to my current one.
Big companies. Thousands of employees. Retail.
In the 8 year stint, in addition to the “day job” I did the following for 1-3 years each:
implement a planning system to replace some of the Excel hell we were trapped in. Every thing from defining requirements, RFP, Selecting a vendor, building and implementing the system to training the users and implementing the new planning processes.
work with Operations to reduce costs by tens of millions annually. Mostly reducing store labor and product losses. A lot of work with industrial engineers.
Integrated the company’s financial planning and analysis process with that of the company that acquired them.
Similarity on my last job, I was involved with several projects that took up 30-50% of my time for a year or two or three. In addition to rolling up budgets, quarterly forecasts and long term plans, which was my day job.
What does this mean? Plenty of people work in corporate spaces for 30 years without ending up as senior-level executives. Why do you feel that you “should” be at that level at this point?
You seem to have identified greater compensation as a motivator. What else do you mean by “next level” of your career? Do you want more money? Do you want more responsibility? Do you want to be doing different work?
Expanding on those (or similar) questions will help you identify the next moves for you, job-wise.
I am no expert, but observing a few workplaces, I think it’s usually some combination of:
Natural affinity for the social game of relationship-building and office politics, and a focus on developing those relationships with leadership.
Choosing work or otherwise getting involved with projects that have high visibility/high importance, and finding ways to be the face of those projects.
Getting things done ahead of deadlines with polish.
Having eyes on a particular leadership trajectory, and learning what the steps are in your particular organization, including talking to your management about your desires for long-term mobility.
20 years here. (Eek!) My company does engineering analysis work. I’ve stayed here both because I resist change but also because it is a really great place to work and I enjoy my co-workers. The work goes back and forth; sometimes it’s a lot of fun, sometimes not so much.
My role has changed some over time. I started out as a technical analyst and got a couple of promotions – I still do technical work, but a higher-level type (e.g., looking at what the junior engineers produce and trying to make sense of it), and a fair amount of my current job is project management, which I wasn’t doing any of when I started.
If I were ambitious and wanted to go to the next level, this would involve a lot more management work / “sales” work: going out and pitching more ideas to customers, writing more proposals, coming up with a “vision” that aligns with what we’re doing and intentionally managing projects to point towards that vision (as opposed to the kind of management I do now, which is more “get the trains to run on time”). I don’t want to do the first two (although I have written proposals in the past and may have to write more at some point depending on how funding looks) and I am not at all good at the third. So I will most likely not progress any further. Which is fine because I like my job the way it is now. But there’s a couple of guys who started at the same time as me who are are really good at those things, and they’ve advanced much quicker and are way further up the leadership chain than I am.
Have you ever discussed with your boss what you can do to advance in the company?
I had one boss who very bluntly explained that after X years in the business we should be bringing in new business, not simply managing work that others brought in.
I think maybe I can answer these all at once. I suppose much of it might be driven by ego, a desire for career growth, increased compensation/financial security, a bit of peer rivalry, and/or a desire to not spin my wheels wasting my time doing something I may not really have an aptitude for.
I think what I need is perhaps something a bit more structured and stable. My firm is too much abstractly defined projects where they dump you in the back-office of some bank and hope for the best. The first 2.5 years working here it was fine. I seemed to do a good job at whatever they wanted me to do and my performance and compensation reflected that. That past year and a half however not so much.
First I spent 6 months on “the bench” where I would get staffed to a client but then they would cancel the contract for budget reasons before I could start. Not my fault at all, but my numbers still suck for the year so no raise or bonus.
Then the past year I spent months on a crappy toxic client with a crappy empty suit of a manager and got my first ever shitty performance review at this firm. Then I rolled onto a project that was much better that was supposed to last a year or more. But then the client fired our firm for cost reasons. So no raise or bonus this year.
On top of that, the business group I was part of slowly deteriorated over the past couple of years to where it’s finally been dissolved. So it practical terms, that means going from a defined organization where I helped carve out something specific we “sell” both to clients and internally to basically a free for all where any of us are fair game to get tossed onto whatever project shows up next in the pipeline.
