Dear Readers,
Though it was over seven years ago, I can still recall the day I resigned from my first job. How I strategically timed it to follow the ‘Monday check in’ with my supervisor, waiting till the litany of mundane updates had been sufficiently deliberated before delivering my pre-rehearsed spiel (something about mismatched expectations and an incompatible culture).
In the eight years to follow, I have had about five different versions of this same conversation. Even by millennial career terms, you may consider this mercurial. It’s not that I hated every job. Some were tolerable and there were a handful that I genuinely enjoyed. Yet somehow the reasons to move always seemed more compelling, like getting a Masters, relocating to a new country and more often than not, entering a new field.
As someone who has been pivoting careers before it was all the pandemic rage, I had little access to the abundance of coaches and self-professed LinkedIn experts offering motivational advice to help you navigate career transitions. It is entirely possible that I was ignorant of their existence (though I do recall a time when LinkedIn felt vaguely professional), but blissfully so.
Today, the internet has exploded with workshops to help you plan career switches and entire companies dedicated to helping people change careers (unsponsored shout out to Pivot that was founded by a friend). All of this has got me thinking about the unpredictable way in which my own career has panned out. Much like the visual below.
Some months ago, I started writing my “confessions of a serial job switcher” to try and connect these disparate threads. Like all good projects, it grew organically until it felt too lengthy to be a standalone piece. That and I suffered from conclusion clog (iydk, read this) because this story is one I am still living.
It is in this vein that I have decided to stagger the story into interspersed, half-baked siloes. Or in the words of every LinkedIn influencer: I am delighted to share that I will be compiling my unsolicited advice and unwanted learnings from my incongruous career path into an undecided-part newsletter series. Stay tuned for more such inconsequential updates!
And while we’re on that topic, here’s a relatable meme:
Happy reading, reflecting and bearing with my overbearing LinkedIn persona.
Yours half-baked,
Saanya
You know I love this! And not just because of the shoutout (which was very nice of you) but because I'm stoked to hear real experiences and suggestions from someone who has actually changed careers and can deeply empathize with this journey, as opposed to those just spreading overheard gyan!
Excited for this undecided-part series :)
Saanya!!!! I won't call myself a serial job switcher, but I can definitely relate with career pivoting before it became a trend. I remember those early days of LinkedIn when I had to cold email people just to get an internship. LinkedIn was my go-to for everything to do with career transitions. Your post just hit home for me, and I can't wait to see your next post.