I just took a new job, but after about two months, it’s clear that I am not a good fit for the organization. There has been a tremendous amount of turnover at my position, and when I asked about it during interviews, they made it seem like they were the victims of an unlucky string of unprofessional/unscrupulous/unskilled employees. Foolishly, I believed them, but now it’s pretty clear to me why people keep leaving. Normally it’s not a big deal to stick it out for a while, but I’m miserable. I don’t think they are possible to please. I’ve never been put on an improvement plan (albeit informal) on my sixth day of work before.
So I figure it’s time to start looking around, but I don’t know what to do with my short tenure in regard to my resume. I’ve never been at a job less than three years, so I’m kind of at a loss. I can’t go back to my old job because I moved a very long way for this one.
The way I see it, I have two options:
Pretend like it never happened – Is this dishonest? I’ve heard people say this is okay, but how do you get around someone asking, point blank, what you’re currently doing? And wouldn’t they know you left a job out of your application if you have to ask them to delay your start date by two weeks so you can give notice?
Put it on my resume – My worry is that they’ll either assume I was fired or that I quit too quickly.
Even a year ago, this would have been somewhat of a bigger deal than it is now. But the unemployment rate has gone down significantly in the last year. Companies can no longer be as picky as they have been in recent years. (Over the last few years, I’ve had two different hiring managers tell me straight out that they were looking for the perfect candidate.)
It’s true that you don’t have to put every job on a resume. However, since this is your current job, and since you’ve been there two months, I strongly recommend putting it on. Since you seem to have a solid history of staying at jobs for several years, I highly doubt that this will hurt you much.
But remember–a resume is your chance to tell your story in your own way. With any luck, you’ll be able to put something like “Learned X” or “Accomplished X” on your resume for this job. And I think that in interviews, you can actually turn this job into at least a partial positive, by mentioning that you need to give notice before starting a new job. Any interviewer with half a brain is going to view that favorably. It may not get you any given job, but it will certainly improve your odds. (And I speak as a self-educated expert, through bitter experience.)
If you’re able to contact previous managers or coworkers for a letter of recommendation, that would increase your odds even more. Basically, you want to do everything you can to make yourself stand out in a good way.
I can sympathize. in 2006, I thought my job was a dead-end, so I jumped at a new opportunity. It pretty much sucked right away, but 5 months into it they made me a department manager. It was utter hell, and I lasted two months before I found a new job which put me back into being an engineer.
there shouldn’t be any shame in realizing you’re not a good fit for a job. this isn’t 1955; people change jobs a lot more frequently now.
plus, if they’ve already placed you on a PIP six days in, you really (really) don’t want to be there.
Out of curiosity, what kind of job was it and is it a company whose name people would recognize? You can be vague so it doesn’t come back to haunt you.
I’ve been spoiled by working for a number of good companies so when bad ones come around I’m amazed that they survived their own stupidity. There should be a national rating system of companies by employees so good companies know you paid your dues working for “Bat Shit Crazy Amalgamated”.
I learned my lesson working for one of them and before I interviewed for the next job I got I asked employees what they thought of the company. It really paid off. It was like going on a vacation and getting paid for it (well maybe a little bit of an exageration).
Especially if you quit before you find another job, I’d probably just leave it off. The fact you moved can be turned into a valid reason for job hunting - in your cover letter you say something like, “Since I recently moved to the area, I am now seeking employment.” People will probably think you moved because of a significant other, but you are under no obligation to tell them why you moved. If anyone asks in a job interview, just say “oh, household reasons” and don’t get into a discussion.
I went through something slightly similar many years ago, except that I held a job for 8 months and did not have a strong work history of staying for an extended period at a job, since it was only my second job ever. Lucky for me, I stayed in the job from February to September, so after I had new employment I just put the years of employment, not precise dates, and no one was ever the wiser since my job history went 1982-84, 84-87, etc. The fact that there was an in-between job in 1984 was easy to skip.
Thanks for the responses thus far, everyone. I count one person who says leave it on, and one to leave it off.
I’m also really struggling to figure out whether it might be better to quit immediately and use my move as cover for finding a new job. I know companies don’t like hiring unemployed people but I don’t know if that’s worse than a 2-month job stint. Also, I don’t have a support network here, so if I’m out of a job for longer than 6 months or so, I’ll be living under a bridge. So lots of factors to weigh.
Midlevel job at small company, not a household name
Again, it wasn’t a formal PIP, but I’m not gonna lie, I didn’t see it coming and I was pretty shellshocked. I wasn’t showing up late or harassing people or anything. It was mostly work style stuff. Nobody had even showed me how to use the phone system before I had my first improvement meeting.
You hate this job, you’ve been there all of two months, you’re unlikely (I’d suppose) to ever use them as a future reference… so why do you care about giving them two weeks’ notice?