So ultimately I think that’s the main thing I want to change. That constant emotional rollercoaster of going from client to client as what is essentially a glorified temp worrying if the client isn’t going to like me, if I’m not going to have any expertise in the subject matter, whether the salespeople/partners didn’t understand what they undersold, will my manager (assuming I even have one) be a jerk, is the client suddenly going to run out of budget, or any of a million other reasons why our projects get cancelled so I can go back to wallowing on the bench wondering how long I have until the firm decides to fire me.
I have frank discussions with him frequently, but at this point it’s really mostly focused on not getting fired.
It’s kind of like what you just described - bring in or manage more work.
Really the way it works is there is a relatively small group of partners and sales directors who manage our big accounts where we have dozens of consultants on various unrelated projects. Those projects generate a large pie of revenue that can be divided among people at my level and above, depending on our credited contribution to that pie.
And a lot of times, the credit goes to people the partners want to promote, not necessarily who actually managed or sold the work.
Where firms tend to get into trouble is when they promote too many people up to the middle levels based on doing a “good job” but not really being able to consistently generate that revenue. Then you get a bunch of directors and managing directors and even partners who are getting paid a lot of money but not really selling much work.
I could talk my way into a more senior role at another firm based on my experience and ability to BS, but then what?
Anyhow, next move for me…
Given we are at the beginning of a brand new performance cycle, my old group has been dissolved and I just found out I will be moving to our Data & Analytics practice (which aligns very closely to my experience), and I will be looking for a new client, for all intents and purposes I will be starting a “new job”. Since I don’t actually hate the work I do or the people at my firm, I suppose the best course of action will be to try that out for awhile.
Meanwhile, I will also be reaching out to my network, ostensibly for the purpose of driving sales, but also for the purpose of driving the sale of one director-level consultant (should the need arise).
Not always. Managing day to day activities is often different from running a project, which, by definition is a one time thing to do something unique and specific. A lot of companies are actually really bad at project management. And project management is just one component of what we do.
Also, a lot of times the company simply doesn’t have the extra resources to run projects on top of their day to day activities.
Or they need us as experts to guide them on some new initiative.
It can actually be really interesting work sometimes.
It sounds like you’ve got some opportunity for a change by staying right where you are, so maybe that’s best for the moment. The underlying longer-term dissatisfaction won’t be addressed, though. I wonder if the nature of your organization (providing support for other orgs’ projects) is going to always leave you in the “constant emotional rollercoaster” state? In any given moment things might feel stable… until they’re not? I also get the impression (not from you, but from the world) that having to deal with that kind of instability is part of what drives higher salaries for consultants. So maybe your desire for more money and more stability are incompatible?
Or, maybe I’d try to decouple the things you’re looking for- career growth, increased compensation, structure and stability- so you can address them one by one. Or at least it could help you sequence decisions or map out steps towards achieving all three? I think it’s likely going to be very difficult to get all the things you want in one move, so getting a bit of a roadmap together might help with near term goal setting?
(Also, I’ll just add that I’ve really appreciated your postings about your job over the years. As someone who entered the corporate workforce 12 years ago in his early 30s, and has moved from a small organization to a large multi-national as a project manager, and then recently stepped out of that world into a much less lucrative but less emotionally taxing job, I’ve been able to get a lot of perspective reading about your experiences).
Yes, I know. She has worked for 4-5 employers over the past decade plus. Some jobs were prod mgmt, others proj mgmt.
I’ve worked for my employer for 38 years. Intend to retire in 2.5. 25 years in one position, 13 in the current one - closely related to the first. Largely a result of “golden handcuffs” and work/life balance. My salary has supported our desired lifestyle with my wife working part-time after our 3d kid was born, and allowed me to be home for dinner every night and weekends. No other job I’ve been aware of would pay as well without requiring much greater hours.
I suppose I look at comp, career growth, and stability as intrinsically linked. If a person is performing well in a sustainable job in a growing industry, they will continue to grow in their career and see increases in responsibility and compensation.
But other than that, what you said is accurate. I would use the term “unease” rather than “dissatisfaction”. When things were going well, I mostly felt comfortable within the framework of the company. I knew what my group did and what was expected of me and by all accounts I seemed to be good at delivering on that.
