Category: Business

It is every professional’s worst nightmare. You’ve sent out dozens or hundreds of applications, gone through countless rounds of interviews, finally got one or more offers, chosen which to go with, negotiated your package, and then, a few days, weeks, or months in you realize that you’ve made the wrong move. Maybe the company is a mess, your colleagues are toxic, the job isn’t what was promised, your boss is a tyrant or countless other possible issues. But it is too late, what can you do? You just moved, it won’t look good on your resume to move again so quickly, plus you are already burned out on job-seeking. So you decide the best thing to do is to suck it up, keep your head down, and endure the misery for at least a year or more until you can find something better. But that’s not actually the best thing you can do, in this article I’m going to share some strategies with you to not only survive a bad job, but actually turn it around and thrive.

Focus on what you can control
Obviously, you won’t be able to affect if there is an awful CEO or develop a new product if the current one isn’t making it in the market. But by focusing on the things you can control, you can improve the situation around you. For example, if the processes are super disorganized and manual, make sure the work you do is as organized and automated as much as you can. Find the little things around you that you can control and improve instead of the bigger things you can’t affect and it will make your day-to-day work life better. The more time you spend improving what’s around you, the less effect it will have on your psyche and the stress of big-picture problems. And if you are able to deliver good results in a tough environment it will make you that much better of a professional and able to thrive even more at your future companies.

Do as much job crafting as possible
Job crafting is a term I learned early in my career and I have implemented it in all my roles, which has really helped my professional development. The idea of job crafting is to influence your tasks and projects and mold them in the way that is most advantageous to you. That could mean diving into an area you want to gain more experience in, focusing on doing things that align with your strengths, or building out strategic projects that get you noticed by leadership. Now this doesn’t mean you can do whatever you want and ignore the basic requirements of your role, but what you can do is prioritize and modify what you are doing to give you the most benefits in the long run.

One example of this I did in my career I’ve already written about here. That was to give myself more experience public speaking and improve my skill at it, or at least get over my fear of it. I was able to craft opportunities for myself to speak in front of audiences in the course of the work I was already doing. Another example was when I wanted to get better at video editing, I started several campaigns that would have video elements, and not only saved the company money by doing them myself but also improved my skills and created some great results.

Start growing a garden around you
At many bad jobs, you will find a lot of people who are pessimistic, stuck in their ways, and beaten down from having been in the environment too long. One way to combat this is to notice who the “gems” are and build relationships with them and help each other do better work and have more success together. They may not be on your exact team or someone you work with every day, but you will be able to see the people who care about their work and want to do better compared to those stuck in the mud. By building each other up, not only will you get better results, but you will also increase your and their morale and enjoy going to work more.

I had this happen at a company I worked at previously where there were many old-timers who were just doing enough to get by and this had rubbed off on some of the newer people as well. In general, the culture was negative, new ideas and ways of doing things were always shot down and it took forever to get things done. At first, I became enmeshed in this atmosphere as well, it’s really contagious! But as I started to work on more projects I came across people who I could see wanted to do more and have more success. I didn’t become a ringleader or anything, but I did manage to work with them as much as possible and it made our work better and more fun.

Make your accomplishments visible
Even if your immediate team and boss aren’t great to work with, you can still build your network for your future career by doing good work and making sure it is noticed. Of course, you need to be balanced and not come across as a show-off. But there are ways to make sure you and your accomplishments get noticed without talking about yourself all the time. Personal branding isn’t just for influencers and entrepreneurs, your personal brand is also about how people see you within your company, and you should be actively working to improve it all the time.

For example, in many of my roles, I have gone above and beyond to help other teams not related to my job function like HR, recruitment, and office management when they had things that would be improved with marketing skills. I have also taken on employee resource group leadership positions to support communities within the company and get a chance to know people outside my function and location. All of these kinds of actions, along with consistently delivering good work and getting your big accomplishments noticed by other teams will not only help you in your current role but also set you up for success down the road. You never know who will move to a new company and remember you as a great colleague and expert in your field.

Plan for your exit
While you are doing all of these things to make your current bad job as good for you as you can, you still should be setting yourself up for your next move. These days, especially in industries like tech, job-hopping doesn’t have nearly the taboo it used to. It is common for people to move after a year or two, especially if it is in an upward trajectory, it likely won’t be seen as a bad thing to future employers. You should always keep your resume updated, it will also help you with your yearly reviews with your manager when you track your accomplishments. It also helps to be active on LinkedIn and in-person networking. Once you feel the time is right, you’ll be ready to start applying for a better job, and you never know when someone might recommend you for a role, so you should always be ready.

Hopefully, we all have the good fortune of never having a bad job, but the reality is most of us will eventually find ourselves in this situation. With the advice from this article, I hope you are able to make the best out of a bad job and come through stronger and more competent. I’ve also written specifically on how to deal with a bad boss here.

I’m sure you’ve heard it as well, “Underpromise and over-deliver.” This phrase is commonly said to get you noticed by leadership, build your personal brand, pave the road to promotions, and make you the best teammate ever. But I think it’s bull. Sure, it sounds good when you first hear it, at a glance, you will be more successful and do better work than people expect, so you’ll look great. But if you really think about it, it’s not only unrealistic, but if you live by this motto you will frustrate your managers and are likely too egotistical to be a great teammate. Don’t follow this horrible career advice if you don’t want your career to go up in flames.

The first part of the saying “under promise” is a surefire way to ruin your reputation. Let’s say your boss asks you to complete a report in 5 days, you underpromise, telling him you need 7. Does that sound like a good way to do things? In other cases, it isn’t even possible to underpromise. If you are delivering an event and you play down the expectations for how great the content and decorations are going to be, what good does that do you? I think this phrase appeals to people with imposter syndrome, who aren’t confident in their skills, or want an out if things don’t go well. If you consistently tell your boss that you can only deliver a percentage of what they are asking you to, you aren’t going to have a great relationship with them.

The second part of the saying “over-deliver” sounds nice, and it would be great if you could always do that. But it just isn’t possible, realistic, or in some cases even wanted. Honestly, if every time you outperform what you said you can deliver, first of all, it becomes pretty obvious what you are doing, secondly it means your predictions are wildly off-base and you probably don’t have the expertise or handle on your time management that you should. For salespeople, they often need to set forecasts of how much in sales they expect to bring in the next quarter, if they consistently under-forecast, something is wrong and their boss will work with them to fix it. It is nice once in a while to have a good surprise, but consistently being wrong in your forecasts just shows you don’t know your business well enough.

In my opinion, much better career advice would be to “Manage expectations and deliver high-quality work.” But that’s not nearly as catchy. There are definitely times when you need to manage expectations when you know from your expertise that what you are being asked to deliver is unrealistic. It is an important skill to communicate that clearly and effectively while not sounding like you are making excuses or not willing to work hard. If you follow the second half and consistently deliver great work with measurable impact, you will be on track to outperform the vast majority of other workers.

So don’t underpromise and over-deliver in the hopes of making yourself look good. Look good by being good, and you’ll go far.