Unless you signed a contract that requires it or something, I don’t see the need to delay a start date at a new, hopefully better job for these guys. Just give yourself a day to go in, grab your stuff, and leave the resignation letter on the boss’s desk. New job won’t think it weird if you say you can start Monday next week.
“I quickly realized that I would not be happy in such a chaotic and unhappy place. I really appreciated them giving me the job and value the experience, but I did not want to return that kindness by wasting their time and resources training me for a position I quickly realized wasn’t really what I was looking for. I could have tougherdit out, forced myself to stick with it, but that didn’t seem, to me, to be beneficial to either employer or employee. I like to work where I can really feel like I am making a contribution, have a challenge to rise to, and an opportunity to impress myself and my boss. I am applying here because I want to work for a company that excites me and that I can take pride in working for, to be honest.”
I put mine on my resume and was asked about it when interviewing for my current job. I was really open and honest, talked about how I ignored the red flags and listened to the recruiter rather than my gut. I said it was a really valuable learning experience, etc etc. In some ways, I think my openess and honesty about it helped me get my current job.
Are you suggesting the OP say this to a prospective new employer? This is a joke, right?
No, please, no. Calling the place you just bailed on “chaotic and unhappy”…?? No, no-- that is a statement about the speaker, not the former employer. Calling names like that when you were only there two months-- it makes the speaker seem immature. Neutral language like, “We both recognized that it wasn’t a good fit” is much safer. This spiel is full of potholes and land mines.
And the whole paragraph is just “me, me, me.” Your theme should be the prospective employer and how you will be an asset there. How your interests, values, and work ethic will benefit THEM, not fulfill you and your career plans.
ETA. Much better:
take this opportunity to make lemonade.
State in your resume that you made a mistake in taking the job. At first you thought it would be a dream job, then you got there and found out it didn’t work. It was your fault, and after you gave it an honest effort to make it work, you did the mature professional thing and moved on.
Of course it is crucial that you leave before the existing job starts talking about letting you go. Get out soonest.
I think most employers would be impressed with that story. Remember the new employer is going to put himself/herself on the side of the old employer. They have no reason not to. So this is your fault not theirs (the old employer which is almost the new employer) and you did the right thing to fix it. There are three types of employees I expect: the kind that works out and is a good fit, the honest effort that quickly gets resolved, and the mistake that that takes lots of painful effort on my part to fix. To the new employer you most certainly want to be not in category three.
That’s a fair question. I sort of feel bad for the employees I supervise. They’ve had a lot of people leave on them and it’s not their fault. Not that two weeks makes a big deal in the grand scheme of things, I guess, but it just doesn’t feel right up and leaving.
How is “I ignored the red flags” all that much better than “chaotic and unhappy”? The next question out of the interviewer’s mouth is likely to be “what red flags?”; what would your answer be?
And “we both recognized that it wasn’t a good fit” doesn’t come across as neutral language; it comes across as “they recognized I couldn’t do the job and I recognized they were going to fire me.” It’s way too vague a statement, and vague statements usually are interpreted as “something bad I don’t want to talk about,” which means the interviewer really does want to talk about it. By trying to gloss over a bad situation, you are actually drawing (negative) attention to it.
While I agree that elbows’s statement is probably a bit too jocular, he (she?) is on the right track. Confront it head-on: “I made a mistake taking the job.” You can couch it in better language, maybe something like it wasn’t the job I thought it was going to be, and then continue with the rest of the statement.
Leave it off. In a perfect world , you could explain your side of the story. But, you have to first get past the gatekeeper who is looking for any reason to put your resume in the NO pile.
There are hiring managers who are going to look at a two month job as being YOUR fault for being a bad fit and there isn’t anything you can do to change their mind. At the very least, they’ll see it as evidence you didn’t do your homework when you took that job.
Well, for one thing, “I ignored red flags” puts the onus on YOU and takes responsibility for YOUR bad decision. Calling the place you just bailed on “chaotic and unhappy” is a criticism of THEM. And anyway, “unhappy”?? You figured out the company was “unhappy” and that’s one of the reasons you bailed? That sounds incredibly presumptuous and immature.
How are you going to answer the question without saying something bad about the company? You made a bad decision by ignoring the red flags, but what are red flags to you? What should you have seen about the company that you overlooked or ignored? Any competent interviewer is going to ask you to explain the “red flags” remark, and you’d better have an answer.
Yes, companies can be unhappy, or more accurately have unhappy atmospheres. For ‘unhappy,’ substitute ‘toxic’ or ‘depressing’ or ‘oppressive’ or ‘causing nervous breakdowns’ or whatever word/phrase you want; it is a sign of maturity to realize you can’t thrive in such environments, you probably can’t change them, and merely sticking it out is likely to be deleterious to your physical/mental health AND to your career. (You are not going to have noteworthy accomplishments to put on your resume in companies like that, nor are you going to get strong recommendations, and those will be of more weight to a future employer than whether you lasted two months or two years or two decades.)