But now suddenly (or gradually) things are totally fucked. I don’t have a client. I don’t have a group. I just found out I might not be transferring to this other group so now wouldn’t be surprised if I’m getting fired within the next few days. No one seems to actually know what is going on. So not only am I pretty sure I don’t have what it takes interest or ability-wise to go to the “next level” in profession, now I’m questioning my ability to even stay at my current level.
So now I have to just sit here like a fucking asshole waiting to see what happens.
I see stability as quite separate from career growth and compensation growth, fwiw.
Lots of good employees get caught up in reorgs. Don’t take it out on yourself. It might be that an asshole is trying to get rid of you, but that doesn’t make you the asshole.
Whether or not you lose your job, it seems like this is a good time to take stock of your strengths and think about what kind of job would play well to those.
I mean “asshole” like I feel like a stupid idiot who can’t do his fucking job whose trying to figure out what group I’m in and what project I’m going to be working on while a decision has already been made to separate me from the company.
Here’s the thing. I actually like what I do (to the extent that one “likes” office work) and (by most accounts) I’m reasonably good at it (or at least certain aspects of it). At least when things are going well.
In professional services firms (i.e consulting, accounting, law, etc) there is a certain natural order when things are functioning properly. Clients have sufficient budget to hire teams of consultants to help them on important projects. There is a degree of structure and transparency around sales efforts, staffing, and so on. And there is enough slack so people have time to work on extra stuff that can be fun and interesting, but is also important and part of how we are evaluated and compensated - going to conferences, publishing articles, training (both giving and receiving), contributing to sales, recruiting, building relationships with clients, networking and social events for entertaining clients and meeting your coworkers who are often unseen on different accounts.
But when times get tough, they tend to go to shit. Partners and salespeople get more concerned about making their numbers so they only focus on selling. Low performers are forced out while high performers often leave for competitors willing to pay more for their book of business. Budgets are tighter so projects tend to be shittier with smaller teams often performing work a level or two below your grade. In some cases they may require long commutes to be on site (because the 2 hour radius around Manhattan is considered “commutable distance”. There’s not a high tolerance for having people on “the bench” not billing, which also becomes a bit of a vicious circle as it also means fewer resources to staff on new projects, help with sales, training, etc. Everyone sort of becomes very “heads down” just trying to maintain their billable hours. The company starts shuffling the org around to “optimize go to market strategy” but in reality it’s about allocated revenue to who they want to allocate it to. If you pay attention you may also see quiet layoffs in the form of someone’s email suddenly no longer auto-populates in Outlook.
So the later scenarios is where I’m at now. I’ve been on the bench for about a week after having my team rolled off a stressful client because we are the n-th consultant who wasn’t a “good fit” for whatever she wanted, no bonus this year because of an outlier bad review a year ago that disproportionately weighted against me, plus all this ambiguity around what group I actually belong to now.
So a couple of possible scenarios:
At face value - After speaking with my manager/coach (who is well regarded and just got promoted on a track to partner), the partner who runs the account I was just kicked off of, the partner who runs the new group I was supposed to join, and even the client whose account I was just on, there should be nothing to worry about. These people are senior enough that I think they should be aware of any plans to fire me. That project wasn’t a good fit. That’s just part of consulting. We all get kicked off projects from time to time. They were impressed by my professionalism and skill in getting the new team up to speed (which seems a bit unfair since I didn’t have “me” for a month to get me up to speed) and have expressed interest in keeping me on the account, but maybe a different project. The whole reorg thing has a bit of a clusterfuck across the company so this might just be part of it. We are entering a new fiscal/performance year so after a bit of time recharging and getting caught up with admin and personal stuff on the bench, I should be able to find a new project where I might get my career back on track.
Or - I’ll just randomly get an invite from HR where I’ll be fired. I really have no idea how these decisions are made or who makes them at my firm. It’s entirely possible the head of USA or NYMetro or some committee somewhere looks at everyone’s score at EOY and says “get rid of these people” Jack Welch style. It could very well be that as senior as these people are, they are not in the actual loop and will be just as “surprised” as I will be. Or they are in the loop and are unable to tell me until it is official (although I tend to err on the side of bad communication).
