How Long Should You Stay in a Job You Hate?

By Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter
Sometimes, you’ll start a new job and discover it’s not what you expected. As a matter of fact, you hate it, maybe the people you work with, or something else really bugs you about the role. How long should you stay in a job you hate?

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You accepted an offer. You started.  Hooray! You were thrilled to walk in the door on your first day. And then things start to change from what you expected. Now you’re starting to question whether or not this was a good decision. How long should you stay in a job that you hate?

That’s really the question for today. So I want to start off by saying, when you’re younger, you have fewer responsibilities and more options. Usually, sometimes, you don’t. But for many of you, you don’t have the financial responsibilities of the house, the car, the kids, and the what have you. You have some Staff Retention | Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunterchoices.

Now, with that said, the first thing you do is figure out what’s making this a job that you don’t like? What’s the root cause of the problem? Was it misrepresented to you? Was there financial friction that occurred? What’s making this job a problem? Is it solvable? Sometimes, you know, their personalities that aren’t clicking? Can someone mediate between the parties? Maybe it’s friction that you weren’t informed about on the way in, and now you’re discovering there are things institutionally, that are getting in the way of you doing a good job. Can you solve this?

Sometimes a job gets off to a tough, tough start. And you just gotta push through it in order to give it a chance to see whether or not you can persevere. Perseverance and resilience are important qualities to cultivate. I’m never going to encourage someone to just walk out and quit unless there’s some version of sexual harassment. I don’t want to say toxic environment, because that means different things to different people. But there’s some version of abuse going on that’s making this untenable. But you know, the long the short of it is, you’ve got to figure out whether this is survivable, and push through.

Lastly, you stay at that job until you can get another job. This goes back to being financially responsible and secure and creating an environment that allows you to financially excel and not hurt yourself by just walking out in a tantrum, and quitting.

So, a couple of thoughts on the subject. I hope you found this helpful. Hope this is never your circumstance. If it is and you want some advice and coaching, you can schedule a time for a free discovery call or a coaching session with me at my website, TheBigGameHunter.us

I’m Jeff Altman. People hire me for no BS career advice, which can relate to job search, hiring more effectively, management, leadership, a whole bunch of stuff. And with that, my website has a ton in the blog that could be helpful to you. As I said, you can schedule a coaching session with me, you can find out about my courses, books, and guides. There’s a lot there that will help. Also connect with me on Linkedin at linkedin.com/in/TheBigGameHunter. My network is a lot bigger than most of yours. And connecting with me is going to expand your reach by a lot.

Have a terrific day and be great!

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ABOUT JEFF ALTMAN, THE BIG GAME HUNTER

JeffAltman, The Big Game Hunter
JeffAltman, The Big Game Hunter

Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter is a coach who worked as a recruiter for what seems like one hundred years. He is hired to provide No BS Career Advice globally. That can involve job search, hiring staff, management, leadership, career transition and advice about resolving workplace issues. Schedule a discovery call at my website, www.TheBigGameHunter.us

He is the host of “No BS Job Search Advice Radio,” the #1 podcast in iTunes for job search with over 2400 episodes.

I do a livestream on LinkedIn, and YouTube (on the JobSearchTV.com account) Tuesdays and Fridays at 1 PM Eastern. You can send your questions about job search, hiring better, management, leadership or to get advice about a workplace issue to me via messaging on LinkedIn or in chat during the approximately 30-minute show.

Website: www.TheBigGameHunter.us

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