So I would say that is the main thing I don’t like about really most of the jobs I’ve had in my career. That sort of sensation very much like playing a game of musical chairs, not really being sure if there are any seats left, and just sort of being forced to wait and see if the music stops, having the music stop, and then sort of being like..so…did I lose? Do we keep playing? WTF is going on?
The thing is, this feeling of pending doom and anxiety isn’t really predictive. And it’s not specific to consulting/professional services firms. I feel like I’ve almost become overly sensitive to any slight change in the cadence of communications. Almost like a PTSD response where it’s very jarring going from being constantly busy and responsive to radio silence, thinking every email/message chime signals that invitation from HR to get fired (nope…just a weekly reminder to enter my timesheet or asking feedback on some training from last month).
Anyhow. Hope it is not too tedious hearing me opine about my corporate job conundrums.
That all sounds very unpleasant and stressful. And I’ve been there,. (although maybe not as often as you have.)
it’s standard practice that one isn’t allowed to tell people if you know they will be laid off. I had a really awkward situation where my employee was being let go (as was I) but she was on vacation, so she hadn’t heard, yet. And I wasn’t allowed to tell her. She wrote me a chatty, “I’ll be in on Monday, what’s up?” email. I decided the most honest thing I could do was to simply not respond at all, which she told me later had succeeded in warning her. That was pretty nasty. It’s a shitty position for the manager, too.
there’s not much you can do right now. So hold tight, don’t blame yourself, and wait until the dice are rolled.
So I did get to the bottom of what is going on. Apparently before HR can sign off on my transfer to a new group, they want to debrief with my account leadership because I was rolled off the project early. The partner who runs my client account also happens to be my manager’s manager and the head of my old group that’s being restructured. They also happened to be on vacation the past week.
In any event, the message still seems to be “just wasn’t a good fit, we didn’t align properly on expectations, but I was professional and critical to bringing on a new team to continue the work. It happens.”
I assume my manager doesn’t think they are going to fire me (at least as of last Friday) as he suggested to our Head of Training I might be available to teach a training course. Which I’d be happy to do, but I’m on vacation that week.
So doesn’t sound like I’m getting fired at the moment. So in the meantime, I guess I’ll just continue to go through the motions of trying to get staffed while taking a bunch of our free Udamy courses on AI.
Changing topics, I happened to go to our office the other day and met our new crop of interns and 1st year associates. So that’s always fun. Reminded me of back when I was actually excited for my first big-time corporate job in NYC.
I’ve come to an epiphany that I’ve come to not really care about my job, aside from my consistently flat paycheck. I don’t hate it and actually like most of the people I’ve worked with, but I’ve always mostly liked most of the people I’ve worked with at every consulting firm I’ve worked at. Because we’re paid to be likeable. But I don’t really feel connected with many of them. Mostly because I rarely see any other coworker. Everyone just kind of does their own thing on their own accounts. Even if I go to our office, I barely know anyone there as we all work on different accounts. In two weeks we have our summer party where I may see a few of my friends and we’ll joke about how we only recognize 1/3 of the people (because most will be new). And I’ll joke about how I’ve been coming to this same stupid party for 20 years and it’s not at all sad.
The work itself is mostly back and middle office banking bullshit that the Big 4 or Accenture can’t be bothered with. Almost temp work. So all the worst aspects of working in the back office at a Wall Street bank without any of the career prospects.
Honestly the only reason I’ve stayed so long is 1) I tend to switch jobs frequently and 4 years is kind of a record and 2) it’s actually been flexible with the remote work and up until the past couple of years relatively easy and headache free. Also 3) too lazy to look.
But if they’re going to give me headaches and clients are going to make me come to the office, I honestly don’t see any reason to stay.
You seem upset about the flatness of your paycheck. Is it large enough?
I feel like at the start of your career, it’s reasonable to expect a rapid increase in pay as you acquire skills and get better at whatever you are doing and can take on more responsibilities. But if you’ve been doing more it less the same thing for a long time, it’s reasonably to expect your paycheck to stay at more or less the same level (ideally, keeping up with inflation). And if you want to be paid more, you need to find a way to do more, do something more valuable, increase the scope of your work, manage a larger group of people … something that’s worth more to your employer.
And are the headaches from your current job, or just something about the last assignment, which has already ended? Leaving headaches seems like a good thing, but there are plenty of headaches out there.